How to Book the W Trek Yourself (2026/27)
Booking the W Trek is notorious as being a difficult, and laborious process. In fact, there are dedicated websites that book it for you, for an additional fee. However, unless you are booking late in the season or genuinely short on time, we’ve got good news for you - you don’t need to pay it.
Our aim with this guide is to take both the stress and the unnecessary cost out of the equation. We will walk you through the whole booking process in order, with links to every website you need and the decisions that matter flagged before you reach them.
Prefer to watch? The full walkthrough is below, and the written guide covers the same ground in detail.
Why It Is Complex
Three things work against you. Firstly, the refugios (camp sites) are split between two companies, and you need to book the right sites, in the right order, with no gaps. Get one night wrong and the itinerary falls apart. Secondly, the booking systems are simply not user friendly. This is the frustrating issue as there’s not a lot we can do to solve it - but we can help you navigate them. Thirdly, with the costs being so high across the process, one wrong move can jeopardise the process.
Before You Book
The temptation is to open the booking sites and start clicking around. However, the first step is to figure out your plan. This may seem a little long-winded, but having your dates, sleeping style, and food plans sorted will help you tackle the booking process more easily.
Your dates and your direction
Have rough dates in mind, but hold them loosely. Availability on the trail is what limits you, so book the refugios first and your flights after. A quick look at fares beforehand is sensible, just to confirm nothing extortionate is waiting for you, but let the trail lead. You will also need at least one night in Puerto Natales before the trek and one after it, so build those in.
Then pick a direction, at least provisionally, because the booking order depends on it. West to East saves the famous hike to the towers for your final morning. East to West takes the steep climb to the Base of the Towers on day one, while your legs are fresh. Both make a fine trek, but we give the edge to West to East. Our W Trek itinerary guide walks through each direction day by day if you want to compare.
How you will sleep
Each night on the trail you sleep in one of three ways: a bunk in a shared refugio room, an equipped campsite where the tent, mat and sleeping bag are already pitched and waiting, or a bare pitch for your own gear. Equipped camping is comfortable and the sensible middle ground for most people, saving you five to seven kilos of pack weight. Carrying your own tent is the cheapest option, but only take it on if you are an experienced camper genuinely prepared to haul everything for four or five days. Solo hikers should look hard at the refugio bunks: they are priced per bed with no single supplement, while an equipped tent for one person can cost close to double per person. Our refugios guide covers what each site is actually like, and your choice here is the biggest driver of your total trek cost.
Our recommendation:
- An equipped tent for couples / those sharing
- A refugio room for single travelers (though these beds tend to fill up fast!)
Decide this before you book, not during. Your choice needs to hold together across the whole route, for reasons that will become clear at Step 2.
How you will eat
Food follows the same logic. In the Vertice sector this is the easier call, since Grey and Paine Grande have larger eating areas, proper cooking shelters and more flexibility. At the Las Torres sites the meal plans sell out, and the food is expensive everywhere. Bringing your own is the smarter option for most people, though it adds real weight to your bag, and a hybrid works well: eat in at some sites, self cater at others.
One quirk to plan around. Chileno and Los Cuernos do not allow camp stoves, but both provide hot water, which is enough for porridge, couscous, noodles and hot drinks. A freeze dried meal on those nights is genuinely tasty and filling, so that is always a strong option too. You lock your meal plan in at the time of booking, though you can always buy food at each refugio (and you can buy hot meals, such as pizzas and burgers at Vertice sites).
That is the thinking done. Before you open a browser, have these to hand:
The 5-Minute Checklist
- A flexible date window. A rough one to two week range with at least two backup start dates. Flexibility is what gets you a continuous chain of nights.
- Direction decided. West to East is our pick.
- Sleep style decided. Refugio bunk, equipped campsite, or your own tent.
- Meal plan decided. Which nights you eat in, and which you self cater.
- Passport numbers for everyone in the group. The forms ask per guest.
- A card cleared for international payments.
Which Nights Line Up, and Which Website Sells Each
Now for the part that confuses almost everyone. The campsites are split between two companies, Las Torres in the east and centre of the trail and Vertice in the west, and neither website acknowledges the other exists. Your nights have to chain across both with no gap. Pick your route below and the table shows exactly which nights you need and who sells each one.
5 days, 4 nights, West to East
| Night | Sleep at | Book on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grey | Vertice |
| 2 | Paine Grande | Vertice |
| 3 | Francés or Los Cuernos | Las Torres |
| 4 | Chileno or Central | Las Torres |
4 days, 3 nights, West to East
| Night | Sleep at | Book on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paine Grande | Vertice |
| 2 | Francés or Los Cuernos | Las Torres |
| 3 | Chileno or Central | Las Torres |
5 days, 4 nights, East to West
| Night | Sleep at | Book on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chileno or Central | Las Torres |
| 2 | Francés or Los Cuernos | Las Torres |
| 3 | Paine Grande | Vertice |
| 4 | Grey | Vertice |
4 days, 3 nights, East to West
| Night | Sleep at | Book on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chileno or Central | Las Torres |
| 2 | Francés or Los Cuernos | Las Torres |
| 3 | Paine Grande | Vertice |
If you are doing four days rather than five, Grey is the night you drop. From Paine Grande you can walk out to the Grey glacier viewpoint and back in half a day, comfortably, and that viewpoint is the highlight of the western section anyway.
Treat the table as a contract between the two websites. Every Las Torres night and every Vertice night has to be consecutive. The most expensive mistake in this whole process is paying one company and then discovering the other side of the chain does not exist on your dates.
With the table understood and your decisions made, you are ready to book.
Booking the W Trek, Step by Step
Open both booking websites side by side
You will be working across both companies at once, so set up properly before you start. Two screens make this easier, but two browser tabs work fine.
- Las Torres: lastorres.com
- Vertice: booking.vertice.travel/booking
Start with Las Torres. The reason we start here is that Chileno is the smallest campsite on the trek, but arguably the most important. Walking West to East, it is what puts you at the Base of the Towers for sunrise. Walking East to West, it is what lets you take on the brutal climb without adding unnecessary miles to your day. Everything else gets planned around whichever date Chileno has space.
On the Las Torres site, enter your arrival and exit dates for your whole Las Torres stay, which is typically two nights.
Then bring up Vertice alongside it. This is the easier of the two. Choose the number of people and click Continue, choose the W Trek on the next page, then choose your first accommodation: Grey if you are walking West to East over five days, Paine Grande if you are walking East to West over five days or only doing four. The wizard then asks for your next accommodation, or lets you end the trek there if you are staying a single night.
Select your campsites
This is where it gets tricky, and where the flexibility you built in earlier starts to earn its keep.
Chileno comes first, on the Las Torres platform, and this is where the poor interface shows itself. You are shown one night at a time, so you toggle between dates manually. Find a Chileno night, then choose your accommodation type. This is why your sleeping decision had to be made in advance: the nights need to match each other. Book an equipped campsite at Chileno but find only a bare pitch left at another stop, and you are carrying full camping gear for the entire trek regardless.
Walking West to East, the sequence looks like this:
- Pick Chileno, with a refugio bed or an equipped campsite, assuming you are not carrying your own kit.
- Then pick Francés or Los Cuernos. We lean slightly towards Francés for its position near the French Valley, though Cuernos has the nicer campsite.
- When those line up, switch to the Vertice tab and find Grey and Paine Grande on the dates that follow, booking them in the order you will stay.
Unless you are lucky, booking early in the window after bookings open, or booking an off-peak date, the chain will not connect on the first attempt. One unavailable night breaks the whole thing. The harder problem is that there are endless ways to repair it and no obvious best one: flip the direction, push the dates forward or back, change where you sleep, change how you eat.
If you have to give ground somewhere, our recommendation is to give it on food. If Chileno or Francés has no meal slots left, carry a freeze dried meal for those nights, add the hot water the refugios provide, and the chain stays intact. It saves a good deal of money too.
The answer to this problem is to simply keep playing around with the websites until you get a chain that all fits together. This is why you need flexibility and why booking the trek should come before your flights.
The easiest way to understand how these pieces move is to watch it done once in the walkthrough video above.
Do not pay for anything yet. You are still assembling the chain.
Double check everything
Before any money changes hands, walk the whole chain one more time. No missing nights in the middle, every site in the order you will reach it. Check it against the table above - that is what it is for.
Book
When you are sure, commit. At this point you would be very unlucky to lose a night, but if you are in any doubt, book Las Torres first and Vertice immediately after, in the same sitting.
The forms ask for each guest’s full name and passport number. Pick your bedding and meal plan as you decided earlier, and at checkout make sure the system registers you as a non-resident. That is what removes Chile’s 19% IVA tax, and your passport and PDI slip back it up when you arrive.
That is the hard work done. Congratulations. Everything from here is straightforward.
Buy the park pass
Park passes do not sell out, but buy yours now, for peace of mind and to have the whole process wrapped up in one sitting.
Buy at the official portal, Pases Parques. Choose your first day in the park and select Internacional, Más de 1 día, meaning more than one day.
Passes are non-refundable, which is exactly why this step waits until the refugios are secured. Buy at least 24 hours before you arrive, and keep the QR code on your phone and on paper.
Buy the catamaran
The Catamaran Pehoé is how you get to or from Paine Grande, depending on your direction: out to Paine Grande if your trek starts there or at Grey, back from Paine Grande if your last day is at Grey or Paine Grande. Book at catamaranpehoe.com. The crossing gives you superb views of the Cuernos, so it is a genuine experience in its own right. You can typically book the Catamaran on the day before (or even of) your trip. For those starting at Paine Grande or Grey, you can book the 10:30am, and for those returning, you have a number of options throughout the day.
If you are starting or finishing at Grey, there is an alternative. The Grey III is an excursion boat that doubles as transport, taking you past the glacier up close on the way out. It requires a 30 to 45 minute walk, and it costs roughly $129 against roughly $29 for the catamaran, so treat it as an excursion you happen to travel on rather than a transfer.
One date for the diary: 2026/27 catamaran tickets go on sale on 1 August 2026, later than the refugio portals. Set a reminder rather than assuming you can finish everything today.
Book buses and shuttles
Last but not least, for travel between Puerto Natales and the park, book BusSur through Busbud, or any equivalent platform. These can typically be booked as late as the day before travel, but again, for simplicity we would advise booking as soon as you have your dates.
Inside the park, the Laguna Amarga shuttle connects the entrance with the Las Torres sector for roughly 5,000 CLP per person. It is one of the few things easier to pay in cash, so keep a little on hand.
Save all of your bookings somewhere safe
Your trek now lives across four platforms, and mobile signal in the park is close to nonexistent. Screenshot every QR code and barcode, print them if you prefer paper, and save both companies’ confirmation emails alongside the park pass and catamaran ticket. Once you enter Chile, keep your PDI slip with them, since it backs your IVA exemption at check-in.
One last piece of admin. Most cancellations need 45 to 60 days’ notice for a refund minus fees, and the park pass is non-refundable outright. Set that calendar reminder now, while it is all in front of you.
Prices at a Glance (2026/27)
The fixed costs below were verified on the operators’ websites in July 2026. Per-night accommodation only appears inside the two booking engines once you search real dates, so those are shown as published ranges.
| Item | Price (per person) | Where it is paid |
|---|---|---|
| Park pass, multi-day, foreigner | CLP 48,500 (approx. $50 USD) | Pases Parques |
| Catamaran Pehoé | approx. CLP 28,000 (approx. $29 USD) per leg | catamaranpehoe.com |
| Grey III navigation | approx. $129 USD | Vertice / Hotel Grey |
| Puerto Natales to park bus | CLP 15,000 each way (approx. $16 USD) | Bus Sur |
| Laguna Amarga shuttle | approx. CLP 5,000 (approx. $5 USD) | On arrival |
| Full board meals | $110 (Vertice) to $140 (Las Torres) per day | Added during booking |
For scale, the Las Torres pre-packaged 4-day self guided W, with all nights and meals included, is published from $1,450 USD per person on double occupancy, or $3,830 solo. That gap is the convenience premium you have just avoided. Per-night rates for every accommodation type, plus full budget scenarios, are in our W Trek cost breakdown.
Sold Out? Your Plan B
A sold out date is rarely the end of it. Work through these in order:
- Flip your direction, or widen your window. West to East plus a two week range rescues most sold out itineraries in shoulder season.
- Use an aggregator. They search both companies at once and can assemble mixed itineraries you would miss checking manually, for a fee.
- Book a guided or pre-packaged trek. Operators hold blocks of beds that never reach the public portals. In peak season this is often the only remaining way in.
Rather skip all of this?
Operators hold pre-reserved beds, handle every booking on this page for you, and add a certified guide. We compared the leading options, prices, and what is actually included.
Mistakes That Cost Real Money
You have seen most of these already in context. Here they are in one place, as a final check:
- Booking the two companies days apart. Availability is not held between sessions. Confirm the chain, then book both in the same sitting.
- Booking flights before your refugios. Never commit to flights until your refugio nights are confirmed.
- Starting the process too late. This is especially true for solo hikers. Refugio bunks sell out quickly, and instead you’ll have to stomach paying for pitched tent - which costs far more.
- Missing the non-resident exemption. If a site charges you 19% IVA as a resident, getting it back later is close to impossible.
- A one-night gap between companies. Confirm consecutive nights before paying either one.
- Forgetting the catamaran or bus. It’s unlikely, but these can sell out too. Set yourself a calendar alert to book this a week or two before your hike, if you don’t do it today.
FAQ
When do W Trek bookings open for the 2026/27 season? Reservations typically begin opening between April and June 2026. Vertice often opens in early April, and Las Torres typically opens in May. Catamaran Pehoé tickets for 2026/27 go on sale on 1 August 2026.
Can I book all W Trek campsites on one website? No. You need two websites, Vertice for the west and Las Torres for the east, unless you use a paid aggregator such as Torres Hike.
Is it possible to book the W Trek last minute? Cancellations do happen, but booking last minute in peak season, December to February, is very difficult and usually means taking a guided tour or checking for cancellations daily.
What is the official website for W Trek reservations in the western sector? The official website for the Grey and Paine Grande sectors is booking.vertice.travel.
Do W Trek campsite bookings include the park entrance fee? No. Park entrance tickets are bought separately through the official Pases Parques website before you arrive.
How much does it cost to book the W Trek? Independent hikers typically spend $900 to $1,300 USD per person on refugios and meals, plus CLP 48,500 (approx. $50) for the park pass and approx. CLP 28,000 (approx. $29) per catamaran leg. See our full cost breakdown.
Can I cancel my W Trek booking if my plans change? Policies vary, but most operators require 45 to 60 days’ notice for a refund minus administrative fees. Park passes from Pases Parques are non-refundable.