We spent 43 days in Chile – mostly in the coastal city of Viña del Mar/Valparaiso (39 nights), with a short 4-night stay in Santiago before flying to Mexico City.

Housing Costs in Chile: Comfortable, Safe, and Convenient

Our housing expenses totaled $1,488 for those 43 nights:

• $1,272 for 39 nights in Viña del Mar
• $216 for 4 nights in Santiago

That’s roughly $35 per night, higher than our $30 per night goal. Our housing goal is $900 per month – so yes, we went over. But Viña del Mar is a beach town, and we were there over the holidays…. So the prices we paid reflected that.

If you’re curious about where we stayed. Click here. Please note: This location worked very well for us as we did not want to be in the tourist center. Ride share services are very inexpensive to get into town, either Vina del Mar or Valparaiso.
The apartment has a nice view over the neighborhood and out to the water. Communication was prompt, when we asked a question they never left us hanging. The kitchen was satisfactory. We stayed a month and do a lot of cooking so we missed having a baking sheet, a second cutting board – things you probably wouldn’t even use for a short stay. The building staff were very friendly and helpful, even when we locked ourselves out at midnight on a Sunday night.
There is a very well stocked grocery store – Santa Isabel – fairly close but the first part of the walk is up a pretty steep hill for maybe 100 meters I can not stress this enough – it is a VERY STEEP HILL. Also near the Santa Isabel are some cafes and a small mercado not shown on Google maps.

Food Costs: Eating In and Dining Out

We split our meals between cooking at home and eating out:

• We dined out 19 times, mostly in Santiago, spending $358 – below our $400 monthly goal. The area we stayed in Viña del Mar didn’t have much in the way of restaurants and we weren’t interested in paying for a ride share to go eat when we can just prepare food at home.
• Groceries cost us $612. This includes not only food but also everyday household essentials like dish soap, paper towels, aluminum foil, and spices – items we can’t carry with us from place to place and need to buy every time we move.

In total, our food spending for 43 days was $970 (or $23 per day), so less than we figured since our target number was $1146.

Activities and Local Transportation: Living Like Locals, Not Tourists

We spent $166 on activities and local transport, mostly rideshares. Museums and attractions were inexpensive or free.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about our lifestyle. We aren’t ‘on vacation’, we are simply living our lives, in a new country every couple of weeks or months.

There may be a couple of museums we’re interested in or a day trip to a nearby town… but we are usually only good for about one “activity” per week. Imagine if you were going somewhere for a one week vacation, we do the same sort of things you would plan for that week but we take a month or more to do them.

Short stays are, obviously, a different pace. When we only have 2 or 3 or 5 days in a city we get out and see something every day.

Real-Life Nomad Costs: Insurance, Subscriptions & Healthcare

Here’s where many travel budgets fall short – we include real-life expenses like insurance policies, prescription medications, and subscription renewals:

• Technology: $53 (Google Workspace and domain renewals)
• Healthcare: $359 (mostly health insurance premiums, plus prescriptions and OTC meds)
• Miscellaneous: $651 – higher than usual due to Christmas gifts for our grandkids, a Duolingo Plus renewal, and life and disability insurance policies.

Our Total Cost of Living in Chile (for 43 Days)

Our full, all-in cost of living in Chile for 43 days was $3,688 or $86 per day.

That’s just under our budget target of $3,870 (or $90 per day). So, yes – we stayed below our target, even if we overspent in some categories.

Before you go

Before we let you go we feel that we should also talk about Relocation expense; while we don’t include them in our monthly cost of living categories we do feel that we should be transparent about all our costs, so let’s talk about Relocation Expenses. 

Relocation Costs: Getting Around as Nomads

Getting from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile via 22 hours on a bus (long ride but totally worth it for the experience of crossing the Andes), then on to Viña del Mar, and back to Santiago to fly out to Mexico City cost us a grand total of….. $356.

Our target for Relocation expenses is $7,200 per year. We blew through that in 2024 with 3 intercontinental moves and will almost certainly miss it again this year.   We’ll cover that in an upcoming video & post – yes, it involves a transatlantic cruise.