Adventure Tourism In Chile: 7 Times The Best In The World

We got used to looking at adventure as if it were always better told somewhere else. Costa Rica with its perfect rainforest. New Zealand with its cinematic epic. Argentine Patagonia with its end-of-the-world marketing. Meanwhile, Chile was doing its thing: putting desert, volcanoes, glaciers, forests, wild rivers and the Andes into one impossible strip of land. It was not a loose postcard. It was an entire country built for adventure, even if we often said it quietly.

The data does not ask for permission. In the 2024 Adventure Tourism Development Index (ATDI), produced by the Adventure Travel Trade Association and George Washington University's International Institute of Tourism Studies, Chile ranks 2nd among emerging and developing economies, behind Costa Rica and ahead of Thailand. In the World Economic Forum's 2024 Travel & Tourism Development Index (TTDI), which measures general tourism development, Chile ranks 31st globally with a score of 4.33. It sits below Japan (3rd, 5.09), New Zealand (25th, 4.41) and Brazil (26th, 4.41), but ahead of Argentina (49th, 4.10), Colombia (50th, 4.08) and Costa Rica (51st, 4.08). Yes, Costa Rica, the global nature brand everybody knows. Chile appears 20 places higher.

It is worth pausing here, not to cool down the story, but to tell it properly. The TTDI is the World Economic Forum index that reviews whether a country has the conditions to develop tourism: infrastructure, safety, resources, sustainability and business environment, among other factors. The ATDI looks at something more specific: adventure tourism. One tells us how prepared a country is to receive and sustain tourism; the other asks how competitive it is for adventure. When both data points cross, a simple truth appears: Chile is not bacán because it has pretty landscapes. It is bacán because it turned those landscapes into a recognizable, measurable and hard-to-copy advantage.

It is not about bragging. It is about looking at the ranking, looking at the map and accepting that Chile was already playing in adventure's big leagues.

The Ranking That Places Us Where We Belong

The Adventure Tourism Development Index (ATDI) assessed 186 countries in 2024. To compare fairly, it separated advanced economies from emerging and developing economies. In that second group, Chile ranked 2nd. The phrase sounds technical, but it says something very concrete: when the specialized world looks at which countries have better conditions for adventure tourism, Chile appears near the top. Not out of affection. Not because of a campaign. Because of data.

Adventure, when taken seriously, is not just jumping into a river, climbing a hill or taking a photo in front of a glacier. Behind each experience there are routes, guides, permits, connectivity, safety, weather, reputation and the ability to operate without leaving everything to luck. That is where Chile starts to show strength. Specialist press citing the index places the country 3rd in sustainable development, 6th in safety and entrepreneurship, and 10th in climate resilience within its group. Put without jargon: we have extreme nature, but also conditions for turning that nature into experience.

Then come the World Travel Awards (WTA), which play on a different field. They are not an academic index and do not replace the ATDI or the TTDI. They are tourism industry awards, based on voting and commercial recognition. But they matter too, because they show which destinations are in the minds of the people who sell, recommend and buy travel. In 2025, Chile was again chosen as the World's Leading Adventure Tourism Destination. It is not the whole proof, but it is a powerful signal: the tourism world already knows something we sometimes struggle to say ourselves.

The history matters because it was not a lucky one-time appearance. Chile won the WTA world adventure tourism title in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2025. Costa Rica won in 2022; the Azores Islands, Portugal, won in 2023 and 2024. So there was real competition. There was a pause. There were other winners. And Chile still came back. That is the part worth keeping: this is not a made-up medal to lift our spirits, but a track record sustained over time and aligned with technical rankings.

A Country Where Many Worlds Fit

The most visible reason is on the map. Chile looks as if someone tried to fit too many landscapes into too little width. According to the Köppen climate classification, which organizes climates by temperature and precipitation, the country contains the five major climate groups of the planet: tropical, dry, temperate, continental and polar. Studies on continental Chile identify 25 Köppen-Geiger types. Translated into travel language: you can build completely different trips without changing countries.

In the north there is the Atacama, with altitude, salt flats, volcanoes and skies that seem made for looking farther. In central Chile, the Andes, valleys and coast are close enough to mix snow, city, wine and sea in just a few days. In the south come lakes, temperate forests, rivers, hot springs and volcanoes. Farther down, Patagonia changes the scale: glaciers, fjords, wind, steppe and parks that feel like an open frontier. The bacán part is that Chile does not need to import an epic. The country already carries one.

The volcanic layer adds one of those facts that should travel more. Sources associated with SERNAGEOMIN and Chile's National Volcanic Monitoring Network describe Chile as one of the planet's most relevant volcanic territories: more than 2,000 volcanoes, around 500 considered geologically active, about 92 potentially active and 45 instrumentally monitored by the national network. The figures change depending on the definition, because a geologically active volcano is not the same as a potentially active or monitored one. But the conclusion does not move much: Chile has an extraordinary volcanic concentration.

Nevado Ojos del Salado sums it up in one image. It rises 6,893 meters above sea level, sits on the Chilean-Argentine border and is the highest volcano in the world. Not everyone will climb it, of course. But its existence says something about the country's physical standard. Chile does not need to exaggerate to sound impressive. Sometimes it is enough to say the right number.

The Part That Does Not Fit In The Postcard

There is another layer, less flashy but decisive. Having extreme landscapes is not enough if there are no ways to visit them, care for them and organize them. That is where the National System of State Protected Wilderness Areas (SNASPE), managed by CONAF, comes in. The network includes 110 units: 46 national parks, 45 national reserves and 19 natural monuments. Together they cover 18.8 million hectares, equivalent to more than 21% of Chile's territory. Put simply: a huge part of the Chile that moves visitors belongs to a public conservation network.

That does not mean everything works perfectly. It would be strange, and not very honest, to say it that way. But it does mean there is a base on which nature tourism can be built with more order. Trails, signage, access information, management plans and park rangers do not sound as spectacular as a photo in Torres del Paine, but they make it possible for that photo to exist for thousands of people without the destination depending on pure improvisation. What seems administrative is also part of the adventure.

The registration of adventure tourism providers with SERNATUR adds another piece. Tourism Law 20.423 and its regulation establish obligations to formalize tourism services, including adventure activities. That does not remove risk, because adventure always contains uncertainty. But it helps organize the game: it makes providers identifiable, pushes standards and ensures the experience does not depend only on the guide's goodwill or the traveler's enthusiasm.

The scale confirms this is no longer a distant promise. In 2024, Chile received 5,239,233 international tourists, according to SERNATUR. That was a 40.4% increase from 2023 and 16.0% above 2019. The country began moving again as an international destination, and adventure has a huge opportunity there: receiving more people without losing what makes the trip valuable. That is the hard balance. It is also the challenge that separates a nice postcard from a serious destination.

That is why this story does not need inflation. We do not need to say we are the only ones, the best at everything or chosen by some mysterious destiny. It is enough to look at what is already there: Chile ranks 2nd among emerging economies in the specialized adventure tourism ranking; it stands ahead of Costa Rica, Colombia and Argentina in global tourism development; it has seven WTA world titles; it contains five major climate groups; it has one of the planet's most notable volcanic concentrations; and it manages 18.8 million hectares of protected areas. It was there. We just needed to stop shrinking in front of the data, recognize it and share it, which is exactly why we are bacán.