MOTORCYCLE TRAVEL IN Chile

Riding the Carretera Austral by motorcycle end to end means covering the whole of Ruta 7: 1,240 km between Puerto Montt and Villa O'Higgins that Chile's military government began building in 1976, tasking the Cuerpo Militar del Trabajo with the route, with thousands of conscripts working on it between 1975 and 1985.

It is one of the few highways in the world that still forces you to load the bike onto a ferry three times, because no bridge crosses the fjords that cut through the road in the southern stretch.

Specialized magazines like Adventure Motorcycle Magazine rank it among the best roads on the planet for adventure riding: Valdivian rainforest, hanging glaciers, and fewer than one person per square kilometer along most of the way.

Climbing the Cuesta de los Caracoles by motorcycle is the mandatory rite of passage for anyone crossing between Santiago and Mendoza: 29 consecutive hairpin turns that climb the Chilean side of Paso Los Libertadores, the busiest land border between the two countries.

The Cristo Redentor tunnel that crowns the pass opened on May 23, 1980, at 3,185 meters of altitude, and runs parallel to the ruins of the Trasandino railway, the train that connected Los Andes with Mendoza from 1910 to 1984 and now sits abandoned beside the road.

It is pure zigzag on pavement, without a single curve where your wrist can relax — the section's own name comes from the fact that even trucks climb it at a snail's pace.

Riding through Valle de la Luna by motorcycle means crossing the most arid desert on the planet: salt and clay dunes carved by erosion over millions of years into a landscape so Mars-like that NASA uses it to test rovers before sending them to the red planet.

A few kilometers away, the Salar de Atacama is the third-largest salt flat in the world, and to the north the El Tatio geothermal field, at 4,320 meters of altitude, holds more than 80 active geysers — the highest geothermal field on the planet.

It is the mandatory gateway for any motorcycle traveler crossing the Andes via Jama or San Francisco: almost every motorcycle travel guide to Chile, like the one from Mad or Nomad, flags it as an unmissable stop before or after the border.

Crossing Paso San Francisco by motorcycle means riding at the foot of Ojos del Salado, the highest active volcano in the world at 6,893 meters, with a crater lake at 6,390 meters that is the highest body of water on the planet.

The pass itself crests at 4,726 meters above sea level, one of the highest land borders in South America — motorcycle travelers who documented the crossing on forums like Horizons Unlimited describe the lack of oxygen as the real challenge, more than the terrain itself.

Along the way, Laguna Verde shifts color with the light of day because of its high mineral concentration, and the silence of the altiplano is broken only by the wind — there are no towns between Copiapó and the border.

Riding into Torres del Paine by motorcycle means covering 200 km of well-maintained gravel inside one of the most photographed national parks in the world, declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1978.

The three granite towers that give the park its name are barely 12 million years old, formed when a magma intrusion pushed up beneath a marine formation 60 million years older, gradually exposing it through glacial erosion.

The real challenge is not the gravel — easy-grade according to specialized blogs like Ride True ADV — but the Patagonian wind: motorcycle travelers who crossed the park describe gusts strong enough to lift sand and loose rock, with the constant fear of being knocked over while riding.

Crossing into Chiloé by motorcycle via the Chacao Channel — a 30-minute ferry ride from Pargua — means entering an archipelago with its own mythology and a religious architecture tradition found nowhere else in the world.

Sixteen of its wooden churches, built by local shipwrights using techniques Jesuit missionaries brought over starting in the 17th century, have been UNESCO World Heritage sites since 2000.

In Quellón, at the southern tip of the island, the Pan-American Highway officially ends: the same pavement that starts in Alaska closes out its continental run in this fishing port, a fact long-distance motorcycle travelers specifically seek out to check off their list.

Riding the Ruta Interlagos by motorcycle means linking seven bodies of water — Calafquén, Panguipulli, Riñihue, Pullinque, Neltume, Pellaifa and Villarrica — with the Villarrica volcano as a backdrop for almost the entire ride.

Villarrica, at 2,847 meters, is one of the most active volcanoes in South America: its crater holds a permanent lava lake at 1,250 degrees under a 40 km2 glacier, visible from several stretches of the route on clear days.

Local motorcycle tour operators, like Moto Patagonia, build tours specifically around this circuit because it mixes lakeside pavement with light gravel between towns — a good fit for both a big adventure bike and someone just starting out off-road.

Climbing Cuesta La Dormida by motorcycle is the classic test for any Santiago rider who has already grown bored of pavement: 45 km of mountain gravel along route F-100-G, between Til Til and Limache, with chained hairpins and a steady climb from the first kilometer.

Guides specializing in rides near Santiago describe it as one of the most demanding in the Metropolitan Region, reserved for riders with off-road experience because the road's condition varies with the season.

It is the half-day escape any Santiago adventure rider keeps in their back pocket for when Cajón del Maipo starts to feel too easy.

Riding the Route of the Stars by motorcycle from La Serena up to Pisco Elqui means entering one of the few places on the planet with more than 300 clear nights a year, officially protected as the world's first Dark Sky Sanctuary around the Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón observatories.

The region holds roughly 40% of the world's astronomical infrastructure: observatories like Mamalluca or Cerro Tololo run night tours just minutes from the road, with the Milky Way visible to the naked eye on almost any night of the year.

Between curves, Route 41 — also called Ruta Antakari by local riders — cuts through vineyards and pisco distilleries that give the valley its color, an unusual contrast between farmland and desert that starts just a few kilometers further north.

Riding out to the Embalse El Yeso by motorcycle is the most classic escape for any Santiago rider: a turquoise-water reservoir formed by a dam at the foot of Volcán San José, barely two and a half hours from the capital via Cajón del Maipo.

The road changes character at San Gabriel, where the pavement ends and 30 km of narrow gravel begin, with tight curves and grade changes that gain altitude fast on the way to the mountains.

It is the route local Santiago motorcycling guides, like Galgo's, recommend first to anyone just working up the nerve to take their bike off pavement, before raising the stakes with something like La Dormida.