Valparaíso is a vertical city with fifteen century-old hill lifts and a surface train stitching it to Viña del Mar. Understanding those two things is understanding how to get around it.
Transport in Valparaíso works on two axes. The horizontal one is the Merval: a single urban rail line between Puerto and Limache, 21 stations, running along the coast and linking Valparaíso with Viña del Mar, Quilpué and Villa Alemana.
The vertical ones are the ascensores: funiculars from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that climb the hills. Fewer are in service than there once were, but several in the centre run and they are both the logical way up and a monument in themselves.
The city splits between El Plan, the flat strip by the port where the Merval runs, and the hills, where everything you came for is. Alegre and Concepción are the two that concentrate the murals, the viewpoints and the restaurants.
The train is also the obvious way to sleep in Viña and visit Valpo, or the reverse: fifteen minutes between the two and trains every six minutes at peak.
Valparaíso is walked and climbed. These seven are the ones we think are worth the gradient.
Everything above you can do on your own with this page open. This other thing we build for you: the same idea as always — you do not know what you got until the day before — applied to Valparaíso.
You choose where you fly from and where you are going, and we tell you what the adventure costs and roughly what getting there would cost. Flights and accommodation you book yourself: we are not a travel agency and we do not want to be.
The Merval charges by zone and by time of day: the same journey costs more at peak. There are three zones — A, B and C — between Puerto and Limache.
What ruins the most plans here is the weekend: on Sunday the first train from Puerto does not leave until nine. If you have something early in Viña, count on a bus.
If you want it line by line — which stations each one has, what is around every stop and how to work out a specific journey — we have all of it at our Merval guide. It is one of the sites we publish ourselves, and it is free.
Valparaíso has no airport of its own: you arrive via Santiago, about a hundred and twenty kilometres away.
Two full days cover Cerros Alegre and Concepción, La Sebastiana, the port and an afternoon in Viña. With three you fit Isla Negra or the coast towards Concón without rushing.
It crosses a zone: $930 off-peak and $1,030 at peak. It takes about fifteen minutes and there are trains every six minutes in the busiest windows.
No. Of those that once existed, some are in service and a few go in and out of maintenance. The ones on Cerro Alegre and Concepción — Reina Victoria, El Peral, Concepción — are the ones normally used for a visit.
Valparaíso if you are here for the city, the street art and the nights; Viña if you want beach and something quieter. With the Merval in between the decision matters little: it is fifteen minutes.
The tourist centre and Cerros Alegre and Concepción are walked without trouble by day. As in any large port city, it is worth not displaying cameras or phones in empty areas and coming back at night along main streets.
This is what we do when we travel. The other thing we do is build adventures where you do not know which activity you got until the day before.
