Destinations
Carretera Austral
The world's most dramatic unfinished road through hanging glaciers and empty fjords.
Season
November - March
Terrain
ocean · mountains
Fly into
PMC / BBA
Missions
-
The briefing
Chile's Route 7 - the Carretera Austral - runs 1,240 km through some of the least-populated and most scenically extraordinary terrain on earth. Parts of it still require ferries. Most of it has no phone signal. Season still decides the trip - November - March.
The appeal is precisely the incompleteness. The road was never finished in a conventional sense, which means it threads through places that only became accessible in the last few decades. Each section feels earned - river crossings, gravel stretches, and ferry hops between fjord systems.
The standout sections: the Queulat hanging glacier above the highway near Puerto Puyuhuapi; the marble chapels of Puerto Río Tranquilo from a kayak on Lago General Carrera; the trail network in Cerro Castillo. Budget real time - this road does not reward rushing.
How to get there
Gateway airports: PMC, BBA. Build the rest of the trip around the arrival.
Book first
Flights - PMC, BBA → Stay on the water; ferries beat long valley drives in Carretera Austral → Operator - ferry and any guided water day