Me and my cousin entered Chile via Puerto Natales, therefore we hadn’t even touched down Santiago (Capital City of Chile) yet up until then. It was our 4th day in Chile out of 6 Days Total, and 8th Day out of 11 days total of our trip in South America. The previous day, we visited King Penguin Park in Tierra Del Fuego, departing from Punta Arenas. The next day, we flew from Punta Arenas to Santiago de Chile using Sky Airline. The trip from Punta Arenas to Santiago took 4 hours.
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From Santiago Airport to City Center
There are few ways to get to the city center from Aeropuerto Internacional Arturo Merino Benítez (SCL):
By bus
There are two buses operates from Santiago Airport to the City Center, they are TurBus and Centropuerto. Both Turbus and Centropuerto’s round trip costs 3400 CLP, and single trip costs 1900 CLP. Centropuerto bus ticket can’t be purchased online. All bus services depart from the first level, exit gate 4.
Turbus leaves from the terminal hall and you can buy the ticket both online or at the bus. It will stop at Terminal Pajaritos and Terminal Almedia in city center. However, to avoid traffic in downtown, you can stop at Terminal Pajaritos on Linea 1 and transfer to Metro. It takes about 40 minutes from Airport to the city center. Turbus departure time starts from 05:00 a.m. to 00:00 a.m. every 10 minutes. There are additional night services from the Airport to Terminal Alameda between 00:30 and 04:30 a.m. every 30 minutes.
Centropuerto leaves from 1st Level Airport SCL and arrives at Los Heroes Metro (Central Square). It operates from Monday to Friday with departures every 30 minutes, and Saturday, Sunday and Holidays with departures every 60 minutes. The first Departure is at 06:00 hrs, and the last Departure is 20:30 hrs.
Note: If your final destination far from the bus’s final destination, you still need to transfer using metro/subway or taxi.
By Taxi
To reach central from airport by car, it takes about 20 minutes – 45 minutes depends on downtown traffic. Only use taxi from the authorized taxi in the airport. There are two taxis, they are black and yellow taxi that runs with meter, and the other one is blue taxi (you need to negotiate in advance). When pre-paying the fare, passenger get voucher for their final destination. Fare and taxi stand location are located in the Vía Controlada area where their designated vehicle will be on standby. It usually costs 7500-10,000 CLP during normal traffic and 15,000 CLP-20,000 CLP during heavy hour.
By Private Shuttle
The case with private shuttle, it doesn’t always mean you won’t share the transport with other. There are two companies that I found in the internet: Transvip and Delfos. They both offered compartido (shared), and private transfer. I booked compartido via email with Delfos, 6900 CLP (128,000 IDR/ 8,8 USD) and paid the transfer by cash at Delfos counter at arrival Hall. The car is like a van, with several people inside. It was convenient since it dropped me right at our Airbnb.
So, with given options above, you can decided which transportation suits you best. If you bring lots of luggage and or with two or more people, I suggest to go with Taxi or Private Shuttle.
Santiago in few Hours
We used Santiago as our base, and for the following two days, we went out to neighbouring area (out of town) such as Valparaiso and Caljon de Maipo. So, we really didn’t have that much time to enjoy Santiago Properly.
We arrived at our Airbnb around 4 pm and ready to go out at 5 pm. Plaza de armas is the only place we managed to check out.
Luckily enough, Plaza de Armas was just 10 minutes away from Airbnb, so yeah, we hit it right away. And oh boy, it was very beautiful as the sunset started settling in and put color on the sky. Some notable building surround this plaza are \Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, Central Post Office Building, and Palacio de la Real Audiencia de Santiago.
