Chile

Chile is a land of staggering contrasts and wild beauty, stretching along the edge of South America from the sun-scorched north to the windswept glaciers of the south. In Patagonia, you’ll find some of the most jaw-dropping scenery on Earth in Torres del Paine National Park. And then there are the Patagonia pumas, whom you can encounter in the park if you are lucky.

Farther north, Chiloe Island offers a completely different kind of wild – an emerald world of moss-draped trees, wooden stilt houses, and drifting sea mists. Here, the dense Valdivian rainforest on Chiloé hides shy creatures like pudu (the world’s smallest deer) and Darwin’s fox, while the island’s long oral tradition comes alive in its Myths and Legends of Chiloe.

Then there’s the otherworldly Atacama Desert, a high-altitude plateau that takes up the northern third of the country. It is a land of otherworldly landscapes, high-altitude geyser fields, jewel-toned altiplano lagoons, flamingos and other unique desert wildlife that has adapted to survive in one of the driest places on Earth.