Wayne Bernhardson first traveled to Chile in 1979, during the Pinochet dictatorship, wrote his M.A. thesis on llama and alpaca herding in the Norte Grande's Parque Nacional Lauca, and has returned repeatedly ever since to broaden and deepen his knowledge and appreciation of the country. He has driven well over 100,000 km through every Chilean region and Pacific island possession, and has also visited Chile's Antarctic bases in the South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic peninsula. Wayne earned his PhD in geography from the University of California, Berkeley, but abandoned academia for a perpetual Latin American road trip that many university faculty envy. He is the author of Moon Handbooks to Argentina, Buenos Aires, Chile, and Patagonia. Wayne has also written for Trips, The San Francisco Chronicle , the American Geographical Society's Focus, Business Traveler, National Geographic Traveler, Latin Trade, Travel Holiday, and Voyageur. He often gives slide lectures on the destinations he covers in his books.

When not in South America (he owns an apartment in Buenos Aires), Wayne lives in Oakland, California, with his wife María Laura Massolo, their daughter Clio Bernhardson-Massolo, and their Alaskan Malamute, Malbec (named for Argentina's signature red wine).