Chile Campsites

1. Beach camp, Arica (near the border with Peru)
S18.54611° W70.33095°
FREE
A few km’s south of town. The road ends in to a bigish car park but we parked up just before that by a small, family seafood restaurant. We had a couple of beers there and a chat with the owner. Peaceful quiet night.

222 Arica CHILE

 

2. Fishing dock camp, Caleta Camarones (Small fishing community)
S19.20608° W70.26996°
FREE
Atmospheric and very quiet place. A couple of km’s dirt road leads to the fishing dock from the village. We had no opportunity to ask to park up but when the fishermen turned up late night they didn’t mind us there.

223 Caleta Camarones CHILE

 

3. Dirty beach camp, Iquique
S20.31071° W70.13742°
FREE
We parked up at this public beach, few km’s south of town. There’s a lot of rubbish lying around (one evening we smelled burning rubbish) but the beach quiets down after sunset and all vehicles leave. It is a convenient, place to stay if need to stick around town for a few days.
The city is pretty with friendly people. There’s a tax free area for shopping and truck places for some work done on vehicles.

224 Beach camp Iquique CHILE

 

4. Camp at edge of canyon -weird church
S18.89641° W69.87548°
approx. 2000m
FREE
A dirt road leads from A35 for a couple of hundred meters to an open-air desert church. No one was there but the church seems to be in function. We parked up a 100m beyond the church by the canyon with lovely view. Very quiet, peaceful night. In the morning the highway police “found” us but they were just curious and were friendly -they confirmed that this was a public land and OK to camp.

225  edge of canyon -weird church CHILE

 

5. River camp
S18.74129° W69.25979°
4184 m
FREE
Parked up on a small island among small brooks. Very quiet night. High elevation can be uncomfortable.

*no photo taken

 

6. Salar de Surire Hot Mud (ABSOLUTELY OUR ALL TIME FAVOURITE CAMP SPOT!)
S18.91257° W68.99857°
approx 4300m
FREE
Parking in the small parking lot for the hot mud -a beautiful, turquoise colour, rich in minerals natural pool. This is actually in the Reserva Nacional Las Vicunyas. Register to the park here S18.85356° W69.14328°. Hence the name the area is full of vicunyas along with flamingos. (If you stay still the vicunyas come up to the hot water and bathe in front of you) As it is a fairly remote park there are hardly any visitors -in three days we met 2 cars. We had the whole place for ourselves.

226 Hot mud CHILE

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