Kayaking in Chile

Chile is a dream destination for kayakers, offering an incredible mix of thrilling rapids, crystal-clear rivers, and breathtaking scenery. Our Chile Pucon trip takes you on an unforgettable journey through world-class whitewater—featuring iconic creeks, exhilarating waterfalls, steep rapids, and dynamic boulder gardens. With easy access to a variety of runs, every day brings a new adventure.

Paddle the legendary Pucon or Futaleufu sections individually, or take on the ultimate challenge with a 28-day expedition that combines both for an epic paddling experience. Whether you’re chasing adrenaline or soaking in the stunning landscapes, this is a trip you won’t want to miss!

Whitewater Kayaking Holidays

The following itinerary may change to suit the needs of the group. For first week we will stay in Pucon Kayak Hostel and in second week we will stay at Cabin at Fuy.

Welcome to Chile! Arrive in Temuco and drive 3 hours to our base at Pucon Kayak Retreat. This is the adventure capital of Chile where you’ll be based for the rest of your trip in cabins on the Trancura River. Get ready to start paddling tomorrow.

Warm up on our home run section with Trancura. Both the lower and upper river sections are fun to paddle full of nice moves to start with.

Work on your drop skills on Upper Palguin doing laps on double drop and practicing timing, position and boof stroke!

Catch it before it runs out! Lower Palguin has smaller drops but more continous character. Hopefuly we can catch low water run on the last bits of flow to enjoy this classic run.

Option for easier day with less driving on local run coming back with new skills to Trancura or taking day off for a hike or relax on the beach!

Sometimes it is simply time to relax, sit down, enjoy living by the river and gather energy for next days!

Come back to spectacular waterfalls of upper section, it’s time to polish these boofing skills!

Depending on the water level we can either head to Puesco or come back to one of the sections we have already done to enjoy known run or work on more skills.

Today is full of big drops and big slides – solid Class IIII and IV sections where you can challenge yourself. After spectacular drive – we will head to Fuy valley.

Overnight expedition on the San Pedro River. Often referred to as the Mini Futaleufu River of the north, the San Pedro is big and pushy and mainly consists of big rapids. The water colour is nothing short of spectacular!

Great warm up to our visit are Rio Fuy valley!

Probably the best section for continous kayaking and real taste of Rio Fuy

Our last run will be upper Fuy, where we will run numerous small drops and get to famous La Leona! That will be certainly day to remember!

On this day after kayaking we will drive to Puerto Montt for departures

Fly back home from Puerto Montt or continue journey south with us by grabbing a flight to Chaiten and meeting us there to join Patagonian Adventure on Futaleufu 

Due to the nature of adventure kayaking, the following itinerary has to remain flexible. The LiLi team have coached many hundreds of people with a wide range of abilities and backgrounds on big volume across the world. This local knowledge will be used to adjust the itinerary to suit the individuals and to maximise progression over the course of the trip.

Intermediate / advanced paddlers. If you have a reasonable level of fitness, a solid whitewater roll and you are confident on grade 3+ there will be plenty of fun to be had in Chile.

A minimum group size of 3 is need to be reached for this trip to go ahead.

If you are considering Pucon + Futaleufu trip together a way to consider it is:

Fly in: home -> Santiago -> Temuco to begin, that’s easy, get your flight to Santiago and then get a seperate one to Temuco. Could be done as package too depending on rest of logistics.
Fly out: you have two options,
1. Easiest return from there is getting a flight from Esquel. A bit more trouble but I think worth it is getting a single flight from Esquel to Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro and then flying home and then getting a big flight from there (that saves you around 1000$ but is not a package booking)
2. Because a flight Santiago – Santiago may be cheaper as a package then we can drive you in to Chaiten (needs to be arranged in advance so we get timings right) for small airport where you can grab a flight from Chaiten to Puerto Montt and then fly from Puerto Montt to Santiago.

Kayak rental is $390 for a duration of the course for kayak based on availability. We can also rent you a paddle at $150 per trip. When renting please be sure to bring 2 air bags and additional hip pads/foam bits that you would have in your boat. We usually source private boats and these won’t have these pieces.