The main draw to the southern hemisphere for Christmas is the opposite seasons – and my kids wanted summer! The beach is their happy place, so if we can spend more time at the beach – it’s a win! I understood it was important to make the beach a central part of our first week, so I found an Airbnb in Vina Del Mar with an amazing location right on the beach! We could wake up in the morning and spot the beach, we could send a couple kids/parents out to play and observe them from our balcony, and we could take in amazing sunsets on the Pacific from the comfort of our own home for the week!
We quickly learned that the water is cold! The kids didn’t care – of course, their main interaction with the ocean is to frolic in the waves, so they weren’t swimming laps. They had beach towels and could warm up in the sun pretty quickly. The sand was sticky! I mean what sand isn’t, but this shoreline had some black sands mixed in and it was especially sticky. I don’t love a sand explosion where we are living, so I always made them dry off, run around in the grass by our building, and shake off as much sand as possible before going in to shower off – it’s a chore (but usually fun), but we love playing at the beach!
With our location right on the beach, it was easy to come and go and play at the beach multiple times throughout the day – it was often the “favorite thing” for one or all kids for any given day. We enjoyed walking along the beach to get to other parts of town – we even spent Christmas Eve beach hopping. We took an Uber (yep, that was our main mode of transport) up the coast and then just meandered back all day to our place hitting different spots on the beach, playgrounds, markets, lunch, and more – it was lovely! Around the markets and playgrounds, you can find extra activities, like the trampolines (see video).
The beach in front of our apartment had some big rocks at the south end of it – this was the start of a long rock wall – the stones contributed to a dramatic backdrop as the waves hit the stones and sprayed all over! The boys especially loved climbing out on the rocks and stone hopping down the way to their favorite playground. In the afternoons, different vendors set up all along this rock wall, so we did a good bit of souvenir and snack shopping as well.
Locky received a beach cricket set as an early Christmas gift, so he and Jason (and sometimes other kids) would go out to the beach or grass and play cricket, or baseball, or go chase after the ball blowing in the wind! I found it fun to observe all this from the balcony as I sipped on tea, helped other kids do some work, or plan out the rest of the day.
My plan to center our week at the beach worked beautifully – we did enjoy other sightseeing adventures in Vina and the surrounding area (stay tuned) – but the beach was the big winner! 
(more photos and videos in FB post on 1/8/24 - working on getting more photos linked into this blog)
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