Chile together: my favourite trip

June 15, 2026by ell

Chile 2025

Atacama Desert

She was leaving for like 4-5 months, did you really think I was going to let her escape? Two weeks road tripping around Northern Chile. Along the coast, the Atacama Desert, and the beautiful Chilean mountain ranges. 3232 kilometres covered, a gazillion tubos eaten and numerous hours listening to Olivia Dean. I am writing this just before going to visit her in Perth for the first time so Chile was like 8 months ago now, but I can safely say it was my favourite trip I have ever been on!

Loopy loop of Northern Chile (from memory, I may be wrong but this looks about right...)

I was anxious at the idea of leaving. It was an intense year with Michigan experiment planned over the summer, a follow-up experiment in November and then a GEMINI experiment straight after that. Leaving to Chile for two weeks was very stressful to me. I was already stressed about the fact that I was not progressing well during my PhD (in terms of my own project, the GEMINI experiments were incredibly successful), so I knew that any time away was not exactly helping my case... Nonetheless I am in love so the question of going to see Holly was a bit of a non-question. Of course it was happening. The plan: road trip around Northern Chile.

hol&ell

hol&ell

Chile together: my favourite trip