Villarrica is a town of about 50,000 people on the western shore of Lake Villarrica in the Araucania region of southern Chile, and the first photograph is not a special effect. VILLARRICA VOLCANO, which the Mapuche call RUCAPILLAN, is one of the most active volcanoes in South America, it has a permanent lava lake in its crater, and on clear nights the glow is visible from the town. It erupted in March 2015, closing the airport at Temuco and evacuating thousands, and it has been raised to alert level repeatedly since. The town takes its name from it, the lake takes its name from it, and the climb to the crater rim is what most visitors come for.
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What Is Here
THE VOLCANO CLIMB IS THE MAIN EVENT AND IT IS A GUIDED ASCENT RATHER THAN A WALK. It is about 2,847 metres, the ascent takes five to seven hours from the car park with a chairlift shortening the first section, and it involves snow and ice almost all year, which means crampons, an ice axe and a helmet, all of which the agencies supply. A GUIDE IS MANDATORY and the national parks service controls access. it is cancelled frequently, for weather, for wind on the summit cone and for volcanic alert level, and the honest planning advice is to allow three or four days in the area if the climb is the reason you came, rather than one. The descent is partly a glissade on the snow, which people enjoy more than they expect.
THE SECOND PHOTOGRAPH IS THE VIEW THAT SELLS THE REGION AND THE TOWN ITSELF IS ABSENT FROM OUR SET. Said plainly. Villarrica is a working Chilean lake town rather than a resort: a main street, a market, a lakefront with black volcanic sand, a German and Mapuche settlement history, and a quieter and cheaper feel than Pucon across the water. The MUSEO HISTORICO Y ARQUEOLOGICO holds Mapuche material and is small and worth half an hour.
PUCON IS 25 KILOMETRES EAST AND IT IS A DIFFERENT PROPOSITION. Worth stating because the two are constantly confused and because almost all the tour operators for this volcano are based there. Pucon is the adventure-tourism town, busier, more expensive and more geared to visitors; Villarrica is the quieter base on the same lake with the same volcano above it and a better view of it. Most people who book Villarrica are choosing the calmer and cheaper half deliberately, and the bus between them runs constantly.
THE ARAUCARIA FORESTS ARE THE REGION'S OTHER DISTINCTION AND THEY ARE ALSO ABSENT FROM OUR IMAGES. The ARAUCARIA ARAUCANA, the monkey puzzle, is a living fossil, grows only here and in a narrow strip of Argentina, can live more than a thousand years, and is sacred to the Mapuche, whose Pehuenche people took their name and their staple food from its seeds. The third photograph is the temperate forest it grows in. HUERQUEHUE NATIONAL PARK, about an hour away, is where to see mature stands of it.
AND THIS IS MAPUCHE COUNTRY, WHICH IS CENTRAL RATHER THAN DECORATIVE. The Araucania is the heartland of the Mapuche, the people who held off Spanish and then Chilean conquest for some 350 years, longer than any other indigenous nation in the Americas, until the Chilean military campaign of the 1880s. About a third of the region's population identifies as Mapuche. That history is live and it is the background to the safety section below, which is better read than skipped.
When to Go
December to March is summer and it is the climbing and lake season, in the high teens to low twenties, the driest window, with the volcano most likely to be ascendable and the town busy with Chilean holidaymakers in January and February.
October, November and April are good and quieter, in the mid teens, wetter, with the climb less reliable.
June to September is winter and it is a SKI SEASON, with a small resort on the volcano's flank. Cold, wet and snowy, in the single figures, with the lake grey and the town very quiet. The volcano climb is generally not run.
THE RAIN IS THE THING TO PLAN FOR IN ANY SEASON. This is a temperate rainforest region and the annual total is well over 2,000 millimetres in places, concentrated from April to September. Summer is relatively dry rather than dry.
Getting There
Temuco's airport is about an hour away with flights from Santiago of roughly an hour and three quarters. By road Santiago is about nine hours and Valdivia about three; long-distance buses are good.
Buses between Villarrica and Pucon run every few minutes and take about forty minutes, which makes staying in the cheaper town and using the other one's operators entirely practical.
You do not need a car in the town and you will want one or a tour for the national parks. Huerquehue, the volcano park entrance and the hot springs east of Pucon all need transport, and tours are the normal answer.
Note that the volcano park road and the mountain roads are gravel, steep and occasionally closed for snow or volcanic alert, and that a hire car is not insured for some of them.
The Villarrica Packing List
Snow and ice on the volcano all year, two thousand millimetres of rain, a cool lake and strong high-altitude sun.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the correct base for the volcano climb specifically, and it is worth being exact about why. You will start in the dark at around five degrees, work extremely hard uphill for five hours and sweat heavily, then stand on an exposed summit cone in wind and sulphur at close to freezing. THAT SEQUENCE IS WHERE COTTON BECOMES DANGEROUS RATHER THAN MERELY UNCOMFORTABLE, because a wet cotton layer on a cold summit strips heat fast. Wool keeps insulating when damp. Add a heavyweight merino base layer for the summit and for winter.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece in every month, and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket. For the climb the agencies issue a hard shell, so check what is included before buying anything heavier.
Waterproof walking boots with a stiff enough sole to take a crampon if you intend to climb, which is worth confirming with your operator, since boots are usually hired and the fit of hired boots is the commonest complaint.
Merino glove liners and a merino beanie, both mandatory for the summit in any season and useful in the town from April to October.
Not linked and worth packing: A BUFF OR SCARF FOR THE SULPHUR, because the crater gases are genuinely unpleasant and a cloth over the face helps, left unlinked because the only neck gaiter in our affiliate registry has a contested product identity; HIGH FACTOR SUNSCREEN AND LIP BALM, because snow at nearly 3,000 metres reflects brutally and sunburn on a cold day is the commonest injury on this climb; SUNGLASSES OR GOGGLES, not optional on snow; CHILEAN PESOS IN CASH; AND A DRY BAG for the rain.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Villarrica
Emergency numbers in Chile: 131 reaches the ambulance service, 132 the fire service and 133 the Carabineros police, all free from any phone. 130 reaches CONAF for a forest fire and 137 is maritime rescue, which applies on the lake. SERNAGEOMIN publishes the volcanic alert level and ONEMI, the national disaster service, publishes the evacuation plans. Coverage is good in the town and absent on the mountain.
THE VOLCANO IS THE FIRST THING AND THE FCDO NAMES IT BY NAME. Its volcano section lists the active Chilean volcanoes and VILLARRICA IS ONE OF THEM, alongside the Los Lagos chain, Chaiten, Llaima, Lascar and Copahue, with the instruction to monitor local media and the official monitoring advice if you are travelling in those areas. In practice that means one thing: CHECK THE SERNAGEOMIN ALERT LEVEL, which runs green, yellow, orange and red, before you commit to the climb or to a night in the valley. It changes, the 2015 eruption came after a period at raised alert, and a raised level closes the park rather than merely discouraging you. Do not print a level from any guidebook including this one; read the current one. The town has an evacuation plan with marked routes for a lahar, which is the real hazard a volcano like this presents to a lakeside town: meltwater and ash moving fast down a drainage. Know which way is uphill and away from a river channel.
THE ARAUCANIA IS THE ONE CHILEAN REGION THE FCDO GIVES ITS OWN SECTION, AND BOTH HALVES OF THAT MUST BE SAID. First, the reassuring half, which is also the legally important one: THERE ARE NO ADVISED-AGAINST AREAS ANYWHERE IN CHILE. The phrase does not appear on either the safety and security page or the regional risks page. So travelling here is not travelling against official advice, and it does not touch your travel insurance, which is the question that actually matters financially. Second, the half that is not reassuring: the FCDO records ongoing civil unrest in the Araucania region, ESPECIALLY AROUND TEMUCO, with attacks by groups of demonstrators on people and property, and AN ONGOING STATE OF EMERGENCY IN THE PROVINCES OF BIOBIO, ARAUCO, CAUTIN AND MALLECO WITH THE MILITARY ASSISTING REGIONAL POLICE. VILLARRICA IS IN CAUTIN PROVINCE. That is stated here rather than buried because a reader who looks it up afterwards should not be surprised by it. WHAT IT MEANS IN PRACTICE, said as plainly as we can: the conflict is a long-running dispute over Mapuche land, involving communities, forestry companies and the Chilean state, and its violent incidents are overwhelmingly rural, concentrated in the forestry districts of Malleco and Arauco and on the highways through them, and directed at forestry machinery, plantations, trucks and farms rather than at foreign visitors. Roadblocks and burnt vehicles on rural routes are the form it takes. THE OPERATIVE ADVICE IS ABOUT ROUTES AND TIMING RATHER THAN ABOUT WHETHER TO COME: travel between towns by daylight on the main paved roads and by bus rather than driving unfamiliar rural back routes at night; if you meet a roadblock, do not argue, do not film, turn around; and do not photograph police or military operations. The lake corridor between Villarrica and Pucon is the region's tourist economy and is comparatively untouched by this. A state of emergency here is a policing arrangement rather than a curfew for visitors, and you are unlikely to notice it beyond seeing military vehicles.
THE REST IS ORDINARY AND THE ADVISORY IS CLEAR ABOUT IT. The FCDO's Chilean crime section names MUGGINGS as frequent in SANTIAGO AND VALPARAISO, increasingly with guns and knives, in daylight and in plain sight, WITH THE EXPLICIT ADVICE NOT TO RESIST; this is a small lake town and the realistic risk is opportunistic theft at the bus terminal and from a parked car at a trailhead. It names DRINK SPIKING in Santiago nightlife areas, and TAXI SCAMS AT SANTIAGO AIRPORT, where criminals pose as authorised drivers inside the arrivals hall, which matters because most visitors arrive that way: book and pay inside the terminal before you exit. EARTHQUAKES apply nationally; read the instructions in your hotel room. THE LANDMINE WARNING DOES NOT REACH HERE, which is worth saying rather than leaving ambiguous: it covers regions XV, I and II in the far north and region XII in the far south, and this is region IX. THE LAKE IS GLACIAL-FED AND COLD, around 15 to 19 degrees at best in February, cold enough for cold shock. AND THE CLIMB ITSELF IS THE MOST LIKELY THING TO HURT YOU, with altitude, ice, sulphur gas and sunburn on snow all in one day.
US State Department travel advisory: the Chile advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/chile, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: the Hospital de Villarrica has an emergency department for a town of this size, with the regional hospital in Temuco about an hour away for anything serious, which is where a climbing injury goes. Private clinics in Villarrica and Pucon handle routine care faster if you are insured. CHECK THAT YOUR TRAVEL INSURANCE COVERS GUIDED HIGH-ALTITUDE VOLCANO ASCENTS, because many policies exclude mountaineering or anything requiring crampons and an ice axe, and this climb requires both. Dial 131 for an ambulance. Chile has no reciprocal health agreement with the UK or the United States, so travel insurance with medical cover is essential. Private clinics in Santiago and the larger cities are excellent and expensive and will ask for payment or an insurance guarantee before treating you; the public system is good by regional standards but slower for a visitor. A farmacia handles minor problems. TAP WATER IS DRINKABLE across most of the country including Santiago, which is unusual in South America, though it is heavily mineralised in the north and many visitors prefer bottled there. THE TWO REAL ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS ARE ALTITUDE AND ULTRAVIOLET: the altiplano and the Atacama run above 4,000 metres on ordinary excursions, and the combination of thin dry air and latitude gives northern Chile some of the highest surface ultraviolet measured anywhere.
The authority that decides whether you climb: CONAF, the national forestry corporation, runs Villarrica National Park and Huerquehue and decides daily whether the volcano route is open, how many people may go and with which operators, and it closes the mountain for weather and for volcanic alert. SERNAGEOMIN sets the alert level that CONAF acts on. Read both rather than trusting an operator's optimism, and accept a cancellation without arguing.
Official health authority: the Chilean Ministry of Health on the national government portal, covers the health ministry's own pages on the government portal, which is the working address for it
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Santiago.
Official tourism authority: Chile Travel, the national tourism board, covers the country, and the Araucania regional tourism office publishes the park access rules, the registered volcano guide operators and the ski season dates
Takeaways
Check the SERNAGEOMIN alert level before you commit. The volcano erupted in 2015.
No advised-against areas anywhere in Chile. There is a state of emergency in this province.
The climb needs a guide, crampons and an ice axe. Allow three days for weather.
Pucon is 25 kilometres east and is the busier, pricier half of the same lake.
Solo women safety assessment: Villarrica is a manageable and generally easy place to travel alone, and it needs more explanation than most. It is a small Chilean lake town with a tourist economy, an active hostel and agency scene, buses to Pucon every few minutes, and a lakefront main street where eating alone and joining a group climb are entirely ordinary. THE LEGAL POSITION FIRST, because it is the part people get wrong: there are NO advised-against areas anywhere in Chile, so coming here is not travelling against official advice and your insurance is unaffected. THE PART THAT NEEDS SAYING is that the FCDO gives the Araucania its own section, recording civil unrest especially around Temuco and an ongoing state of emergency in four provinces including CAUTIN, which is this one, with the military assisting regional police. That conflict is a long-running dispute over Mapuche land involving communities, forestry companies and the state; its violence is overwhelmingly rural, concentrated in the forestry districts and on the highways through them, aimed at machinery, plantations and farms rather than at visitors, and the lake corridor between here and Pucon is comparatively untouched. The operative advice is about routes rather than about whether to come: move between towns by daylight on main paved roads and by bus, do not drive unfamiliar rural routes at night, and if you meet a roadblock do not argue or film, just turn around. Ordinary crime here is opportunistic theft at the bus terminal and from parked cars; the FCDO's mugging warning names Santiago and Valparaiso rather than this region, and its Santiago airport taxi scam matters because most people arrive that way. THE LIKELIEST THING TO HURT YOU IS THE MOUNTAIN. Check the SERNAGEOMIN alert level, accept a cancellation, confirm your insurance covers a crampon-and-ice-axe ascent, and know the town's lahar evacuation route. 131 IS THE AMBULANCE AND 133 THE POLICE, with the regional hospital in Temuco an hour away.
Reading On
Villarrica is at the northern end of the Chilean lake district and this library covers the country from the desert to Cape Horn. The Puerto Varas packing list covers the German-settled lake town further south with its own volcano above it, which is the closest comparison to this one, and the Puerto Montt packing list the port where the road to Patagonia begins. The Chiloe packing list covers the island beyond, and the Carretera Austral packing list, Coyhaique packing list, Torres del Paine packing list and Punta Arenas packing list the far south. North, the Santiago packing list and Valparaiso packing list cover the capital and the port, the Vina del Mar packing list the beach resort beside it, and the Atacama packing list and Iquique packing list the desert north. Across the Andes, the Bariloche packing list covers the Argentine lake district on the other side of the same mountains. For the country, the Chile travel guide for women carries the regions, the transport and the seasons in full. For why wool rather than cotton on a climb that soaks you and then freezes you, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection. Downstream and west, the Valdivia packing list covers the river city that the largest earthquake ever recorded destroyed in 1960.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
