Valparaiso Tours — Frequently Asked Questions
What a day in the city costs when there is no ticket to buy, which tours include the funiculars, how steep the hills really are and when the rain arrives. To compare fares instead, start with Valparaiso guided tours.
Below you will also find answers on booking windows, group sizes, private tours, pickup, the two house museums, tipping, luggage on a cruise day, accessibility, the ascensores and the street art.
Booking and tours
Do I need to book a tour in advance?
Book two to five days ahead between December and March and over a cruise weekend, when the small-group walks fill first. Outside those months a day or two is usually enough. Every tour here except one refunds in full up to 24 hours before the start, so an early booking costs you nothing if the plan changes.
How much does a guided tour cost?
Fares here start at $40 a person for a three-hour guided walk and run to $289 for a private van that carries your luggage to Santiago. A full day out of Santiago sits between $56 and $72, and a Casablanca Valley wine day between $89 and $273. Every fare is per person, and lunch is extra on most of them.
Can I cancel after booking?
Almost all of them refund in full if you cancel at least 24 hours before the start. One does not: the private wine day's own policy gives a full refund up to three days ahead, and its card says so. Check the window on the listing before you pay, because it is set by each operator rather than by us.
Are the tours guided in English?
Yes. Every tour we list runs an English-guided departure, and most also offer Spanish. Five of them add Portuguese, two add French and one adds German. On the shared day trips from Santiago the commentary is sometimes given in two languages at once, which slows the pace a little.
How big are the groups?
The walking tours cap at ten and the Casablanca wine afternoon at six. The city and coastal day tours run to twelve, fifteen or eighteen travellers. The private days carry only the party that books them, and nobody else.
Can I book a private tour of Valparaiso?
Yes. The private days here are a guide-driver from the cruise terminal to Santiago, a shore excursion that ends at the Santiago airport, and a coastal day north to Zapallar, and each states that only your party travels. One more is called a private wine tour, but its own inclusions say the transfer is private and the winery visit is shared.
Do tours pick up from my hotel?
It depends where you are staying. Every day trip from Santiago includes hotel or Airbnb pickup, and the wine afternoon collects from Valparaiso hotels. The walking tours meet you instead, at Plaza Sotomayor or Muelle Prat, both a short walk from the port.
What happens if my tour is cancelled for weather?
Several operators keep the right to cancel in bad weather or when too few travellers book, and the listings say so plainly. If that happens you are offered an alternative date or a full refund. Booking something with free cancellation and watching the forecast two days out is the simplest protection.
Tickets and what you pay for
Do I need a ticket to visit Valparaiso?
No. Valparaiso is a working city, not a monument with a gate, so there is no admission, no ticket office and no closing time. What costs money is a guided tour, a funicular ride, a museum and your lunch. That is why a tour fare is the price we quote.
How much is La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda's house?
General admission is CLP 11,000 and the reduced rate is CLP 4,500 for students under 17, accredited students in Chile and residents over 60. La Sebastiana opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm from March to December and until 7pm in January and February, and closes on Mondays. No advance booking is needed.
Do the tours include the funicular tickets?
Several do. The three-hour walking tour covers two funicular rides and a trolleybus ticket, the panoramic tour covers a lift and a trolley, and the seven-hour walk covers every fare and fee on the route. Two of the Santiago day trips include one cable car ride each. The others leave the lifts to you, and they cost a few hundred pesos.
Is Palacio Baburizza worth the admission?
If you like painting, yes: it holds one of the four most important art collections in Chile, gathered from 1895, in a 1916 mansion on Paseo Yugoslavo. General admission is CLP 4,000, students and over-65s pay CLP 1,500, under-12s are free and foreign visitors pay CLP 6,000. It opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10am to 6pm.
What does a Casablanca wine tasting cost on a tour?
Nothing extra. On every wine day here the tasting fee is inside the fare, and on the three-cellar afternoon so are the pours at all three bodegas. Walk-in tariffs at individual wineries are set by each estate and change without notice, which is why we quote the tour fare and not theirs.
Are there free things to do in Valparaiso?
Most of the city is free. The murals, the paseos, Plaza Sotomayor, Muelle Prat, the fish market at Caleta Portales and the whole of the open-air museum on Cerro Bellavista cost nothing at all. You pay for the lifts, the museums and the boat out into the bay.
Do I tip a guide in Chile?
Tipping is normal and not obligatory. Gratuities sit in the excluded list on several of the tours here and go unmentioned on the rest, so carry some pesos if you expect to leave something. Ten percent is the usual restaurant figure, and guides are tipped at whatever the day was worth to you.
Visiting practically
How long do I need in the city?
Three hours buys the UNESCO quarter with a guide, which is what a shore call or a day trip usually allows. A full day adds the markets, the port and Viña del Mar. Two days is when the city stops being a viewpoint and starts being a place, because the day tours all leave by late afternoon.
Can I visit Valparaiso as a day trip from Santiago?
Yes, and it is how most visitors come. The day trips we list run about ten hours door to door, of which roughly three are in Valparaiso itself and the rest are Viña del Mar, a Casablanca Valley tasting and the road. If the city is the reason you are going, stay the night instead.
How far is Valparaiso from Santiago?
About 120 kilometres by Ruta 68, the motorway that runs west through the Casablanca Valley to the coast. The drive takes an hour and a half in normal traffic, and intercity coaches run all day from Terminal Alameda and Terminal Pajaritos to the Terminal Rodoviario on Avenida Pedro Montt.
Is Valparaiso safe for visitors?
The tourist quarter is busy and walkable in daylight, and the streets the tours use — Cerro Alegre, Cerro Concepción, Plaza Sotomayor, the paseos — are the ones the city keeps an eye on. Keep phones and cameras out of sight on the stairways between hills, avoid empty streets after dark and take a taxi back to your hotel at night. A local guide knows which turning to skip, which is the quiet argument for the first morning.
How steep are the hills, really?
Steep, and the reason the funiculars exist. The paseos themselves are level once you are up, and the lifts do the climbing for a few hundred pesos. Reviewers on the seven-hour walk describe about three and a half miles and a good deal of stairs, while the panoramic tour is built to ride up and walk down.
What is the best time of year to come?
November to March, when rainfall at the city's own weather station averages under 6 mm a month and the mean afternoon high sits between 19 and 23°C. June is the wettest month at about 162 mm over six rainy days. Winter is not a write-off, but it is when the stairways get slippery and an indoor plan earns its place.
Is Valparaiso wheelchair accessible?
The city is difficult: the hills are steep, the pavements are uneven and most lifts have steps at one end. One listing here is described by its operator as wheelchair accessible, stroller accessible and open to service animals, and it is the panoramic tour that uses the elevators rather than the staircases. Contact any operator directly before booking if access matters.
What should I wear?
Shoes with grip, because the hills are cobbled and the stairs are worn. Bring a windproof layer whatever the forecast says: the sea breeze comes up in the afternoon and the temperature at the top of a cerro is not the temperature at the port. In summer add sun protection, since the paseos have almost no shade.
Where do I leave my luggage on a cruise day?
On a day call you leave it aboard, and the shared cruise pickup takes passengers only and carries no luggage at all. On disembarkation day the tours built for it solve the problem properly: the post-cruise day carries the cases and drops you at a Santiago hotel or the airport, and the private shore excursion keeps a driver with the vehicle all day.
Can I combine Valparaiso and Viña del Mar in one day?
Easily, and most of the tours here do exactly that. The two sit about twenty minutes apart along the bay, joined by the metro as well as the road. Valparaiso is the hills, the murals and the port; Viña is the beaches, the gardens and the Flower Clock.
The city itself
Why is Valparaiso a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
UNESCO inscribed the historic quarter in 2003 under criterion (iii), as an exceptional testimony to the early phase of globalisation. What is listed is the whole working arrangement: the hillside layout, the public spaces and buildings, the port and naval heritage around Prat Pier, and the funicular and trolleybus systems. The city was the leading merchant port on the Pacific routes from the 1880s until the Panama Canal opened in 1914.
What are the ascensores, and can I ride one?
They are the funicular elevators that carry people between the flat port and the hills, and yes, you can ride them. The first opened on Cerro Concepción on 1 December 1883, fifteen were declared national monuments on 1 September 1998, and six are running today, including El Peral and Reina Victoria from 7am to 9:30pm. Several tours include the tickets in the fare.
Is the street art organised or spontaneous?
Both, and that is what makes it worth a guide. The Museo a Cielo Abierto on Cerro Bellavista is a planned open-air museum of murals by named Chilean artists, while the work on the stairways of Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción is a living, changing thing. Guides know which walls turned over last month and which artists still work in the street.
Which hill should I spend my time on?
Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción if you have one afternoon: they hold the paseos, the galleries, the restaurants and most of the murals, and both funiculars land in them. Cerro Bellavista is the one to add for the open-air museum and Neruda's house. Barrio Puerto down at sea level is the working port quarter and is better with a guide.
Is there a boat tour of Valparaiso harbour?
Small launches run bay trips out of Muelle Prat beside Plaza Sotomayor, and seeing the painted amphitheatre of hills from the water is the one view the walking routes cannot give you. Among the tours here, the ten-hour day trip from Santiago includes a harbour boat tour in its fare, and the coastal penguin day includes a boat ride out toward Isla Cachagua.
Still deciding? Every fare sits side by side on Valparaiso Tours. The costs and opening hours are on visiting Valparaiso, the routes in on getting there, and the seasons on the weather page.