Chile

Chile is geography as performance art: a country four thousand kilometres long and barely two hundred wide, running from the driest desert on earth to the ice fields of Patagonia. The Atacama in the north feels borrowed from Mars, with salt canyons, geysers erupting at dawn and night skies so pure the world builds its great observatories here. Stargazing after dinner is not an activity, it is a revelation. The south answers with Torres del Paine, Patagonia's masterpiece, where granite towers rise above turquoise lakes and guanacos graze beneath condors. Luxury lodges at both extremes run all-inclusive expeditions with superb guides. In between: Valparaíso's painted hills, Santiago's mountain-ringed food scene, and Casablanca and Colchagua pouring some of the New World's finest wine. Chile is dramatic, safe and seamless.