Northern Chile

A dormant volcano with an altitude of 6,893 m, it is the highest point in Chile, second highest mountain outside Asia, and the world's tallest volcano. Sitting at the Argentinian border, the mountain has a second, almost exactly as high summit on the Argentinian side. Some 500 m below the summit you can see a lake, which is believed to be the highest lake in the world. Ojos del Salado has remarkably gradual slopes and the surrounding dry Atcama desert means that there's usually very little snow and ice. This has made the mountain a popular place for setting world altitude records for cars, indeed cars and even a truck have been driven up to altitudes above 6,000 m. Maybe more importantly, it's possibly the highest place in the world you can reach by just hiking (30 km from the nearby road, plus 2,400 m ascent; only the very last part to the summit is a somewhat challenging scramble). This high, altitude sickness is most certainly a risk — don't ascend too fast! Because of the general extremeness of the high-altitude-low-humidity environment, it's quite problematic to undertake the 8-15 days-long adventure solo. Various travel agencies offer support services (such as the catering and transportation), prices per person seem to start at around 2000-2500 pesos.