Things to do
20-
Catedral de Ancud
This working cathedral, finished in 2014, gives you a first look at the island's church style with nothing to book. Step in from the Plaza de Armas on any walk round the centre.
View more → -
Costanera de Ancud
For the one high view over the bay, climb the lookout tower at the schooner plaza, then walk the seafront with the fishing boats at your side.
View more → -
Mercado Municipal
Best for knitwear in Chilote wool, with baskets and carved wood on the stalls beside it, and for a curanto lunch at the kitchen counters in the same building.
View more → -
Centro de Visitantes Inmaculada Concepción
The foundation that restores the island's wooden churches works from this building, and carpenters train in a school here. Come before you drive south to see the churches themselves.
-
Chacao
Chacao is where the ferry from Pargua lands on Chiloé, a small village older than Ancud itself. Most arrivals from the mainland come ashore here. Beyond the ramp, a small square, a church and the towers of the unfinished Chacao bridge are the sights.
-
Chepu
The 1960 earthquake dropped the valley of the Río Chepu below the tide, and the grey trunks of the drowned forest still stand in its channels and lagoons. The estuary has been a nature sanctuary since 2020, and the classic way to see it is by kayak at dawn, on still water. It lies about 30 km southwest of Ancud, so plan on most of a morning.
-
Faro Punta Corona
Worth driving out even when the compound is shut: the light stands 66 m above the sea and still flashes every ten seconds. The last stretch of road runs along the open Pacific.
-
Fuerte Ahui
Start in the small site museum. Its finds, dug from this ground, show how the garrison lived, so the cannons and powder magazine outside make more sense afterwards.
-
Fuerte San Antonio
Under the cliff, a side path off the esplanade drops to a small beach of calm water. It is the quietest place in town to watch the bay at dusk, and the guns are a short climb back up.
-
Humedal de Caulín
Both Chilean flamingos and swans feed on this shore, and the restaurants along it serve oysters farmed off the same beach.
-
Islotes de Puñihuil
Come in December or January, when the colony is fullest. Pack a zoom lens, because the boats must keep well back from the penguins, and a warm layer for the wind on the water.
-
Mirador Cerro Hueihuén
A hill just over 100 metres high, 2.3 km on foot from the Plaza de Armas, gives the widest view in Ancud. The summit takes in the town, the Chacao channel, the Cochinos islet and, across the water, the mainland coast toward Carelmapu.
-
Museo Regional
Before you head out to the coast, give it an hour on your first day. The blue whale in the courtyard stranded at Pumillahue, on the road to the penguins, and the earthquake room explains how the drowned forest at Chepu was made.
-
Península de Lacuy
An hour or two past the fort and the lighthouse takes in the Chaicura and Balcacura gun batteries, with trails and lookouts over the water on both sides. At Balcacura you can see mounds of shells from early indigenous settlements.
-
Piedra Run
An outcrop on the Mar Brava shore that local legend says hums when wind and waves pass through it, with a story of buried pirate treasure attached. A viewpoint on the road above looks down on the rock and along the coast. It is a short stop on the way to or from the Puñihuil boats.
-
Playa Arena Gruesa
A curve of coarse sand faces the Gulf of Quetalmahue below a bluff on the north side of town, about a kilometre on foot from the main square. A campsite and a hotel sit on the headland above it. The water is cold all year, so come for a walk at low tide or for the sunset from the top of the bluff.
-
Playa Lechagua
Lechagua is a long beach about 5 km west of Ancud, and in summer a stretch of it was the first on the island officially opened for swimming, with lifeguards on duty. It is a few minutes by car, with free parking behind the sand. The water is cold even in January, so most visits are a long walk at low tide.
-
Playa Mar Brava
From the fishing cove of Polocué to Piedra Run, walk the whole beach on a windy afternoon. On a big day the surf breaks white right across the bay.
-
Pumillahue
A fishing settlement on a bay of blue water and green headland on the Pacific side, a few kilometres short of the Puñihuil cove. The blue whale skeleton now in the Ancud museum came from an animal stranded here in 2005. Lodgings and cafés open mainly in summer, and the road in is partly gravel.
-
Quetalmahue
Quetalmahue is a mussel-farming village on the inner shore of the gulf, on the road from Ancud to the Lacuy peninsula. Boats work the long rows of floats in the bay below the houses, and seaweed dries beside the road. The forts lie further along the same road.
