Peru to Patagonia

A journey down the western side of the continent, from Lima's Barranco to the granite of Torres del Paine. Viceregal art in Barranco, the Atacama under its night sky and an Atacameño estate at sunset, two days on Chiloé aboard a hand-built boat among wooden churches, and three in Patagonia, looking for puma on a conservation estancia.

Length: Eight nights
Pace: Four stays
Style: Nature, culture, stargazing, multi-country
Route: Lima to The Atacama to Chiloé to Torres del Paine

LimaOne night
The AtacamaTwo nights
ChiloéTwo nights
Torres del PaineThree nights

Green clifftop parks above a long curve of Pacific beach, with the city behind.

Days 1 to 2 · one night

Lima

Arrive in Lima for a welcome dinner and time in Barranco: the Bridge of Sighs of 1876, the Pedro de Osma Museum, one of Latin America's important private collections of viceregal art, and Peruvian designers' work at Dédalo. A local chef can also lead a morning through a food market in San Isidro and the Museum of Peruvian Gastronomy, ending with a meal and pisco in a local café, before the flight south to Chile.

Where you stay

Miraflores Park, A Belmond Hotel

Miraflores Park is a contemporary hotel above the Pacific in the Miraflores district of Lima, set within a six-mile stretch of parks and boardwalks and opened in 1996. Rooms and suites look over the ocean, some with a terrace or plunge pool, and there is a heated rooftop pool, a spa and the Tragaluz restaurant.

A terrace with an infinity pool and stone walls, the sun setting beside a volcano. — Photo: Beckons / Javier Mery, Tomas Encina, Pedro Carreira, Diego Marin

Days 2 to 4 · two nights

The Atacama

A flight to northern Chile for Rainbow Valley, a night of stargazing with a professional telescope and the Atacameño reading of the sky, and a hot-air balloon flight at sunrise. At sunset, Tierra Atacama can take you to a historic indigenous estate in the Andean foothills, for its ancestral sites and a tasting prepared by local hosts.

Where you stay

Tierra Atacama

Tierra Atacama sits on the edge of San Pedro de Atacama, looking over the desert to the Andes and Licancabur Volcano, with 28 rooms designed to bring the landscape inside. The Uma Spa has a heated indoor pool, sauna and steam room, with an infinity pool, jacuzzi and yoga spaces outdoors.

The lodge from the air, a long timber building on a green headland above the bay. — Photo: Refugia Chiloé

Days 4 to 6 · two nights

Chiloé

A flight south to Chiloé for Castro and its houses on stilts, a curanto feast cooked in the ground, and evenings in the spa. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the Williche, a boat built locally, sails among the smaller islands with oysters and sea urchins shucked on board; Quinchao has the oldest of the UNESCO-listed wooden churches. A boat can also be arranged around the coves at Puñihuil, where Humboldt and Magellanic penguins nest side by side among otters and cormorants, with walks along the coast.

Where you stay

Refugia Chiloé

Refugia Chiloé, once Tierra Chiloé, has 24 rooms above Pullao Bay, looking over the inland sea and the archipelago, in architecture drawn from the island's crafts. The kitchen cooks from the hotel's gardens, nearby farms and the bay's shellfish, and the spa has indoor and outdoor pools and a wooden sauna.

The long, low lodge on the steppe at dusk, a flat-topped mountain beyond. — Photo: Beckons / Eduardo Samano, Lucy Laucht, Pedro Carreira

Days 6 to 9 · three nights

Torres del Paine

The last flight, to Patagonia, for Torres del Paine by vehicle, riding with a gaucho across working estancias, and an asado with gauchos at an estancia. A specialist guide searches for puma on Leona Amarga, a conservation ranch at the edge of the park, and a walk off the usual trails reaches the thrombolites, among the rarest living geological formations. On request, a dawn half day at Estancia Cerro Guido with the puma researchers of the Cerro Guido Foundation, among their camera traps, with breakfast in the field. Then the flight home.

Where you stay

Tierra Patagonia

Tierra Patagonia is built in local lenga wood along a curving bluff above Lake Sarmiento, facing the Torres del Paine massif. Its 40 rooms look across the lake and the national park, and the Uma Spa has a heated indoor infinity pool enclosed in glass, with an open-air whirlpool outside.

Arranged on request

Barranco's viceregal art

A three-hour walk through Barranco to the Pedro de Osma Museum, one of Latin America's important private collections of viceregal art, and Peruvian designers at Dédalo.

Andean heritage at sunset

A historic indigenous estate in the Andean foothills, its ancestral sites and Atacameño traditions, ending with sunset and Andean food from local hosts.

The Williche

Refugia Chiloé's locally built boat sails on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, with seafood caught and served on board, sea urchins and Chilean oysters among it.

Puma on Leona Amarga

A search for puma across Leona Amarga, a conservation ranch at the edge of Torres del Paine.

The thrombolites

A hike off the usual trails to Torres del Paine's thrombolites, among the rarest living geological formations.

Subject to availability.

Ways to make it yours

A night in Santiago on the way home.
A longer hike in Torres del Paine, such as the trail to the base of the Towers.
Three nights in the cloud forest of northern Peru, for Gocta Falls and the Chachapoya tombs.

This is a sample. The hotels, the pace and the order are where we start, not where we finish: every journey is designed around the people taking it.

Made around you

Most travel is bought. This is designed.

Before anything is booked, we talk: who is travelling, how you like to spend a morning, and the hotel preferences below the obvious, from the kind of bath you like to the time you wake and how much daylight you need in a room. You see options where options matter and clean recommendations where they don't.

The same person remains your point of contact from the first reply to the trip after next. No handovers. No team.