Santiago runs on cheap metro rides and free entry. The national museums charge nothing, market cocinerías serve a three-course lunch for the price of a coffee, and the best Andes viewpoint is a free walk uphill. Three days here for under $25.000 CLP a day.
Chile's national art museum in a 1910 Beaux-Arts palace with a glass-vaulted central hall. The permanent collection of Chilean painting and sculpture is free; open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:45, closed Mondays. The contemporary art museum shares the building.
South America's largest cemetery, opened in 1821: 86 hectares of mausoleum avenues holding Chilean presidents, Violeta Parra and Salvador Allende, plus the Memorial del Detenido Desaparecido. Free entry every day, roughly 08:30 to 18:00.
A free museum on the 1973–1990 dictatorship: Allende's last radio broadcast, smuggled letters from detention camps and a wall of some 3.200 portraits of the disappeared. Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00, Metro Quinta Normal 200m away.
A 36-hectare botanical park laid out in 1841, with a rowing lagoon and open grounds around the railway museum, then a ten-minute walk east into Barrio Yungay, where Calle Esperanza and Plaza Yungay are covered in large-scale murals.
Santiago's wholesale fruit and vegetable market, over a thousand stalls under one roof since 1895. Avocados, cherimoya and Chilean strawberries cost a fraction of supermarket prices. Open daily from 06:00, busiest between 08:00 and 12:00.
The upstairs food galleries of the Tirso de Molina market: about twenty family cocinerías ladling cazuela, fried pescada and lentejas onto plastic tablecloths. A menú del día with soup, main and juice runs $4.000–6.000 CLP. Open until 17:00.
The Korean and Palestinian garment district north of the Mapocho: hundreds of wholesale clothing shops along Loreto and Antonia López de Bello, plus shawarma stands and sopaipilla carts on every corner. Shops close Sundays and by 19:00 weekdays.
A 1916 working-class bar beside Estación Mapocho, famous for the terremoto — pipeño wine topped with pineapple ice cream — at roughly $3.500 CLP a glass, with arrollado and chorrillana to share. Loud, cash only, full from 18:00.
The 880m hill above Bellavista: a free 45-minute walking path from the Pío Nono gate up to the 22-metre Virgen de la Inmaculada Concepción, with the Andes lined up behind the city on clear mornings. Gates open around 08:30.
A free riverside sculpture park in Providencia holding around thirty Chilean works along the Mapocho, reached by the Pedro de Valdivia footbridge. Open daily 09:00–19:00, with shaded lawns built for picnics and Cerro San Cristóbal rising opposite.
A craft village beside an 18th-century church at the eastern end of Metro Line 1: around 160 workshops selling lapis lazuli, alpaca knitwear and hammered copper, with free entry, peacocks wandering the courtyards and cheap sopaipillas.
A rusted-steel cultural centre on the Alameda with free galleries, open walkways and a rooftop terrace over the city, plus skaters filling the plaza at dusk. Exhibition halls run Tuesday to Friday 10:00–21:00 and most shows cost nothing.