Chile Forum

For a gringo living in one place for a longer period of time, can you live without a car and not suffer too much loss of mobility? Do you need to stay in larger towns with transit, or can you also do OK in smaller towns or even the countryside? Are there areas or neighborhoods where riding bicycles or scooters is reasonably safe? (a moderate level of adventure is OK) Do people ride bicycles a lot in Chile?

A car would be nice, and I love to drive the countryside to explore, but it is a lot easier on the budget with no vehicle.

In my experience rural public transport (around pucon villarrica as well as out and about around valdivia) definitely exists. Much better than anything in the UK, US or NZ. Lots of rural people don't have cars. There are micros, cheap mini-bus or even minivan style buses that go to the middle of nowhere every few hours. I guess the only challenge as usual is getting the information!

And bicycles are also good though I wouldn't risk it on the road in or near a "city" the likes of Valdivia. Great for around Pucon Villarrica as people are used to it.

When I was here a few years ago I hitchhiked a lot and never ever had any problems (yes by myself and female, much to my mother's outrage), though of course disclaimer disclaimer don't try this at home kids etc etc.

People here walk a lot. There are many small independent stores located in neighborhoods. And buses go to Pirque(which is quite rural/small town) and beyond from Puente Alto. From there you can catch the Metro. I also see bicyclists quite a lot-the guy getting from here to there on a bike(not racers)-and people seem very patient about waiting or going around them(roads are narrow). I also see motorcycles and scooters, although not as many.

Many people live without a car so I would say it's completely possible.

There are places in the rural areas where buses are like once or twice a day. In most rural areas however they are fairly regular, at least once an hour. What tends to happen in these areas is hitchhiking is common practice. Everyone knows everyone else, so they stop and pickup anyone alongside the road. Great way to get to know the neighbors and exchange news.

Car pooling tends to also be fairly common.

If you need a private driver, in most areas you can hire someone to drive you for the day, you can hire a collectivo for a private ride, or in most middle size towns you can hire a taxi driver.

We have a series of drivers we use in various towns and cities around Chile. They also are great for helping us when we need someone to go stand in line to pickup a document and mail it to us, or drop something off. Typically about 3,000-5,000 pesos an hour. They also know the area, and have all the best gossip.

If you need to move something big, hiring a truck and guys to move it is also fairly cheap.

Really when you start adding up how much money you pay to have a car sit in the driveway 2/3 of the time, hiring a driver is much cheaper.

If you really need a driver on a regular basis, a lot of the radio taxi companies in Chile will offer contracts. They typically have a few nice cars, not just the yellow and black street taxis.

As a last resort, you can get away with renting a car once and a while for that weekend trip, or whatever.

Really the only time it becomes a must to have a car in Chile is if you live way way out of town off of a bus route or the bus only passes one or twice a day.

This Los Angeles born and raised, last resident in the wider DC/MD/VA metro area (both car reliant areas) gringo has been sin auto in Chile for 6 years.

Guess it all depends on your target location.

I spent five years living in Santiago Centro about three blocks away from Alameda and Estado before I moved to this quiet, tranquil small community on the coast. I chose the condo I now reside in largely because it

-- is in walking distance to two supermarkets (important for price competition, product selection and opening hours convenience reasons) and other food consumer services
-- is in walking distance (with rolling luggage) to both a Pullman and Turbus bus terminal
-- has colectivos (virtually 24 hours/day) and micros (till late late evening) constantly passing by the condo complex (I only take colectivos)

I can be at SCL in approx. two and a half hours with just one change of bus at Santiago's Terminal Alameda for a total cost of under 4.000 pesos. Add a couple hundred pesos more for a colectivo or 1.200 for a radio taxi if I'm too lazy or overburdened to walk to the local bus terminal. This is roughly the same price one would currently pay TransVIP to go from Sanitago Centro to SCL!

For 300 pesos and approx. 15 minutes I can be at a nice beach or if I go the other direction, the largest city in the province with it's Santiago-class supermarket, three department stores, more extensive services and transport options and a good fish market.

I can travel Algarrobo to Santo Domingo by micro for around maybe 600 pesos.

One can hire a radio taxi for any customized provincial travel for incredibly cheap prices.

Do I need a car with the high gas prices, parking hassles and fees, toll roads, insurance, maintenance, various state controls and risk of vandalism and theft ---- hell no!!

About the parking bit.

If you have no car and you live in a dpto/condo with a space, that space can be rented out to put some pesos in your pocket.

eeuunikkeiexpat:

Where are you located , may I ask...?

Semms to me it is a very convenient location, i am trying to make my mind about living in Santiago.....

We have a similar situation in Temuco. We are one block from the cheapest grocery store in town. We also have on one side of us a church parking lot where all the taxis wait for calls to pick people up at the grocery store, and on the other corner of us all of the colectivos make their turn to head back to the center of town.

We also have micros that pass by a block away, but I am not a big fan of the micros in Chile. They are fine as city buses go, but I just find them kind of dirty crowded, and too many stops. Some cities we use them, some we don't. Temuco is a really small town for the most part. From one side of Temuco to the other by taxi is 5,000 pesos max, a collectivo will get you there for about 300 pesos during the day and 400 at night.

Also the collectivo line that runs by our house, also starts its route at the Turbus station. So we drop off of tur bus at night, and grab the collectivo home for 400 pesos, rather than the 4,000 peso ride across town. Typically they are running fairly empty at night, so it is the same as having your own private taxi.

Very timely conversation, as I was questioning my own "I really need to own a car" dogma. Schools in Chile have shuttles that pick kids at home. When I'm looking at our car usage patterns, we tend to go on big shopping trips twice a month to fill the fridge and freezer. The rest of the week, we stay mostly at home where we work. We end up using our car mostly on weekends, so I can relate with Charles' comment that cars end up staying parked most of the time.

Do you guys have reliable taxi/driver-for-hire companies to recommend? My pressing need is our trip from Santiago to Vina del Mar on Saturday with the two kids and a lot of luggage, then another roundtrip to Santiago a couple days later to pick up the stuff we shipped by air freight.

Yea, we have one in Vina, but the last time we used him to drive us the airport his car stalled at 3:30 in the morning on the highway. We got it going and got our friend to their flight, but it was spooky.

We have another one in Santiago that we use, but they are exclusively big corporate accounts.

I'll see if I can dig up good one that is in between.

I have my place about 25 miles out of the villarrica/pucon area. Usually in an area that is as remote as ours the bus schedule is one bus in and one bus out every day..so its a 8am to go into to town and a 5pm to leave town and get home...an hour or so each way as they make stops and we are more than half on dirt road...cost is 750 pesos each way...for 350 I can go out to the garita and the bus driver will fill my grocery list and bring it back...I pay him in advance and he brings change with the reciept...they are usually within about 10 minutes of passing by the front of the property. Hitchhiking where we are is okay but you eat alot of dust and there is of course no schedule.

p out


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I took a taxi to Johnsons Department store the other day. 1700 pesos. Bought my stuff, hailed another taxi to take me back to my apartment. Nice enough fellow...then I noticed, "Hey! Didn't we go by that building already????" Looked at the meter and we were already at 3000 pesos! I mentioned this to the driver, and he started yapping about one-way streets and whatnot. So, I took out my pen and notepad, and started writing down his cab info...as the meter flipped to almost 4000 pesos he kept looking nervously to see what I was writing. When we arrived at the building, he helped unload my packages and asked me what the ride to Johnsons had cost me. When I told him 1700 pesos, he agreed, and that's what I paid him. Don't know if the practice is common here, but I've had similar situations in Panama, and Costa Rica. I always find that if you start writing down their info, they come clean!

Vicki

The one time that remains in my memory of a Santiago taxi scam/rip off was when the driver said I passed him a 100 peso coin and not a 500 peso coin (which I am 100% positive). He was a Brasilian and not a native chileno.

These things constantly happen to natives also as I remember a driver charged my pareja 5000 pesos just to go from La Persa to Santiago Centro which she did not question at the time.

Taxi drivers with their connections and subculture are also the ones involved in the passing and distribution of fake currency. In my bar days in Santiago Centro, they used to hang out at my pareja's workplace. One time one tried to exchange a very well done, old style US $100 bill (it really did look genuine). She called me to come over to review it. During this time, the driver even left it with us as he entered and left the restaurant multiple times. I examined it and said NO.

i guess this is as close to bycicle theme that...

i'm interested in possibilities of buying bicycle in puerto montt or on chiloe. is there at least solid market for that kind of stuff? i'm talking about reliable preferable US (taiwan) made for around 1000 USD. can be used but not trashed for this money.

or is it maybe better to bring it with me if i think i need it that bad?

for anything helpful thanks in advance.

bezaj wrote:i guess this is as close to bycicle theme that...

i'm interested in possibilities of buying bicycle in puerto montt or on chiloe. is there at least solid market for that kind of stuff? i'm talking about reliable preferable US (taiwan) made for around 1000 USD. can be used but not trashed for this money.

or is it maybe better to bring it with me if i think i need it that bad?

for anything helpful thanks in advance.

did u mean a bicycle or motorbike?