Francisco Echaurren's diaries from his voyage around the world (1852-1857) are the oldest extant example of this genre from a Chilean traveler. In order to deepen our understanding of this work, we explore the social and political profile of the author, the diaries' structure and literary style, and the links between authorship and the representation of otherness through Echaurren's descriptions of local elites, servants, and guides. The diaries are characterized by their candor and intimacy, as they were written as a personal record of the journey but not meant to be published. We conclude by emphasizing the work's embodiment of modern values, such as a predilection for adventure, exoticism and the subject's centrality, as well as the scriptural strategies that reveal the author's class bias in the construction of otherness.