For most of the last decade, the question in Chile’s Aysén region was not which lodge to choose but whether any of them would actually open. The HidroAysén dam controversy, which dragged on until its definitive cancellation in 2014, scared off institutional capital. A planned Six Senses property at Lago General Carrera was quietly shelved in 2019. Even Explora postponed its Río Baker expansion twice.
That period has ended. Between November 2026 and March 2027, four new luxury lodges will begin taking guests across the region — three of which I visited, by invitation, during a hard-hat tour in late May 2026.
Cerro Castillo Reserve Lodge — opens 14 November 2026
Built into a south-facing slope above the Río Ibáñez, the 22-key Cerro Castillo Reserve Lodge is the first project from Refugia, a Santiago-based hospitality group spun out of the family office of mining heir Maximiliano Errázuriz. The lodge’s executive director, Camila Vergara, walked me through the still-unfinished property on 27 May. “We took the decision in 2023 to use only timber from sustainable forests within 200 kilometres,” she told me. “It has cost us roughly 14 percent more, but the wood we are showing you came down the road from Coyhaique.”
Rates start at US$1,750 per person per night, all-inclusive. Activities centre on day hikes into the Cerro Castillo National Park, glacier helicopter access (a Bell 407 is leased seasonally from Aerocardal), and fly fishing on the Ibáñez and Murta rivers.
Estancia Chacabuco — opens 4 December 2026
Tompkins Conservation’s long-rumoured guest expansion at Patagonia National Park finally has a date. The 16-room Estancia Chacabuco lodge, refurbished from the original 1908 sheep estancia at a reported cost of US$22 million, will be operated by Awasi under a 25-year management agreement signed in February 2026. The property will be Awasi’s third Patagonian opening after Torres del Paine and Iguazú, and rates have been confirmed at US$2,900 per person per night, all-inclusive, with private guide-and-vehicle teams assigned per room.
Puyuhuapi Glacier Lodge — opens 7 March 2027
The most architecturally ambitious of the four, Puyuhuapi Glacier Lodge is a 24-key property by Argentine practice Estudio Cazenave on a private peninsula at the northern end of the Puyuhuapi fjord. The structure is a 240-metre-long timber pavilion clad in charred lenga, with all rooms facing the Ventisquero Colgante hanging glacier across the water. Rates are not yet public, but a soft-opening package floated to invited guests in April 2026 priced six nights at US$11,400 per person.
What it means for travellers
Aysén has long been the awkward middle child of Patagonian travel — too far north for the Torres del Paine circuit, too far south for the lake district, served by the spectacularly inconvenient Carretera Austral. The new openings will not solve the access problem; LATAM’s Balmaceda (BBA) service still tops out at one daily flight from Santiago in shoulder season. But they do, finally, give travellers an answer to “where do I stay?” that does not require a sleeping bag.
Bookings for the November opening at Cerro Castillo are already 71 percent committed for the first six months, according to Vergara. If you have been waiting for Patagonia’s quiet third corner to grow up, the wait is over.
