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Going on a multi-day trek through Patagonia is on a lot of people’s bucket list. Who doesn\u2019t want to visit the Straights of Magellan, Patagonia and some of the most photogenic landscapes in the world? But if you look online the expense seems, shall we say, unfortunate. Okay, not unfortunate, nosebleed expensive.<\/p>\n
Saying that you can visit Torres del Paine National Park<\/a> on the cheap is a lie. You just can\u2019t. It\u2019s incredibly far away, Chile is an expensive country and Chilean Patagonia is even more so. If you look online, flights and tours alone can easily run in excess of $5,000 per person.<\/p>\n While a trip to Torres del Paine will likely never be categorized as cheap, there are a couple of easy things you can do to cut the cost of a trip almost in half.<\/p>\n A round-trip flight from New York to Punta Arenas will run you over $1,500 —\u00a0which is about the same as five\u00a0full-priced Virgin America round-trip tickets from New York to San Francisco. Or, at current Star Alliance prices, you can fly round-trip to Santiago for 60,000 miles with a $10 co-pay. Flights from Santiago to Punta Arenas run regularly and can be purchased from Sky Airlines or LAN and usually cost just a couple hundred bucks.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t have a ton of miles lying around? There are a few clever ways for normal people to accrue tons of miles without being a corporate flier or super wealthy. I\u2019m dead broke and haven\u2019t paid for a flight in years, mostly because I follow The Points\u00a0Guy<\/a> like a disciple.<\/p>\n If you Google “Torres del Paine tour,” you\u2019ll get a seemingly endless number of tour operators eager to send you on an amazing, one-of-a-kind, trekking adventure. You\u2019ll get to \u201csail up to the face of a towering valley glacier\u201d and \u201chike above the ice of Grey Glacier\u201d while listening to \u201cthe sound of ice calving off hanging mountain glaciers.\u201d Sounds pretty intense —\u00a0except that it\u2019s all a huge rip-off.<\/p>\n Literally everything they\u2019re offering on most of these tours is available to the general public at much lower prices when you arrive in Chile. The transportation, the accommodation, the food: it\u2019s all the exact same thing you\u2019d be doing if you just showed up and did it yourself.<\/p>\n It\u2019s kind of like if you started a website in Mandarin Chinese that offered an “Amazing Manhattan Adventure,” Then for $2,000 you offered to take some poor sap on the Staten Island Ferry and up to the top of the Empire State Building. But that\u2019s not all, you\u2019ll also make sure to take care of their lunch at Ray\u2019s Pizza and book them a room a Hostelling International — tidy profit margin.<\/p>\n When I was looking to go to Torres del Paine I found this well SEOed 4-day tour of the park marked for $1,950 a person. The price doesn\u2019t include a flight and assumes you can get yourself to Puerto Natales, even though the closest airport to Puerto Natales is fours\u00a0hours south. Check out what they\u2019re offering:<\/p>\n \u201cDay 1: Puerto Natales. Grey Boat. Hike Grey-Pehoe. Camp Pehoe.\u201d That means you\u2019ll take a $20 bus, get on a $30 ferry, walk on well-marked trails and camp in rented gear at a campsite that charges about $7.50 a night.<\/p>\n \u201cDay 2: Hike Pehoe to Cuernos. Camp Cuernos.\u201d You basically walk from one campsite to another and stay in another campsite that costs about $7.50 a night. The horrible thing is that this itinerary actually has you walking past a free<\/em>\u00a0campsite that\u2019s way nicer. It also has you walking right past the French Valley, which is one the most impressive parts of the entire park.<\/p>\n \u201cDay 3: Hike Cuernos to Chileno. Night refugio Chileno.\u201d Like the day before, you’ll walk from one campsite to another, and then stay in a hostel that costs $40 a night.<\/p>\n \u201cDay 4: Hike to base of Towers. Transfer to Puerto Natales.\u201d You walk up a hill, look at the Torres Towers and then take a $20 bus back to Puerto Natales. Presumably you\u2019re on your own to get back to the airport in Punta Arenas.<\/p>\n Total Value: $121.50. To be fair, the tour also includes food (about $130 a day if purchased in the park), park entrance ($40), rented camping gear ($200), an English-speaking guide and porters to take care of your bags.<\/p>\n That means you could do the same thing for $881.50 and still have $1,068 left over to hire some guy to show you around incredibly well-marked trails. Or you could use it to buy a flight.<\/p>\n There are a series of hostels, or refugios in Torres del Paine parlance, set up around the park. They\u2019re big, modern and warm, and have all the amenities of a hostel in a city. They also have considerable downsides. They\u2019re expensive, they book up months in advance, and they are packed full of the sort of people who took that $2,000 tour.<\/p>\n The park has several absolutely free and very well maintained campgrounds. There are other campgrounds that charge a couple of dollars and offer all sorts of amenities. I\u2019m talking about hot water showers, clean flushing toilets, electrical outlets and access to small stores.<\/p>\n You can, and many people do, purchase all your food while you\u2019re inside the park. For about $130 a day the refugios offer a full day\u2019s food, and from what I could tell, it looked pretty good. But for much\u00a0cheaper, there\u2019s a large, modern grocery store outside the park in Puerta Natales. They have a good selection of camping-appropriate foods and a decent booze selection.<\/p>\n Speaking of booze, there are bars at the refugios inside the park, but prices are extortionary —\u00a0they know you\u2019ll be thirsty for a strong drink after a long hike. Think ahead and grab a bottle of something stiff in Puerta Natales. I highly recommend packing in a bottle of whiskey for its high alcohol-to-weight ratio. Not only will you be the most relaxed person at the campsite, you\u2019ll also be the most popular.<\/p>\n Because Torres del Paine is such a remote destination, it attracts a lot of campers with deep pockets. These campers then go hog-wild at their local gear store buying some beautiful equipment that\u2019s complete overkill.<\/p>\n I watched one French octogenarian spend about an hour trying to figure out how to set up a brand new $700 tent that I\u2019m guessing will spend the rest of its life in an attic. Once he figure out how to get the tent up, he then spent the next half hour putting together $600 worth of super lightweight trekking cots for him and his wife. While I\u2019ll admit a certain amount of gear jealousy, it seemed like a bit absurd.<\/p>\n If you go trekking all the time and have gear, awesome. But for the rest of us, there\u2019s no need to drop several thousand dollars at Eastern Mountain Sports before leaving home.<\/p>\n Just outside the park in Puerta Natales there are tons of places that will rent you everything you\u2019ll need for about $50 a day. The gear they\u2019re offering is chosen specifically for the needs of hiking in Torres del Paine: light, wind-resistant and warm.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n The fact of the matter is that taking on Torres del Paine will never be cheap. That said, it can be done far cheaper than you\u2019d expect. And, regardless whether\u00a0you pay $800 or $8,000 for the trip, your pictures will be just as beautiful. Take that extra cash and tack on some time enjoying Santiago or the incredible street art of Valparaiso before heading back to the States.<\/p>\n By Anthony Sodd<\/span> \/ ![\"2\"](\"https:\/\/www.theexpeditioner.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1) Fly on Miles<\/h1>\n
![\"3\"](\"https:\/\/www.theexpeditioner.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n2) Don\u2019t Take a Tour<\/h1>\n
![\"4\"](\"https:\/\/www.theexpeditioner.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n3) Camp<\/h1>\n
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<\/p>\n4) Bring Your Own Food\/Booze<\/h1>\n
5) Rent Your Gear<\/h1>\n
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<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Anthony](\"http:\/\/theexpeditioner.com\/Images\/Twittersmallround.png\")
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![\"Anthony](\"https:\/\/www.theexpeditioner.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Anthony-Sodd-Bio-Picture.jpg\" "\\"Anthony")
You\u2019ll likely find Anthony traveling, hiking, cooking or horribly mangling photos in Photoshop. When that doesn\u2019t work, he drinks whiskey. Anthony used to cover city news, business and politics for