Is Santiago family-friendly?

Cerro San Cristóbal in Parque Metropolitano is the natural place to spend a morning. The funicular departs from the top of Pío Nono street in Bellavista, and its old cars creak up the slope in a few minutes; most 3-year-olds rate that ride above everything else in Santiago. The summit terrace sits roughly 300 m above the city. This morning was clear and 14.6°C at 08:00, and on mornings like that the snow on the Andes looks close and the wind up top smells of pine and dust. The Zoológico Nacional sits partway up the hill and closes Mondays; it is small and dated, and if you have a car, Buin Zoo, about 35 km south, is the better zoo. From roughly December to March, the Tupahue and Antilén pools open on the hill; the water is cold and weekend tickets sell out. Down in Vitacura, Parque Bicentenario is the easiest outing with a toddler: its paths are flat and the lagoon has Chilean flamingos and black-necked swans.

After lunch and a nap, head indoors. The Museo Interactivo Mirador in La Granja is the best pick for ages 4 to 12 on a rainy or smoggy day; its hands-on halls let kids stand inside a giant soap bubble, it's roughly a 15-minute walk from Mirador station on Metro Line 5, and it closes Mondays. Parque Quinta Normal in western Santiago has three cheap wins within a few hundred metres of each other: the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, founded in 1830, costs nothing to enter and has a whale skeleton hanging over its main hall; the Museo Ferroviario has steam locomotives parked on the grass; and Artequín teaches art through reproductions in an iron pavilion first built for the 1889 Paris exposition. On a wet afternoon with kids aged 4 and up, try KidZania inside Parque Arauco mall in Las Condes; the mall bathrooms have changing tables, and the food court smells of fries and churros.

Whether a stroller works for you depends almost entirely on which neighbourhood you're in. Providencia, Las Condes, and Vitacura have wide, flat sidewalks with kerb ramps at most corners, and Avenida Providencia between Pedro de Valdivia and Tobalaba pushes easily. Santiago Centro is harder: the flagstones around Plaza de Armas and Paseo Ahumada are cracked and crowded, Barrio Bellavista has uneven paving, and Cerro Santa Lucía is mostly stone staircases, so bring a carrier for under-3s there. The Metro de Santiago is clean and fast. Lines 3 and 6 are the newest and have lifts at their stations, but some Line 1 stations still mean a staircase, so check the Metro's accessibility map before you set off. We'd also avoid 07:00 to 09:00 and 18:00 to 20:00, when Line 1 cars are hot and packed shoulder to shoulder. Uber and Cabify are cheap, but drivers almost never carry a child seat, so pack a travel booster or book a transfer that supplies one.

Feeding kids in Santiago is straightforward. A completo is a hot dog topped with mashed avocado and tomato, and at a fuente de soda it costs around CLP 2,500 to 3,500, roughly USD 2.50 to 3.60. Order empanadas de queso rather than pino, since the pino filling hides raisins, a black olive, and boiled egg that most kids under 8 will pick out. Street carts fry sopaipillas, a pumpkin dough that smells of hot oil, for a few hundred pesos each. Lunch between 13:00 and 15:00 is the main meal of the day, and dinner rarely starts before 20:30. The allergy words to know are maní (peanut), frutos secos (tree nuts), and sin gluten. When booking accommodation, 'cama matrimonial' means one double bed, so ask for 'dos camas' or look for a two-bedroom aparthotel. Apartment hotels near Los Leones in Providencia and El Golf in Las Condes usually have a kitchen and a washing machine, and a Jumbo or Líder supermarket is rarely more than 10 minutes away.

With young kids, we'd skip five places in Santiago. The Museum of Memory and Human Rights covers the 1973 to 1990 dictatorship through torture testimony and photographs, and it suits teens aged 13 and up with a parent ready to talk it through. At lunchtime, Mercado Central means wet floors, a strong fish smell, and waiters calling you to their tables, and toddlers tend to fall apart there. The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino works well for children aged 8 and up, but under-5s get bored of its dim rooms and glass cases within 20 minutes. If a child has asthma, avoid June to August: winter inversions trap smog in the valley, and the city declares pre-emergencias on bad days. A day trip to Valparaíso, about 115 km west, means steep stairs and cobbles throughout, so leave the stroller at the hotel.