The Best Things to do in the Atacama Desert

If you’re looking for things to do in San Pedro de Atacama and the surrounding Atacama Desert, here’s what not to miss.

Everything was stiller than I’d ever thought possible. I’d watched as the park had emptied out and the tour buses had left one by one until we were the only people left in a vast, wide-open landscape in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

It was like someone had flicked a switch. One moment, there were people milling about the lake taking pictures and huddled in small groups. The next, we were alone. As it grew quieter, the landscape of the surrounding 1,200 square mile Atacama salt flat felt larger and larger.

Welcome to the Atacama Desert: the land of wide-open landscapes and vast panoramas, of silence and stars in the north of Chile. If it’s not at the top of your South America bucket list, it should be.

Few who visit fail to be impressed by the scenery, but few also get to experience the truly solitary nature of the area thanks to the predominance of large tour groups organising excursions from the region’s hub, San Pedro de Atacama.

I’d met a Chilean on the road a few weeks before and told him of my plans to travel to the region, asking him for recommendations. Rather than give me a list of places to visit, he surprised me with a completely different answer.

“If you go to the Atacama Desert, you should hire a car or a camper and strike off on your own. It’s a completely different world,” he’d advised. “Most people stay in San Pedro de Atacama and go on tours. Doing it on your own is much better. You aren’t distracted by anything but your surroundings.”

Maybe it was the authority of his tone, but on the back of that two-minute conversation, my partner and I hired a campervan, picked up the keys and set off from San Pedro de Atacama into the world’s driest desert. That is how I found myself in the middle of the Atacama’s largest salt flat (Salar de Atacama) as the sky darkened around us without a soul in sight.

The Best Things to do in the Atacama Desert

Laguna Tebinquinche

Sitting on the banks of Laguna Tebinquinche, a large saltwater lake 70 miles from San Pedro, I started to appreciate what the Chilean had meant about quietness. One by one, the stars and planets started to appear in the night sky, dotting the inky darkness with varying degrees of brightness until it was impossible to believe that the scenery in front of us was real.

There are lots of operators to choose from when it comes to exploring the Atacama’s night skies. I sat down with my glass of wine, charting the constellations in front of me, and reflected that sometimes the simplest option provides the best experience. It’s no wonder the Atacama consistently tops the list as the best stargazing spot in the world.

Laguna Chaxa

We stopped off at Laguna Chaxa bright and early. Chaxa is best known for the three species of flamingos — James, Chilean and Andean — that frequent its waters. The lake forms part of a water system known as the “Soncor Sector,” all of which is protected as part of a national reserve.

On the face of it, Chaxa was still as death, excepting the flamingos ranging over its surface with their weirdly-stilted, uncoordinated walk. Look closer and you could see the millions of small algae and invertebrates on which the flamingos feed teeming in the waters. Away from the lake, the salt had created a pale-white rocky landscape through which a path was cut. We walked along it, flanked on either side by small saline pools around which the flamingos would gather — until you got too close for comfort, at which point they’d stalk away or fly to the next pool, intent on continuing their never-ending feeding routine.

Salar de Capur, Salar de Talar and the Piedras Rojas

Our destinations for this day were two lesser-visited high altitude lakes, the Salar de Capur and Salar de Talar, both accessed on a small road that eventually leads to Argentina. We bumped our way up, metre by metre, as the landscape changed from the pale hues of the salt plains to dull red volcanic earth, spotted with tufts of hardy bright yellow grass and thorny flowers.

Hikes are made significantly more challenging by the altitude, but even the shortest come with extraordinary panoramas. The two-hour round-trip hike to the Piedras Rojas (the red rocks) on the far side of the Salar de Capur was challenging — by this point we were at 4,000 metres, and scrambling over uneven ground becomes significantly more strenuous when you find it hard to breathe even standing still.

“Walk up like an old man and you’ll be able to come down like a young bull. Spring up like a young bull and you will come down like an ancient person, if you make it at all.”

All of a sudden, Karen’s advice about the hike made complete sense.

Still, it was worth every step for the spectacular views across the lake. From our viewpoint on the piedras, the luminous pale green waters were edged with a pale-pink salt crust, itself flanked by ice-tipped purple volcanoes behind.

Salar de Pujsas, Tara and Quisquiro

Any road trip covering a large area is always one half excitement as you reach each new destination, and one half easygoing chat, numb posteriors and tapping to music between them. Sure, there are plenty of things to do in the Atacama Desert, but much of the pleasure of exploring the region is just watching another unbelievable landscape unfold as you turn a new bend on the road.

During the course of the week, we drove around 1,000 miles in Bruno — the name we’d given to our brightly-coloured campervan. The altitude added its own dimension of strangeness. At one point while driving at 4,900 metres I had the vague feeling that I might be dreaming.

We set off to the east of the Atacama to visit the Salars de Pujsas, Tara and Quisquiro. The route was popular with truck drivers transporting goods between Chile and Argentina, which made for interesting driving. Then, Quisquiro: we turned a corner and there it was.

The view kept on unfurling in front of us, to the point where it was impossible to take it all in at once. Quisquiro was a rainbow of deep azure blues, dotted with clouds of white and crimson reds — a perfect reflection of the surrounding scenery. Climbing down from the road, everything else disappeared, swallowed by the unending salar, everything quiet and still except for the alpacas and vicuñas roaming in skittish packs.

On the way back, we passed a signpost pointing to the turnoff for Bolivia. Seconds later, I caught a glimpse of the vivid colours of Laguna Verde through the volcanoes. Laguna Verde had been one of the highlights of my road trip from Tupiza to the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia the year before. Seeing it again from above was an unexpected pleasure.

Stargazing in the Cordillera de Sal

Driving back down into the valley of the Salar de Atacama and up out of the other side, we found a spot miles from the main road and pulled up in the shadow of the Cordillera de Sal to watch the nightly star show unfold. No one around, no noise, no cars — and the stars came out in full force before being eclipsed by a rising moon around midnight.

I’ll admit that sitting in the shadow of the cordillera in complete darkness — other than the small beams of our torches and the starlight — was slightly unsettling. Anytime the wind blew, I’d glance nervously over my shoulder. But all I could see were the giant pillars of salt-ridden rock looming behind us. It was like we’d discovered a new planet, despite being less than half an hour from San Pedro de Atacama.

Valle de La Luna

We couldn’t miss the Valle de la Luna, one of the Atacama’s headline attractions. Ask anyone the best things to do in the Atacama Desert and nine times out of ten they’ll list it — it’s very much on the tour bus trail.

Going for sunrise rather than sunset meant we paid the fee, breezed through the entrance, and found ourselves completely alone. Thanks to a slightly later-than-anticipated start, we entered the park just as dawn began casting its light through the eerie shapes and weird rock formations. By the time we’d parked and wandered, it was getting lighter by the second.

We watched the sun rise and bathe the valley in warm hues, and I realised how grateful I was that we’d decided to hire the van. It had meant the freedom to explore little-known places and to enjoy solitude even in the busier ones.

Sunrise at El Tatio Geysers

It was nearly time to leave, but we couldn’t go without seeing the Tatio geyser field. El Tatio is the biggest geyser field in the southern hemisphere, with over 80 active geysers spread across its radius. Impressive by any standard.

The geysers are most active at sunrise, so seeing them meant waking up and getting on the road at 3:30am for the two-hour drive. El Tatio is 55 miles from San Pedro de Atacama — but we’d spent the night in the small hamlet of Guatín, 13 miles along the road, to shorten the morning’s journey.

After being off-grid for a week, it was strange to be surrounded by people — each on their own Atacama adventure, all trying to get as close to the geysers as possible while they started to bubble and boil. Even the crowds couldn’t detract from the slightly ethereal sight of 80 geysers erupting, hissing and steaming across my line of vision.

Hiking in Guatín Canyon

We spent some time at the geysers after the tour buses had set off, but the magic was gone — they quiet to a gurgle once the sun has fully risen. So we drove back down the road toward San Pedro. By the time we made our slow descent to Guatín, the small hamlet where we’d camped the night before, we were reflective. The trip was coming to an end, but we did have time for one last hike into the Guatín Canyon.

The Guatín Valley is distinguished by the spectacularly large candelabra cacti that line its sides. As we hiked into the canyon, we were soon surrounded by towering cacti, pampas grass and dense riverside vegetation. It is a peaceful hike — we made our way along the riverbed unobserved and undisturbed, forgetting that there was an outside world to rejoin. Just us, crunching and crackling through the river’s floor, savouring our temporary escape from reality.

Things to do in San Pedro de Atacama

While we spent most of our time in the campervan, we also spent a few days in San Pedro de Atacama itself before and after the trip. The town is small, dusty and charming in a quietly confident way — it knows it’s the gateway to something extraordinary, and it doesn’t oversell itself. Here’s what I’d recommend.

Museo Gustavo Le Paige — An impressive museum brimming with archaeological finds and anthropological exhibits walking you through the history and culture of local life over thousands of years. The pre-Columbian mummy collection is particularly striking. Worth at least two hours.

Iglesia San Pedro — One of San Pedro’s oldest buildings, dating to the 17th century. It won’t stop you in your tracks, but the simple, whitewashed church on the main plaza is the kind of building that tells you something about the town’s history without any drama.

Tierra Atacama Hotel & Spa — It might be the middle of the desert, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a blow-out stay. A short distance outside San Pedro itself, Tierra is one of the most beautiful hotels in Chile — a remarkable property that uses the surrounding landscape as its backdrop. Go for a drink at the bar even if you’re not staying.

La Casona — The best food in town, in my experience. Go hungry and prepare to fill up on Chilean staples such as pastel de choclo. Prepare to wait during busy periods — it’s popular.

Check out my Atacama Desert Guides

• The San Pedro de Atacama Travel Guide
• Why You Need to Visit El Tatio Geysers
• How to Visit Lagunas Miscanti and Miniques
• Hotel Desertica — The Best Place to Stay in San Pedro
• 3 Day Atacama Itinerary
• Visiting the Atacama? Use This Handy Map

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