Torres del Paine & Puerto Natales · With kids

The drive in from the Laguna Amarga entrance is where most of the wildlife actually is: guanaco herds beside the road, ñandúes on the flats and condors overhead, all of it visible from the car. Costs nothing beyond the park ticket and holds attention better than any walk.

The Costanera along the Seno Última Esperanza has playgrounds, black-necked swans on the water and the full-size milodon sculpture that children climb on. Free, five minutes from the Plaza de Armas, and the obvious release valve on a rest day.

The signposted ridge walk directly behind Puerto Natales, roughly an hour up, with the whole sound and the town laid out below. Short enough for school-age children, and how pleasant it is depends entirely on the wind that day.

From the Grey car park it is flat walking over a suspension bridge and along a grey sand spit to a beach where icebergs off the glacier run aground — under an hour each way with no climbing. Icebergs at eye level are the easiest thing here to sell to a seven-year-old.

The walk to the towers is an eight to ten hour day ending in a steep boulder field, and between 27 April and 15 September CONAF requires an authorised guide on it. Keep it for teenagers or another trip and do the short mirador walks instead.