Travel Tips: Ten More of My Favourite Beach Destinations

I still have a few more free days before starting my new job, and I don't have much planned, so I want to use the time to write my first Travel Tips blog post in a while!

This one is going to be a sort of sequel to a post I wrote in May 2021 about my 10 favourite beaches. At the time I wrote that post, I was living at home with my parents, the UK was still under some lockdown restrictions, and I was unsure when I would ever be able to move back to Chile (something I'd planned to do in 2020), as there were still very strict restrictions out there. During this extremely challenging period, my blog was a source of escapism for me, where I could reminisce about past travels and dream about future ones. The beach post was definitely one of my favourite ones to write, as it brought back some great memories, from childhood holidays to more recent trips.

At the end of the post, I wrote a list of the beach destinations I planned to visit once I was living in Chile, which were as follows:

- Zapallar (Chile)

- Bahía Inglesa (Chile)

- Iquique (Chile)

- Arica (Chile)

- Cartagena (Colombia)

- Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Fortunately, in early 2022, I was finally able to get out to Chile and have my year and a bit living there with my partner, Claudio. During that time, we managed to visit four out of those six destinations - it would have been five, but unfortunately we both came down with Covid just before our planned trip to Bahía Inglesa, so that remains on our list for future travels in South America, as does Cartagena. 

After my time in Chile, I spent three months of this year working in Malta, so had the opportunity to visit even more fabulous beaches.

And now my previous list of favourite beaches is in serious need of updating! So here's a new list of ten of my faves, but made up entirely of beaches I visited in the 18 months between February 2022 and August this year...

Las Cujas, Chile

This is a beach not too far from Santiago that Claudio found out about on TikTok. The video he saw made it seem like a kind of secluded, "secret" place, which turned out to be far from the truth! But although it was very busy when we visited during the height of summer in February 2022, it was still a great experience to visit this picture-perfect beach with sparkling blue water, surrounded by vibrant green vegetation. We actually went there during my first week back in the country, and it felt like the perfect start to a year of amazing travels!

Read more here!

Iquique, Chile

Our first big trip of last year was to the city of Iquique, in the far north of Chile. This was the first beach destination located in the tropics that I ever visited, but it's not exactly a "tropical beach" per se - it's located on the edge of the Atacama Desert and has a dry, desert climate. That's not to say that the beaches there aren't great places to visit though - quite the opposite! The city has several beautiful beaches, which are ideal for surfing - the most famous being Playa Cavancha, a huge stretch of sand dotted with skyscrapers and palm trees, which reminds me of photos I've seen of Miami.

Read more here!

Arica, Chile

Arica is the furthest north city in Chile, right next to the border with Peru. We went there in June 2022 for some winter sun, as the weather there is sunny and nice all year round, which is not the case for the beaches nearer Santiago. The city has a huge beach, Playa Chinchorro, with big waves for surfing, but one of its smaller beaches, Playa El Laucho (pictured above), is probably my favourite beach in the entire country, as it's so picturesque and also has gentle waves which make it perfect for swimming.

Read more here!

Zapallar, Chile

This beach town near Santiago gets crowded in the summer (it's where many upper-class people have their summer houses) but when we went in the middle of winter 2022, it was so tranquil and peaceful. It has various examples of European-style architecture to look at, as well as some interesting rock formations, and is definitely one of the prettiest beaches in central Chile.

Read more here!

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

It was a dream of mine for many years to visit Rio de Janeiro, so going there with Claudio last December was really an incredible experience. Even though the weather was bad for most of our week there, we still enjoyed swimming and spending time at the city's beaches, of which there are many. Copacabana is a very lively beach and the perfect place to enjoy a caipirinha, but our favourite beach was Ipanema/Leblon. The view from Pedra do Arpoador of the beach and Morro Dois Irmãos is absolutely breathtaking.

Read more here!

Arraial do Cabo, Brazil

Our last day in Brazil was spent on a boat trip around the paradise that is Arraial do Cabo, a few hours away from the city of Rio. On this day, we were lucky to have sunshine at last! During the trip, we visited two beautiful white sand beaches, one on an island and one on the mainland, and we also jumped out of the boat at one particular spot to snorkel around a coral reef, where colourful fish were swimming. This was definitely one of my most special travel memories of all time!

Read more here!

Papudo, Chile

Our trip to Papudo in January was actually another one of my favourite travel memories. This beach town to the north of Zapallar has some stunning beaches (such as the one pictured above) as well as some incredible wildlife to spot. We took a rather extreme speed dinghy trip to a nearby island, where we were lucky enough to see some adorable penguins and sea lions! But most special of all, we saw a beautiful dolphin jumping in and out of the water.

Read more here!

Frutillar, Chile

This beach is somewhere a bit different to the others on the list. For one, it's not by the ocean or sea, but rather by a lake, specifically Lago Llanquihue, one of the largest natural lakes in South America. In addition, it's generally not a beach you'd visit for sunbathing and swimming, as it's located in the south of Chile, which is cold most of the year! But it's absolutely one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever been to - it has stunning views of the snowy Volcán Osorno across the water and is surrounded by lovely architecture.

Read more here!

Viña del Mar, Chile

Even though I'd visited Viña in both 2018 and 2020, it didn't make it on to my initial list of favourite beaches, for whatever reason. But anyway, it's going on this one! Viña del Mar is one of Chile's biggest and most popular beach destinations, and it's also one of its best. Not only does it have some beautiful beaches, such as Playa El Sol (pictured above), but it also has some fabulous architecture to check out, including several castles and palaces!

Read more here!

Ramla Beach, Gozo, Malta

Of course, I also have to include a beach from my months in Malta on this list. Although the island of Malta is very rocky and doesn't have many sandy beaches, its sister island Gozo has several. I had a great weekend in Gozo, which is a very beautiful and peaceful place, and especially enjoyed visiting Ramla Beach, which has some of the clearest water I've ever swum in.

Read more here!

It has been fun compiling this list of ten more of my favourite beaches! If I had to make an overall list of my favourite beach destinations from this list and my previous list, my top ten would probably be: Rio de Janeiro, Arraial do Cabo, Arica, Papudo, Algarrobo, Slano, Zapallar, Frutillar, Ramla Bay and La Serena. But I'll probably change my mind sooner or later, as I do about most of my Travel Tips lists, haha!

Hopefully, I'll be updating this list again in the future, because I plan to visit plenty of beach destinations within the next few years. Claudio and I want to do as much travelling as possible before having kids, including visiting Southeast Asia, Australia and Mexico. I'm hoping we can do at least one of these trips in 2024, which would be really exciting!

That's all for today, but I'll be blogging again next weekend, if I have the time. See you soon!

Check out the rest of my Travel Tips here!

Exploring the Arica Province

On the last day of our stay in Arica, Claudio and I had planned to drive to Parque Nacional Lauca, which is a little under three hours away. However, the car we'd rented the day before had a slight problem, and we didn't quite trust it to cover that sort of distance, especially on desert roads in the middle of nowhere. So we decided to have a more relaxing day exploring some sights closer to the city.

The first place we went to visit was San Miguel de Azapa Archaeological Museum, which is located in a small village a short distance away from Arica. Here you can see many of the Chinchorro mummies, which are even older than the Egyptian mummies! They were made by the Chinchorro people, who lived in Arica and the surrounding area thousands of years ago, and some of them date back to around 5000 BC. They have remained intact because of the desert climate, and it's really incredible to see them in the museum today and to think that they were created so long ago. 

The museum also had lots of information and artefacts from the era of the Inca, another group that was present in the area. That was also really interesting to learn about, and it made me even more eager to visit Machu Picchu than I was already. I think this part of the world (the north of Chile, Peru, and Bolivia) is really fascinating, with history and cultures stretching back for so many years.

It was also nice to look around the garden of the museum, which was a little green oasis in the middle of the desert. It even had some petroglyphs, which made up for us not seeing the ones in Miculla two days earlier!

Next we drove back in the direction of Arica to see some more history: the Cerro Sombrero geoglyphs. Initially, we parked at an area with signposts which seemed to indicate that this was the place to see the geoglyphs. There was a pathway going up a very steep hill, which we followed up to the top. Unfortunately, the geoglyphs were nowhere to be seen from up there! However, there was a viewpoint with amazing views over the desert and mountains.

There was also a huge bird of prey, circling around and waiting for his or her chance to grab some leftover food people had dumped up there. We had seen several of these birds at Morro de Arica the previous day, but not as close as this one. I thought they might be cóndors, but a Google image search showed me I was wrong about that. In any case, it was amazing to see such a big bird so close up!

It turns out that in order to see the Cerro Sombrero geoglyphs, you just have to dump the car on the side of the road and quickly look at them from there. Unfortunately, there are fences ruining the view a bit, but it's still amazing to see these shapes of llamas, humans and other creatures that were drawn onto the hill in ancient times.

Although the Atacama Giant was more impressive to see, partly because it was in the middle of nowhere with nothing but desert for miles around, I would definitely still recommend paying a quick visit to Cerro Sombrero if you're visiting Arica.

After lunch in Arica, we visited the final destination of our trip: Anzota caves. These caves are located 12 kilometres south of the city, and are one of the places where the Chinchorro people lived. Entry is free, and you can do a short trekking there and even go inside some of the caves. Supposedly, lots of wildlife lives there, including sea lions, but we didn't see any of them. However, we did see some big lizards, which can be spotted in the following photos!

The caves are an incredible place of natural beauty, with amazing rock formations and stunning views of the Pacific Ocean. Exploring them was a great way to finish our trip!

To sum up, we had a really wonderful few days celebrating our anniversary in the north of Chile and south of Peru. During our time away, we discovered beaches, cities, beautiful nature, and plenty of history and culture. This is a special part of the world, and we would definitely go back in the future.

Next up on this blog, I'll probably be writing about some new places we've been to in and around Santiago, but I'm hopeful we'll go on some bigger travels again soon. We have a few ideas, so watch this space...

Arica

We've just got back from an adventure-filled few days celebrating our anniversary in the north of Chile and the south of Peru! We really had an amazing time and saw lots of different places, so I'll be writing a few posts to cover everything, starting with this one about Arica, which is the city we stayed in.

Arica is the northernmost city in Chile, and like Iquique (where we went in April), it is located on the edge of the Atacama Desert and was part of Peru prior to the War of the Pacific.

The hotel we stayed in was the Novotel, which is located on Chinchorro beach, the largest beach in the city. We were super impressed by our hotel room, which was really big and modern with an amazing view over the beach and Morro de Arica.

The morning after we arrived, we went for a walk along Chinchorro beach on our way to the bus and taxi station. It's an absolutely huge beach that stretches out for miles on end and is world famous as a surfing destination, thanks to its huge waves. It also has lots of spaces and facilities for doing exercise, which I think is a really nice idea.

Later that morning, we took a taxi over the border in order to spend the rest of the day in the Tacna region of Peru, which I'll be writing about next!

We got back to Arica very late on Sunday night, so we on Monday we decided to have a more relaxing day and stay in the city.

In the morning, we went sightseeing in the historic centre. The first place we saw was the cathedral, which was designed by Gustave Eiffel. It is quite a unique and interesting cathedral in terms of its colours, but unfortunately, it could do with a little bit of maintenance.

Near to the cathedral, you can find the most iconic sight of Arica: Morro de Arica. This huge rock was captured from Peru by Chile during the War of the Pacific, and is now a popular tourist attraction that we visited later in the day.

Like nearly every town and city in the north of Chile, Arica has some big letters for taking photos with!

Elsewhere in the city centre, there are some other interesting historic buildings to see, including the old customs office, and the railway station for the train service that used to travel between Arica and La Paz in Bolivia, climbing to huge levels of altitude!

After lunch, we took an Uber up to the top of Morro de Arica. The museum up there was closed, because it was Monday, but that didn't matter because there were plenty of monuments and great views over the city, mountains, beaches and ocean to enjoy.

There is even a Jesus monument overlooking the sea like the one in Rio, though Claudio tells me that the Brazilian version is much much bigger!

We made our way back down the mount on foot (which was a bit of a workout, as it's very steep!), and found this nice painted staircase that reminded me of Valparaíso, many hundreds of kilometres away.

Close by, you can find Casa Bolognesi, a historic house which is now the Peruvian consulate, and one of the few well-preserved buildings in the city.

Then it was time for us to go to the beach! One of the main reasons why we wanted to go to Arica was to be able to enjoy some warmer weather and swim in the sea, and we chose to do this at Playa El Laucho. El Laucho is a small, circular beach with gentle waves, and is about as perfect a beach as you could possibly imagine.

The day was sunny and just about warm enough for a bit of sunbathing, and as for the sea, it was cold (always the way here in Chile!) but definitely less icy than in the centre of the country. We had a really nice, long swim there, which was a real highlight of the trip and actually of my time in South America so far. Las Cujas beach (where we went in February) was too crowded, and in Iquique the waves were enormous, but El Laucho has to be one of the best beaches I've ever been to. I can imagine that in summer it would be even more perfect.

After our swim, we went to find a rental car for the final day of our trip. On our way there, we passed Playa La Lisera, which is the other good beach for swimming in Arica, and which is also very picturesque.

In conclusion, we really enjoyed our stay in Arica and would definitely go back there (and stay in the same hotel!) in the future. Although the city is less well-developed than other cities in Chile, and its architecture is looking a little worse for wear (especially compared to Iquique), its beaches are amazing, and Morro de Arica is a very impressive natural and historic site.

Next I'll be writing about our day trip to Peru and then about our other adventures around the Arica province!