Where is the Carretera Austral?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Carretera Austral is literally \u2018the Southern Highway\u2019, running from Puerto Montt in the Chilean Lake District<\/a> to Villa O\u2019Higgins 789 miles (1270 km) away in southern Patagonia. It runs like a vein through Chile\u2019s Aysen<\/a>, through an almost bewildering array of landscapes. At its northern end the highway is clad in thick temperate rain forest, before skirting the edge of some almost Scandinavian fjords. Inland, it skirts epic mountain ranges topped with snow and glaciers, and winds through broad river valleys and wide turquoise rivers. In the far south, the terrain can almost evoke the African savannah in place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s this diversity that makes the Carretera Austral such a thrilling destination. There is always a new vista around the next bend in the road. And bends there are aplenty. The Romans might have been some of history\u2019s great road builders, but they liked to build highways that ran as straight as an arrow from A to B. The Carretera Austral would have given them a meltdown. There\u2019s barely a straight line anywhere along its course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That lack of an obvious path explains why Aysen was considered the most isolated of all Chile\u2019s regions ever since independence. The landscape was just too challenging for largescale road construction, so many remote towns were only accessible by boat or worse \u2013 only connected to the outside world by crossing the border into Argentina. There were piecemeal attempts to build roads linking the main towns, but it wasn\u2019t until the 1970s and the Pinochet dictatorship that a plan was announced to create a single highway as an explicit nation-building project to bring even the remotest parts of the country into the orbit of the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The project took nearly three decades to complete, but even as the last stretch of road was levelled, there was an acceptance that the Carretera Austral is unlikely to ever be truly finished. Only the northern half of the highway\u2014from Puerto Montt to Coyhaique and Villa Cerro Castillo\u2014is paved. The southern portion remains gravel, and the extremes of the winter freeze-thaw cycles mean that it\u2019s likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future. It\u2019s a potent reminder of the power of Mother Nature, but also one of the great attractions of a road trip here: you truly do feel like you\u2019re exploring a brand new frontier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Carretera Austral makes up a significant part of Chile\u2019s Route of the Parks<\/a>, a loose chain of 17 national parks that run through Chilean Patagonia. As such, it\u2019s home to some of the region\u2019s\u2014and therefore South America\u2019s\u2014best scenery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The far north of the Carretera Austral skirts alongside or passes through three national parks where ancient alerce trees tower over the landscape, and offer hikes through dripping green temperate rainforest. Alerce Andino<\/a>, Hornopir\u00e9n<\/a> and Pumal\u00edn<\/a> National Parks are all studded with lakes and wetlands amid the forests, and the Carretera Austral here can feel positively vertiginous at times. The landscape is so extreme as it passes along the coastal fjords that there is often no room for a road at all, so ferries remain a crucial part of the transport network here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you head south, the temperatures in the mountains cool and glaciers become more apparent, in places like Queulat National Park<\/a>. From here the mountains rise up into great ramparts as you approach the regional capital at Coyhaique<\/a>. This town, connected to Chile\u2019s capital city Santiago, is the traditional entry point for most travellers to Aysen, and those unlucky enough not to have the time to drive the highway\u2019s entire length. <\/p>\n\n\n\n South of Coyhaique, the Carretera Austral winds its way through some of Patagonia\u2019s best trekking country, not least the spectacular Cerro Castillo National Park<\/a>, where the trails are as impressive as anything in Torres del Paine, but are virtually empty. In fact, the terrain is so impressive anywhere along whole swathes of the highway that you\u2019d almost be forgiven for pulling up your vehicle anywhere and heading into the mountains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is great natural beauty to be found as the Carretera Austral nudges past the shore of Lago General Carrera, through pretty hamlets you might almost mistake for being on Lake Como in Italy. This is where you\u2019ll find the Instagram-hungry Marble Caves<\/a> and, nearby, the great white cliffs of San Rafael Glacier<\/a>, which calves icebergs straight into a green lagoon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From here, it\u2019s a short hop to Patagonia National Park<\/a>. This is one of Chile\u2019s newest national parks, and the creation of an epic rewilding project, restoring the balance of nature to an area once known for logging and ranching. When you see wild guanacos outside your window in the lodge in the centre of the park, it\u2019s easy to judge how successful that project has been. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As you head south from Patagonia National Park past Cochrane and the Baker River (a great place for kayaking<\/a>), it\u2019s a clear run all the way south to Villa O\u2019Higgins<\/a> and the end of the line. As the traffic dwindles, your vehicle feels increasingly like a tiny dot on a massive canvas. It\u2019s the feeling of the true frontier. This is a land for adventurers and long-distance cyclists: to continue on from here means leaving the vehicle behind and crossing as a foot passenger by ferry into Argentina, where Los Glaciares National Park<\/a> rises up in all its drama to envelop you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The rugged nature of the Carretera Austral is undoubtedly a strong part of its allure, but driving its length is certainly not for the fainthearted. As a rule, we recommend hiring a car with a driver\/guide while travelling the highway. There are plenty of very remote stretches along the Carretera Austral, and it\u2019s easy to find yourself in trouble in an area where you\u2019re a long way from the nearest phone signal \u2013 or the next passing car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are going to self-drive on the Carretera Austral, there are some important points to keep in mind. For vehicle rental you should only ever hire a 4WD with a high wheel base. Check the vehicle carefully before departing, making sure that it has a neum\u00e1tico<\/em> (spare tire) and una gata<\/em> (a car jack). It\u2019s absolutely essential to carry extra food and water, and fill the tank with gas whenever you can: especially along the southern stretch of highway, gas stations are few and far between, and there are none between Cochrane and Villa O’Higgins. The same goes for money: bring plenty of cash and don\u2019t expect to be able to use ATMs except in Coyhaique. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of road etiquette, always give oncoming vehicles plenty of space, particularly trucks. There is a lot of loose gravel on the road, and it\u2019s easy to either skid or suffer a chipped windscreen. This is something we\u2019ve learned at our own cost: one member of the Swoop Patagonia team was forced onto the gravel shoulder when an approaching truck was taking up more than its fair share of the highway. Even though they slowed to a crawl, the car then slid down the shoulder at an angle. The car was impossible to right, and it took the intervention of another car to help pull it out. The Carretera Austral being what it is, it took nearly an hour for another vehicle to arrive to flag down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In which case, we\u2019ll add another road rule: stop if someone looks like they could do with some help. Thankfully, our Swooper was a Spanish speaker so all was well, but it would have been easy to have been stranded for a lot longer. Having some back up is one reason why an English-speaking guide is recommended here \u2013 as well as being experienced on the road, they can jump into action on your behalf, whether that\u2019s helping stop traffic or activating a contingency plan should it look like you\u2019re going to miss a ferry connection or your next activity a bit further down the road. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Carretera Austral isn\u2019t merely a road. It\u2019s the heart of Aysen, where at every turn you can see a new facet of Chile\u2019s wildest region\u2014a vista to hike to, a forest to reconnect to nature in, or just a landscape that seems to unfold forever. While you\u2019re there it\u2019s no surprise that it took so long to even come up with the concept of the highway, and after that, so long to build. This is a part of Patagonia where nature always seems to come first, and where humanity\u2019s touch seems the lightest\u2014just a thin ribbon of tarmac and gravel, and an invitation to explore on what is surely one of the world\u2019s greatest road trips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A road trip is one of the great dreams of travel. It\u2019s no wonder that time and again songwriters have returned to the idea of a car and a highway that stretches on forever as the ultimate promise of freedom. Bruce Springsteen practically built a career on the idea, and everyone knows that Route 66 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":202602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,309],"tags":[50,69,318],"class_list":["post-202583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aysen-2","category-epic-adventures","tag-aysen","tag-carretera-austral","tag-road-trip"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Carretera-Austral-drone-view-1024x576.jpg\")
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What to do along the Carretera Austral<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SWO_5_ALL_HarrietPike_chaiten-volcano-hike-pumalin-4-1024x576.jpg\")
![\"Tourist](\"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Looking-at-the-Cerro-Castillo-mountains-1024x576.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SWO_4_ALL_SydneyMiller-Aviles-hike-patagonia-national-park-gallery-1024x576.jpg\")
Self-driving the Carretera Austral?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SWO_4_ALL_HarrietPike-carretera-austral-car-1024x576.jpeg\")
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The heart of Aysen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n