Atacama Desert, Chile
The driest place on earth and the clearest skies. Geysers at dawn, flamingos on salt lagoons, ALMA's telescopes.
Best time to visit
Weather by month
Cost
Serves travellers at Backpacker→Ultra-luxury level. Typically around $200 a day on the ground.
Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.
What's on
Winter skies June
Milky Way core overhead
Worth knowing
Cash matters more here than elsewhere in Chile and the handful of machines in the village are unreliable. Draw money in Calama on the way through.
money · editorial
San Pedro sits at about 2,400 metres and the excursions climb past 4,000. The geyser field at dawn is genuinely thin air and genuinely below freezing.
know before · editorial
The altiplanic winter falls in the southern summer and brings afternoon storms that flood the high roads and close the lagoon circuits without warning.
when not to go · editorial
San Pedro de Atacama is the base and effectively the only one. The adobe village core is walkable; places further out are quieter but leave you dependent on transport.
where to stay · editorial
San Pedro is a few dirt streets you can walk end to end. Everything else, geysers, lagoons and valleys, is an hour or more out and reached by organised trips or a hire car.
getting around · editorial
Calama is the airport, fed from Santiago, and San Pedro de Atacama is about an hour further by road. The bus from Santiago takes most of a day and a night.
getting there · editorial
Quests
Icon
Iglesia de San Pedro
Adobe and cactus wood, without a single nail. Seventeenth century.
Valle de la Luna
Go in the late afternoon. The rock changes colour three times in an hour.
Laguna Cejar
Salty enough to float you without effort. And freezing.
Géiseres del Tatio
Leave at four in the morning, -5 °C, 4,320 metres. The steam only shows in the cold.
Piedras Rojas
Red, turquoise and white side by side, at 4,000 metres.
Valle del Arcoíris
Seven mineral colours on a single hillside.
See
See the Tatio geysers at dawn, at minus five degrees
Eat
Try a pisco sour with rica-rica, the desert herb
Pisco sour in the desert
Just the one. The altitude charges you for the second.
Moment
Spend an hour with no torch in the Valle de la Luna after sunset
Stargazing
The clearest sky on the planet, which is why the telescopes are here.
Trail
Lascar or Toco volcano
Five thousand metres and real shortness of breath. Acclimatise first.