We Came to Santiago for a Month. Everyone Asked Us “Why?”
Finding My Retirement
7,586 views
We came to Santiago, Chile planning to spend an entire month — but several of the first people we met had the exact same reaction: “Why would you do that?”
So what is it actually like to spend several weeks living in Santiago? In this video, we share our first-hand experience with the cost of living, safety, neighborhoods, weather, air quality, food, healthcare, public transportation, walkability, housing and more as we consider whether Santiago could work as one of our rotating retirement home bases.
Our first impression wasn't great. Santiago was more expensive than we expected, our neighborhood wasn't the right fit for us, and for the first time during our South American travels, we weren't completely comfortable wandering around our neighborhood after dark. After our first week, we changed our travel plans to leave a week earlier than planned.
But that's not the whole story.
As we spent more time in Santiago, the city started to grow on us. We found excellent public transportation, good healthcare, a surprisingly diverse food scene, huge local markets and plenty to do both in the city and nearby. We also discovered that choosing the right Santiago neighborhood — such as Providencia or Bella Vista instead of Lastarria — could make a huge difference in the experience.
We also compare some of our actual costs in Santiago with Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, including what we paid for a month-long Airbnb and how much we spent on food.
And Chile itself gave us plenty to like, from the Andes and local wineries to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso on the coast.
This is our preliminary look at Santiago. In our next Santiago video, we'll put the city through our complete scoring system — weather, safety, healthcare, cost of living, transportation, food, housing, visas and overall vibe — to decide whether Santiago could actually become one of our rotating home bases if we did it differently next time, applying the lessons we learned.
Finding My Retirement follows our journey through early retirement and full-time travel as we search the world for places where we might return year after year and live for several months at a time.
If you're considering traveling, retiring, slow traveling or living in Santiago or elsewhere in Chile, we'd love to hear your experience in the comments. Did Santiago grow on you — or did you have the same reaction we did?
00:00 Why Are You Staying a Month in Santiago?
00:34 Santiago Weather & Air Pollution
03:37 Cost of Living: Santiago vs Buenos Aires
06:39 What We Actually Spent on Food
07:33 Did We Feel Safe in Santiago?
10:59 Why We Left Santiago Early
11:30 Healthcare in Santiago
12:42 Restaurants, Groceries & Food
17:17 Walkability & Public Transportation
19:08 Housing & Where to Stay
19:58 Chile Visa & Entry Requirements
21:14 Did Santiago Grow on Us?
22:49 Things to Do in Santiago
24:48 Day Trips, the Andes & Chilean Wine
27:21 Would We Give Santiago Another Chance?
20 Comments
But if you have less then you have to compromise on neighbourhood and or standard of living.
Alternatively you may go to live in good neighbourhoods in one of the other important cities of Chile. Like Concepción or Viña del Mar.
Where you can live equally well with about US$ 2.500 a month or more. Because housing and fresh food cost less in smaller cities.
Chile is well connected from North to South by air and by land, so distance from the capital city is not an issue.
And "gringos" are better apreciated in smaller cities. Where life is more relaxed and less complicated.
The disadvantage is that is much harder to find places where people speak English, but then you are forced to learn Spanish.
On the other hand, if you as a couple have less than US$ 2.500 a month, Chile is not a good retairing option for you.
As you will have no money to spare for travelling, inside or outside the country and you life will be boring.
If you have less than US$ 2.000 per month you will be kind of poor in Chile, and while you still will have plenty to eat, everything else will be small or poor quality.
Overall Chile is a great country to live in. Not too different to USA in culture, food, religion, wheather, laws and politics. And not too latino as other latino countries may be. Is easy to get used to it if you land on the standard of life/neighbourhood that you want. Which is not too hard to find having the right money.
Chileans have a high standard of education, health, public transport, police and quality and variety of food. The houses and building in Chile are earthquake resistants so earthquakes and tremors that happen regularly are not really a problem.
The expectation of life in Chile is higher than in the USA. And criminality at least is not worse than in USA, but chances of getting gun down are much less in Chile.
We like to complain about our city a lot, because we compare ourselves to the great capitals of Europe, but honestly it's not until we step outside Chile that we don't realize Santiago is not really that bad, and other places aren't really that good. Santiago has typical issues of many global cities, while being actually pretty good all things considered.
Complaining is just part of the culture, it's why we have so many protests all the time over every thing, like the French, and it's why we tell everyone it's not worth it to come while we are full of immigration. But this complaining is actually good. In Latin America with the inefficient economics of resource extraction, and typical tendencies towards corruption and abuse of power, if you stay complacent, things don't progress. If we didn't have this attitude Santiago would be like the average Latin american city and would have never progressed the way it has. The attitude comes from the implicit idea that things should, and we expect actually will, keep changing for the better
And yes, with 7 million people in the same city, picking the right neighborhood makes all the difference. Hopefully you get to visit some more in the future!
We Came to Santiago for a Month. Everyone Asked Us “Why?”
Finding My Retirement
7,586 views
We came to Santiago, Chile planning to spend an entire month — but several of the first people we met had the exact same reaction: “Why would you do that?”
So what is it actually like to spend several weeks living in Santiago? In this video, we share our first-hand experience with the cost of living, safety, neighborhoods, weather, air quality, food, healthcare, public transportation, walkability, housing and more as we consider whether Santiago could work as one of our rotating retirement home bases.
Our first impression wasn't great. Santiago was more expensive than we expected, our neighborhood wasn't the right fit for us, and for the first time during our South American travels, we weren't completely comfortable wandering around our neighborhood after dark. After our first week, we changed our travel plans to leave a week earlier than planned.
But that's not the whole story.
As we spent more time in Santiago, the city started to grow on us. We found excellent public transportation, good healthcare, a surprisingly diverse food scene, huge local markets and plenty to do both in the city and nearby. We also discovered that choosing the right Santiago neighborhood — such as Providencia or Bella Vista instead of Lastarria — could make a huge difference in the experience.
We also compare some of our actual costs in Santiago with Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro, including what we paid for a month-long Airbnb and how much we spent on food.
And Chile itself gave us plenty to like, from the Andes and local wineries to Viña del Mar and Valparaíso on the coast.
This is our preliminary look at Santiago. In our next Santiago video, we'll put the city through our complete scoring system — weather, safety, healthcare, cost of living, transportation, food, housing, visas and overall vibe — to decide whether Santiago could actually become one of our rotating home bases if we did it differently next time, applying the lessons we learned.
Finding My Retirement follows our journey through early retirement and full-time travel as we search the world for places where we might return year after year and live for several months at a time.
If you're considering traveling, retiring, slow traveling or living in Santiago or elsewhere in Chile, we'd love to hear your experience in the comments. Did Santiago grow on you — or did you have the same reaction we did?
00:00 Why Are You Staying a Month in Santiago?
00:34 Santiago Weather & Air Pollution
03:37 Cost of Living: Santiago vs Buenos Aires
06:39 What We Actually Spent on Food
07:33 Did We Feel Safe in Santiago?
10:59 Why We Left Santiago Early
11:30 Healthcare in Santiago
12:42 Restaurants, Groceries & Food
17:17 Walkability & Public Transportation
19:08 Housing & Where to Stay
19:58 Chile Visa & Entry Requirements
21:14 Did Santiago Grow on Us?
22:49 Things to Do in Santiago
24:48 Day Trips, the Andes & Chilean Wine
27:21 Would We Give Santiago Another Chance?
I agree that the neighborhood you chose wasn't the best option. It's more of a place to visit than to stay in, especially since the city's downtown area is almost completely shut down on weekends.
Regarding food, I'm a little surprised that you didn't find enough variety. I think you didn't go to the right areas, even though they aren't that far from where you were staying. For example, Barrio Italia has more than 100 restaurants on a one-mile or one-and-a-half-kilometer street.
I'm a little confused by your comment that the subway isn't very extensive, since it's the most extensive in South America, 39th in the world, and was ranked the best in all of the Americas (from Canada to Chile) in 2012. Even when the three lines currently under construction are completed, it will be as extensive as the Washington, D.C. subway system.