Cumbres Lastarria

The Ritz-Carlton, Santiago, stands in El Golf, the city's most prestigious district — 205 recently redesigned rooms across 14 floors, crowned by a glass cupola housing a rooftop indoor pool with Andes views. Estró plates South American and Mediterranean cooking, Wine 365 is a Chilean wine bar with a different label for every night of the year, and an old-world lobby bar keeps a Macallan club and afternoon tea. The rooftop spa and fitness centre sit under the same glass dome, and the Club Lounge is the best in Santiago — a polished base for the city, Andes ski and wine country.

The Singular Patagonia is carved from a 1915 cold-storage plant — a National Monument — on the shores of Last Hope Sound near Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine. A Leading Hotels of the World property, its 57 oversized rooms have six-metre floor-to-ceiling fjord windows, and the original frigorífico machinery survives as a lobby museum. Two award-winning restaurants and a loft bar plate French technique over Patagonian produce; a fjord-view indoor-outdoor pool and hydrotherapy spa warm the body; and 20-plus guided excursions run into the national park, with an all-inclusive option.

Explora Atacama was the first 5-star all-inclusive lodge in San Pedro — the 'get out of the hotel' expedition pioneer — on a 42-acre estate at the foot of the Andes volcanoes. Fifty rooms (José Cruz Ovalle architecture) run 33 to 50 square metres, each with a terrace, over a three-night minimum. Four interconnected pools and an adobe spa handle the downtime; an on-site observatory holds San Pedro's largest private telescope; the lodge keeps its own stables; and the all-inclusive rate covers 40-plus guided expeditions to salt flats, geysers, the Valley of the Moon and volcano ascents, plus the exclusive Puritama hot springs.