Chile travel health
Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for Chile, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in Chile: Torres del Paine, Easter Island, Atacama Desert, Santiago.
Required to enter
Nothing. No vaccination certificate is asked for at the border.
Recommended
- Routine vaccinations up to date
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid for longer or rural stays
Emergency number
131 for an ambulance, 133 for police, 130 for forest and mountain rescue
Care for visitors
Good and affordable
The best in South America alongside Uruguay. Private clinics in Santiago and Punta Arenas are excellent and expect insurance or payment up front; public hospitals treat emergencies. In Torres del Paine you are hours from either, and CONAF rescue is the only help there is.
Tap water is safe in the cities. In Patagonia the risks are exposure and wind rather than anything infectious — hypothermia happens in January.
The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.
The guides in Chile
Torres del PaineChileGranite towers, wind, and the emptiest sky in Patagonia
Easter IslandChileThe most remote inhabited island on earth, and nine hundred statues facing inland
Atacama DesertChileThe driest place on earth, at 2,400 metres, under the clearest sky anybody has measured
SantiagoChileA city with the Andes at the end of the street, and vineyards forty minutes the other way