“We went downhill in Valparaíso the whole day.”
Different from the rest of the continent
Mike Boisvert was only in Chile for four or five days in 2025, on something close to a vacation with his friend Sam, and it still made an impression. He came in from Argentina over the mountains and saw snow, which is not what most people picture when they think of skating in South America. From Santiago you can see the Andes. That is the thing that surprised him most: how different Chile is from the rest of the continent. It is one of the rare places down there where you can skate, surf and snowboard on the same day, and he thinks the snowboarding culture has a lot to do with the feel of the scene. The country is also very long, and there is skating the whole way down the coast, with a lot of transition skaters and every other type too. “Chile has a wild skate scene, with the busiest DIY I have ever seen.”
Two hundred skaters on a weekday
That DIY is Bustamante, in the middle of Santiago, and it is Mike's number one place to skate in the country. He showed up on a random weekday, no event, nothing planned, and counted something like two hundred people. “Never seen that many skaters in a DIY in my life.” The trick is timing. Daytime can hit 35°C, so the park fills up once it cools down and people get off work.
Marcelo Jiménez
Marcelo Jiménez (@marcelojimenezsb) is the one who showed Mike around, and he is Mike's number one pick. He is a new-school pro who rides for Red Bull and enters contests in both street and transition. “He can do everything.” Always smiling, a family man, he came up in a hard neighbourhood and is living a good life now. Mike's one Chile video is with him, below.
Where to skate in Santiago
Skatepark Las Condes is the best park in the city in Mike's book, and he skated it with Marcelo. Mapocho Río Skatepark is the bowl to know. Like Peru, Chile has a private park for the national team, and Mike thinks the Mapocho bowl is it. Then there is the famous hill: San Cristóbal, in the middle of Santiago, has the view of the city, and skaters go there to downhill.
Skaters to know
José Santander (@josezorrote) is one of the most famous skaters in the country, a street skater Mike calls crazy. He did not get to skate with him this time. Oscar Whipple (@oscarwhipplem) is the good tech street skater on Mike's list.
On the shop side: Rapside Skateshop, DC Shoes Chile, Life Boardshop and Skate Division. And one Mike had never seen anywhere else: Code Fingerboard, a real, physical fingerboard shop. He walked past it and did not go in, and still thinks about it.
Valparaíso
Valparaíso is a beautiful town on the hills with crazy spots, and Mike calls it the San Francisco of Chile. It is all hills, so that is what they did: bombed them all day, and skated a bit of DIY on the way. He did not film a video there and could not track down the local skaters, which is one more reason he wants to come back.
If you go
Mike wants to return and cross the whole country, top to bottom. The barrier he sees for Chile is exposure: the scene is big, but the rest of the world does not see it. What would help, in his view, is a JACKALOPE Block Party. Until then, the brief is simple. Go to Bustamante in the evening, ride Las Condes with the locals, take a day for Valparaíso, and if the season is right, get the skate, surf and snowboard day done.
Mike Boisvert: “Chile is the most diverse country on earth. Full of life and skateboarding.”
Photos and video: Mike Boisvert / The Skate Nomad. Part of the JACKALOPE Skate Atlas, one country at a time, with the skaters who live there. See every country on the map.
