Current affairs
Santiago news: what changes for your visit
We don't do wire copy. We write background pieces on the things that genuinely change a visit to Santiago, and we keep them updated for as long as they still matter.
By Cesar Rodriguez · updated
A city that receives half a million pilgrims a year and has its cathedral under restoration is not a static destination. The piece below covers what most affects anyone travelling right now: what is closed or scaffolded, what is open regardless, and where an out-of-date notice from 2019 is still misleading people. It carries its own update date, and we revise it when the situation changes, not only when we publish it.
Two other stories we cover in Spanish are already part of our English guides rather than separate news pieces: the countdown to the next Holy Year is in the Xacobeo 2027 guide, and the record 530,987 pilgrims of 2025 — with the 2026 figures as they come in — is in the pilgrim statistics page.
In English