3 Best Sights in The Lake District, Chile

Some 20% of Chile's 1.4 million indigenous Mapuche live on reducciones, or reservations. One of the most welcoming communities is this settlement of Mapuche and Huilliches on Isla Huapi, a leafy island in the middle of deep-blue Lago Ranco. A boat departs from Futrono, on the northern shore of the lake, at 7:30 am every day except Thursday, returning at 4 pm. The pastoral quiet of Isla Huapi is broken once a year in January or February with the convening of the island council, in conjunction with the Lepún harvest festival. You are welcome during the festival, but be courteous and unobtrusive with your camera.

Close to the city center, Cuarto Centenario Park was established in 1958 to celebrate the city's 400th anniversary. A popular picnic and recreation spot, the park is about 67,000 square meters in size and has bicycle paths, playgrounds, and lots of green space to escape the urban jungle. Among the more than 20 species in the small forest of the park are younger specimens of the ancient Sequoia trees native to California.

Close to Puerto Montt, the mountainous 398-square-km (154-square-mile) Parque Nacional Alerce Andino, with more than 40 small lakes, was primarily established to protect the endangered alerce trees that are spread out upon some 20,000-hectares (49,421 acres) of the park. Comparable to California's redwood trees, alerce grow to average heights of 50 meters (165 feet) and can reach 5 meters (16 feet) in diameter. Immensely popular as building material for houses and furniture in southern Chile, they have been nearly wiped out from the landscape. They are also the world's second-oldest living tree species, many living up to 4,000 years.