While a generation of Australian luxury travellers is spending 2026 working out how to detour around a conflict zone, a quieter group has already bought tickets south. A charter flight to Santiago routes through none of it – no Middle Eastern airspace, no Gulf hubs, no disruption. And from Santiago, one of the greatest luxury circuits on earth opens up: Peru, Chile, Argentina. Not a consolation prize. By virtually every objective measure, something better.
Private plane hire within South America is what transforms this circuit from a good trip into an extraordinary one – putting remote desert lodges, Patagonian wilderness, and Amazonian river cruises on your schedule rather than the airline’s. Private jets handle the long bones of the journey beautifully: Qantas and LATAM both fly non-stop Sydney-Santiago with premium cabin product, entirely clear of the current disruptions. What happens after you land is where aircraft charter earns its place – stitching together a continent-sized itinerary on your own terms.
Europe will be waiting. But the best-travelled Australians have already moved on.
Lima: The World’s Dining Capital Most Australians Haven’t Discovered
Start here, before anywhere else. Lima has more restaurants on the World’s 50 Best list than any city in the Americas except New York – and you can eat at its finest for a fraction of what equivalent restaurants cost in London or Tokyo.
Maido, run by Nikkei chef Mitsuharu ‘Micha’ Tsumura, was named the World’s Best Restaurant in 2025. Central, Kjolle, Mayta, and Mérito also sit in the World’s 50 Best. Lima’s cuisine is the product of five centuries of improbable fusion – Indigenous Andean ingredients combined with Spanish, African, Chinese, and Japanese cooking traditions in proportions that produce something unlike anything else on earth. The most serious food travellers are now allocating three to four days in Lima purely to eat their way through a city most of their friends haven’t considered.
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Machu Picchu is real and it is extraordinary – the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge sits 200 steps from the citadel entrance, and the Hiram Bingham luxury train is one of the great rail journeys. But it’s the reason sophisticated travellers add Peru to an itinerary, not the reason they plan one around it. Lima is that reason.
Stay in Miraflores – the clifftop neighbourhood overlooking the Pacific – at the Belmond Miraflores Park Hotel or the Westin Lima. Allow four days minimum.
Peru: What’s Beyond the Sacred Valley
Peru compresses the biodiversity of a continent into a single country: 3,000 varieties of potato, a Pacific coastline, Andean highlands, and Amazon jungle. The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu are the known quantities. Everything else is still largely undiscovered by Australian luxury travellers.
The Peruvian Amazon is one of the most extraordinary wildlife environments on earth. The Aria Amazon, a five-star boutique river cruise ship, explores the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve – one of Peru’s largest protected areas – with pink river dolphins, giant river otters, and an onboard naturalist on every excursion. Colca Canyon, twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, offers condor viewing that rivals anywhere on the planet. Lake Titicaca at 3,800 metres – the world’s highest navigable lake – is home to the Inkaterra Hacienda Titilaka, an all-inclusive lodge on a private peninsula reachable only by boat.
Internal Peru connections – Lima to Cusco, Cusco to Iquitos for the Amazon gateway – are short commercial hops, but charter gives the schedule flexibility that a packed itinerary demands.
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Chile: Three Countries in One Longitude
Chile stretches over 4,000km and contains more distinct luxury experiences than most continents. Most Australians have heard of Patagonia. Almost none have been to the Atacama.
The Atacama Desert is the driest place on earth and home to the clearest night skies on the planet – the Chilean government has designated the entire region a protected dark sky zone, and the astrotourism boom it has triggered is one of the fastest-growing ultra-luxury travel trends globally. Explora Atacama – a 50-room lodge on a private 42-acre desert estate with its own observatory and resident astronomer – is among the world’s great expedition properties. Tierra Atacama was named one of the 50 greatest luxury hotels on earth by Robb Report in 2025, with Relais & Chateaux recognition and 32 suites facing the desert.
Patagonia – Torres del Paine needs no introduction for those who know it, and no amount of description does it justice for those who don’t. Tierra Patagonia – 40 rooms overlooking Lake Sarmiento and the Torres massif – is architecturally remarkable and serenely quiet. Explora Torres del Paine offers an all-inclusive lakefront lodge with guided treks and elite naturalists. Las Torres Hotel sits on a private reserve inside the park itself with direct access to the legendary W-Trek. Charter from Santiago into Punta Arenas or Puerto Natales bypasses complicated commercial connections and puts you inside the park within hours of leaving the capital.
Santiago and wine country: Casablanca and Colchagua Valleys are a short drive or charter hop from the city – private vineyard tours, cellar dinners, and winemaker lunches at family estates that are a world removed from anything the Barossa can offer.
Argentina: Buenos Aires, the Pampas, and Mendoza
Buenos Aires genuinely rivals Paris in architecture, culinary ambition, and cultural energy – and it costs a fraction of the price. The dining scene, the tango, the opera house, the weekend flea markets in San Telmo: it is a city that rewards slow travel and resists summarising.
An hour’s drive from the city, Estancia La Bamba de Areco is a Relais & Chateaux colonial estancia set within a working polo estate on the Pampas. Guests watch and participate in polo, ride with gauchos across the plains, and experience a level of Argentine rural culture entirely absent from any group tour. Peak polo season runs October to December – the Argentine Open at Palermo is the world’s most prestigious polo tournament, and attending it from an estancia is a different thing entirely from attending it as a tourist.
Mendoza, Argentina’s Malbec heartland, delivers private lunches at the vineyards of Achaval Ferrer, Zuccardi, and Catena Zapata – and helicopter flights over the Andes to Chile for a cross-border wine day that is genuinely one-of-a-kind. Charter from Buenos Aires into Mendoza avoids a complicated commercial connection and keeps the itinerary clean.
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How the Circuit Comes Together
The backbone is straightforward: Qantas or LATAM non-stop to Santiago – no Middle East, no Gulf hubs, premium product. From Santiago, every destination above is within one to three hours by air. Commercial connections within South America exist but involve scheduling compromises and fixed timetables that don’t suit a bespoke itinerary. Adagold’s Luxe Charter network covers South America – the same relationship that manages Australian domestic and Pacific travel can manage the in-country legs, moving you from Lima to the Amazon, Santiago to the Atacama, Buenos Aires to an estancia, on any day, from smaller airports closer to the properties themselves.
The best-travelled Australians have known about Lima’s food scene for years. They’ve watched the Atacama’s lodges win global awards quietly. They’ve done the Patagonian circuit while everyone else was queuing at Heathrow. 2026 is the year everyone else catches up – or doesn’t.
Explore Luxe Charter Flights or request a quote to start planning the circuit.
