<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Eastbay1K:
My thoughts for the next trip also include a couple days at the coast and in Santiago, but was pondering the other stop - Thoughts about Puerto Montt? or something up north?</font>
Eastbay--
Puerto Montt is a great jumping off point for the Lake District. Mrs. South and I spent our honeymoon there, visiting a lodge in Ancud on Chiloe Island, and taking a boat trip across Lago Todos los Santos. Beautifal waterfalls, volcanoes, and pine forests. Ran across a group of Brazilian Japanese coming the other direction across the Andes from Argentina's Lake District. We also travelled to the Villarica resort, truly for ricos. And flew back to Santiago from Temuco, a reasonably large city. Great memories from that trip.
Best enjoyed in summertime. Beautiful blue skies in summers. Long days, cool nights like Seattle or Portland.
We've also done trips in SCL where we arrange a side trip to Argentina or a side trip to Brazil. We like cities and so we spent a week in Buenos Aires and in Rio de Janeiro. Each spectacular in their own way. However, both are much more humid than SCL in summer...
If you are using a LanChile award, it's very easy to take a Santiago stopover, traveling to those other cities later. For something more complex or without an award, a Mercosur Pass is an affordable option. We're thinking Cuzco and Macchu Picchu next time...
Finally, a new and popular beach resort from Santiago is La Serena. As the name suggest, a very serene, small city, populated only by chilenos and argentinos.