A Month Living in Viña del Mar

Viña del Mar, a lovely coastal city in Chile, west of Santiago, boasts a great place to vacation, relax, enjoy the beach, and explore its sister-city of Valparaiso, Chile. Whereas almost 700,000 people live in the metro area of Viña, as the locals call it, many Argentines come for a cheaper vacation and great shopping. We picked Viña for a month of Being, as opposed to Doing, as it had been a very busy 3 months prior, and we just needed to relax.

Our wonderful one-bedroom apartment with its large balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean (see it here) suited us for the month. But sadly, the nightly drag racing on the fronted street buzzed us nightly. Even ear plugs wouldn’t enable a good night’s sleep. It was a long month for $1600.

But we made the most of it. We walked the boardwalk, which locals call the Costa, almost daily, enjoyed the Sunday Ciclovia where the government closes down the streets for non-motorized activity, and adored the nightly sunsets from the balcony. In addition, Steve and I produced several months of upcoming videos (see our channel), worked on our newsletter (subscribe here) and wrote several blog posts about our time in Patagonia (see here.)

A few days we did get out and about inside Viña or its bad-ass sister, Valparaiso. There is a large park with a lagoon that sits near the horse track.

Getting Around Viña del Mar and Valparaiso

A handy metro runs between the two cities. We bought the mandatory card at the booth inside the metro, costing about 2500 Chilean pesos. Fortunately, Steve and I could share it. We loaded it with 5000 pesos of fare, and that amount managed us for the month. We appreciated that we could pay with credit card for both the metro card and the fare.

There are little collectivo busses and big city busses that network all over the metro area; we walked or took the metro, so I don’t have any intel about the busses.

The major bus station brings in tourists and locals from all over the wine valley and from Santiago. We went to Santiago twice to meet up with friends, and each trip on Flixbus cost around $9 roundtrip for each of us, or $18 total. We also took the bus to the Santiago airport for less than $6 each.

In next-door’s Valparaiso, there is an entire system of funiculars to move you up and down the hills. They cost $.10 each. More about that later.

What to Do in Viña del Mar

Viña del Mar is a beach town and there are beach things to do, but there’s not a lot of WATER things to do. Many of the beaches don’t allow swimming or the water is too rough or too cold for swimming. There is a small inlet where people boogie board and skim board, but there are no serious water sports here.

Along the miles-long boardwalk (the Costa), vendors sell hand-made items of jewelry, clothing, souvenirs, hats and beach gear. They’re there every day from early to night, although the season seemed to stop on March 10 when the Ferris wheel came down and the venders disappeared.

A giant mall complex, connected on the second level with covered walkways, spans a good five blocks in different directions. Each mall is individually operated, but all of them are connected via the walkways. You’ll find our favorite store, Decathlon, and all the regular international brands such as H&M, Under Armour and so forth. Every time we ventured to the mall, whether day or night, weekday or weekend, it was absolutely packed.

A few museums grace Viña del Mar. The quaint Museo Fonck with its insect display and the El Museo de Artes Decorativas Palacio Rioja (closed for renovation) sit in the center of town. Nearby is the casino de Viña del Mar called Enjoy, which costs $5 for entry, has free entertainment. While we were in town, they hosted a fashion show and all of Santiago’s media elite showed up.

On Sundays, the government closes the streets along the water so locals can get on their skates and bikes to enjoy some exercise during Ciclovia. The gorgeous weather throughout our entire stay averaged 73 degrees, and it was perfect on sunny Sunday mornings to rent bikes for $3/hour. We enjoyed a ride to the beach to the north, Reñaca. We liked to finish the ride by noon because the open space became to crowded to safely ride bikes with any speed through the wheeled crowd of skaters, tricycles, and skateboards.

Viña del Mar does have one spectacular destination, the Chile President’s Summer House. We walked right up to the entry gates to take a picture. Supposedly on Thursdays they allow 20 people in for a tour. But every time we tried to get tickets, the website wouldn’t work. So sadly, we never did get inside.

But we did get a chance to see the famous Viña del Mar floral clock. Every time we went, though, we could barely squeeze in a picture. So instead of fighting the crowds, I joined them with this shot!

The Two Best Things to Do in Vina del Mar/Valparaiso

As I said earlier, Viña del Mar is a good place to just “be.” We weren’t seduced out to great tourist spots, and we found hanging in our condo just delightful. Vineyards grow just outside of town, and many people wine lovers come to Viña del Mar to enjoy them. We are not wine connoisseurs, so the Chile vineyards with their Chilean wines didn’t draw us out. But if you are a wine drinker, Viña del Mar is a good place to base yourself.

Instead, we enjoyed two really fun things that were practically free.

One day, we took the metro to Valparaiso with the goal to ride all 15 funiculars. Armed with an older map, we started in the south and worked our way north. This was a fantastic was to see this really hip and trendy town full of incredible street murals. Although one or two funiculars are really popular for the tourists to take them to the heart of the street art, riding all of them exposed us to all the hills of Valparaiso and its urban art.

We spent 5 hours going up, down, up, down and walking through the alleys and byways to reach the funiculars. Each ride cost $.10 each way, with the exception of the tourist funicular which costs $.30. Although the map showed 15 funiculars, 6 of them no longer function, so we spent our day enjoying the 9 remaining, functioning funiculars of Valparaiso. Watch our video about the day here.

The other thing we really enjoyed cost us nothing but a metro fare. On a lovely Sunday, we once again took advantage of the Ciclovia and walked from Viña del Mar to Valparaiso along the Costa to the fish market. Fresh fish, mussels, and clams tumbled off fishmongers’ tables, and freshly made ceviche capped each row for about $2 a cup. Locals inspected the fleet’s catch. We, though, went behind the fish market.

Between the fish market and the ocean’s boardwalk, we enjoyed the brightly painted fishing fleet. Beyond that, large flocks of pelicans and seagulls called us to the ocean. There, we found a large colony of sea lions awaiting their next treat tossed from the fishmongers cutting their fillets.