App Review: Chile Travel Adventures

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For nearly three decades, American writer Wayne Bernhardson has been authoring travel guidebooks about Chile and other countries in the Southern Cone for renowned publishers such as Lonely Planet and Moon. Now, in a new foray into digital apps with his Chile Travel Adventures app, he has built on his long experience in the country producing yet another extraordinary tool for Chile travel.

Whether you are traveling in Chile alone, in a group, or have been here for an extended period already, this is a very useful app for English speakers.

Browse 19 topics, such as cities, flora, nightlife, transportation, or practical info, and receive up-to-date information. Users can choose to sort the topics by name, distance,  cost and city. One nifty feature, if you allow the app to access your location it can make suggestions: if you were in, say, Santiago Centro and selected food as a topic, you can sort by distance and the restaurants featured in the app that are closest to you will appear, such as Mercado Central or Las Vacas Gordas. 

For each topic, you can choose to view photos,  locations in map format, or user comments. Another nice touch is users can ask a question and suggest a restaurant or other sites to be added to the app.

A practical info tab provides useful information on taxis, visas, customs, navigating the metro, and health and diseases.

The “itineraries” option in the app presents an impressive introduction to travel experiences for independent travel in Chile, such as driving the Carretera Austral highway in Patagonia. Although there are only four entries for now under itineraries, they are fantastic reviews and I hope to see more of them soon.

This app is still in its beta version, however, and sometimes lacks travel data. For example, it only suggests 2 hotels in Pucón (a $20 hostel and a $300 hotel), just 3 museums in Santiago, and only 2 results under “art & culture” for Valparaiso.

Nevertheless, the Chile Travel Adventures app is a useful tool, and at the low price of $US 2.99, a bargain for weighing travel options in one simple location on your smartphone or tablet. Altogether, the app is a good place for the new traveler to start their search and it contains an excellent introduction to cities, culture, and all the practical info a person needs after parachuting into unknown territory.

Check out Argentina Travel Adventures as well for similar info on traveling in Argentina.
 
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