Trip notes
If you are going yourself
Everything practical for San Pedro de Atacama, Chile in one place — where it actually is, where to sleep, how to move, what to eat, what the weather does, and what to put in the bag. The story itself follows.
Travelled
Solo — The right way to sit in the dark for forty minutes with nobody talking.
The route
5 stops · 1 slept in · 5 nights · 334 km by road
Drag to pan, use +/− to zoom, tap a pin for detail.
Calama
Passed through · arrival
Reached 19 Sept, 13:15Good with kidsNo dogs
The airport. Straight onto a shuttle for the 100 km run east.
Good signal — Full 4G at the airport — the last real bandwidth before the desert.
San Pedro de Atacama
5 nights · 2,400 m
Reached 19 Sept, 15:00Good with kidsDogs welcome
Base for everything. Adobe walls, ten dusty streets, every tour leaves from here.
Patchy signal — 4G exists and is heavily shared. Hostel wifi thins to nothing after 20:00.
By road · 100.7 km · 1 hr 25 min driving
Valle de la Luna
Passed through · day trip
Reached 20 Sept, 17:30Good with kidsNo dogs
Salt ridges and dunes, best late afternoon. Twenty minutes from the village.
No signal — Dead across the whole valley. Fine for two hours, but leave word before you go.
By road · 11.9 km · 31 min driving
Laguna Chaxa
Passed through · day trip
Reached 21 Sept, 16:45Good with kidsNo dogs
Flamingos on the Salar de Atacama, with the Andes behind them.
No signal — Nothing at the lagoon or along the salt-flat road.
By road · 73.7 km · 1 hr 51 min driving
El Tatio geysers
Passed through · 4,300 m
Reached 23 Sept, 06:30Not one for kidsNo dogs
A 04:00 departure. The geysers erupt hardest when the air is coldest.
No signal — Dead at 4,300 m. Your guide carries a radio, which is rather the point.
By road · 147.9 km · 4 hr 13 min driving
San Pedro de Atacama — the base for everything in the story22.9087° S, 68.1997° W
Open route in Google MapsOpen in OpenStreetMapDay by day
6 days, start to finish · 19–24 September 2025
Day 119 Sept
CalamaBy road toSan Pedro de AtacamaStaying San Pedro
- Overcast, 24°/7°
Day 220 Sept
Starting from San PedroBy road toValle de la LunaSaw: San Pedro village on footStaying San Pedro
- Overcast, 24°/4°
Day 321 Sept
Starting from San PedroBy road toLaguna ChaxaSaw: Salar de AtacamaSaw: FlamingosStaying San Pedro
- Clear sky, 25°/5°
Day 422 Sept
San Pedro de AtacamaSaw: The night sky, away from the villageStaying San Pedro
- Clear sky, 25°/7°
Day 523 Sept
Starting from San PedroBy road toEl Tatio geysersStaying San Pedro
- Clear sky, 10°/-2°
Day 624 Sept
Starting from San PedroBy road toCalamaTravelling home
- Mainly clear, 26°/9°
What to pack
35 °C swings between afternoon and midnight
- Clothing
- Layers
- Shoes
- Closed trainers
- Money
- Cash preferred
- Medicine
- Altitude tablets
Where to stay
San Pedro village
Adobe guesthouseGood with kidsDogs welcomeVegan options
Walk everywhere, book tours from the same street. Rooms are dark and thick-walled, which you will appreciate.
Outside the village
LodgeGood with kidsDogs welcomeVegan options
Darker skies from your own doorstep and often a telescope on site, at two or three times the price.
Ayllu de Solor / Coyo
Small hostelGood with kidsDogs welcomeVegan options
A few kilometres out, quieter and cheaper. You will want a bicycle or a taxi arrangement.
Getting around
Getting thereGood with kidsNo dogs
Fly to Calama (CJC), then a 100 km transfer or shuttle to San Pedro, about 1½ hours.
In the villageGood with kidsDogs welcome
On foot. San Pedro is ten dusty streets and nothing is far.
To the sightsGood with kidsNo dogs
Organised tours or a hired car. El Tatio geysers mean a 04:00 departure; the salt flats and Valle de la Luna are easy half-days.
Altitude
The village sits at 2,400 m and El Tatio at 4,300 m. Give yourself two days before any high excursion.
Food stops
Caracoles street
Restaurant rowGood with kidsDogs welcomeVegan options
Most of the village's kitchens on one lane. Prices are tourist-level; quality varies more than the menus suggest.
Local almuerzo
Set lunchGood with kidsNo dogsLittle for vegans
Soup, a main and a drink for a fraction of dinner prices. Look for the handwritten board at midday.
Rica-rica and chañar
Local flavoursGood with kidsNo dogsVegan options
Desert herb and a sweet native fruit, in everything from ice cream to sour cocktails.
Provisions
Small marketVegan options
Stock up on water and snacks for pre-dawn tours — nothing is open when you leave.
Main attractions
7 in 6 days
San Pedro village on foot
Day 2
Valle de la Luna
Day 2
Salar de Atacama
Day 3
Laguna Chaxa
Day 3
Flamingos
Day 3
The night sky, away from the village
Day 4
El Tatio geysers
Day 5
The story
Places here have no measurable rainfall on record. No water, no cloud — the clearest night sky you can reach by road.
Dark adaptation is the whole trick
- Forty minutes to fully dark-adapt. One glance at a phone resets most of it.
- Almost everyone quits at ten minutes, decides the sky is nice, and leaves.
- Sit the full forty and the Milky Way gets structure — dust lanes, the bulge.
The sky was not getting brighter. I was finally getting dark.
Practicalities
- Go within a few days of new moon. A half moon washes out anything faint.
- Red torch only. Hand it to whoever cannot resist their phone.
- Below freezing after midnight. The desert is never warm at night.
- Southern Cross, Magellanic Clouds, Eta Carinae — learn them before you go.
- Days are for the salt flats and El Tatio, which erupts hardest just after dawn.
On stargazing in the driest desert on earth, and why your eyes need forty minutes before they are honest.
- #astronomy
- #south america
- #desert
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