San Pedro de Atacama is a small town located at 2,400m altitude in the very North part of Chile called "Norte Grande", not too far from the border with Bolivia.
Important: note that this destination is not advised for pregnant women due to the altitude.
How to go to San Pedro de Atacama?
You will need to fly to Calama airport (medium-sized airport). Most flights - LATAM or Sky airline - leave from Santiago but there are a few from Conception too. Then, you would be able to take a shuttle from the airport to San Pedro de Atacama or you may want to decide to rent a car (less common option). Make sure you have arranged your transfer in advance. We booked with denomades (you can pay online in advance and the price is 15,000 Chilean pesos per person for one way or 26,000 Chilean pesos round-trip). The service is operated by Transfer Pampa and available for flights landing between 7:30 am and 9:00 pm, and for flights taking off between 8:00 am and 11:59 pm. You can also directly book with Transfer Pampa. It will be a 1h30 ride.
What's the climate like in San Pedro? What to pack?
It is likely to be pretty warm during the day, around 30 degrees Celsiusor more and strong sun! It is almost never raining in that town. The only time of the year when you might get some rain is during the "raining season", which tends to happen for a few weeks between the end of January and mid/end of February. During the night, don't forget that you are in a desert, so temperatures will drop significantly and could even go below 0 degree Celsius.
As a result, you will want to pack both summer clothes, sun cream/sun hats as well as a couple of warm clothes, for the evenings or for any activities you have taking place during the night (stargazing or Geysers - see below).
Mosquitoes is not a problem.
What to do in San Pedro de Atacama?
The town itself is actually very small, although very cool. The town centre basically consists of a couple of commercial streets and a square, full of restaurants, travel agencies and souvenir shops. You may also want to decide to rent a bike or do some tourism in the surroundings!
As in many cities and towns in Chile, you will find lots of stray dogs in the streets, which are all very fat and well behaved!
San Pedro de Atacama is the starting point of a set of day or multi-day trips that you can arrange in advance or once arriving in the town as there are plenty of travel agencies offering all sorts of activities (just do your homework to pick the right one!). We booked all our activities with the same agency (denomades), which is then working with more specialised travel agencies/guides. It was quite convenient for us to have booked and paid everything in advance. Everything went well and it was pretty well organised (the day before each activity, you receive a whatsapp message from the guide/driver/agency who is sharing with you the details for pick up/equipment required).
I believe that some of the sites can be visited on your own (if you have a car) but I am not sure if it is possible for all of them! Also, make sure you are well aware of the opening times for private individuals. Note that the roads are pretty rough so expect to have to change a few times the wheels if driving!
Here is the list of the tours we have done and a few more possible options (there is a much longer list available by the way!) Some of them would require high altitude acclimatization due to the altitude:
Astrophotography tour (CLP$ 25,000)
Timing: there are different slots possible starting between 21hish and 23hish for a duration of ~3h in total including transfers (15min ride). What? They pick you up from your hotel and bring you to a perfect place to observe the stars (no light pollution), we actually saw multiple shooting stars during that time. They are basically three "stations": 1/ telescope observation (we looked at Mars and a few other stars/constellations) 2/ snack/food stand with a chat about local specialties 3/ photo shoot with the starry sky as background (you will be able to download the pictures in high-resolution the day after on a Google drive for free). Our thoughts: It was a nice evening and we got beautiful pictures (especially the background!) but it does not get too technical (there is another more technical tour - see below). I would recommend it if you have the time and want some fun pictures with the stars. Equipment required: warm clothes as by night the desert is pretty cold! (close to 0 degrees) and you are not going to move much. Other: Note that if the weather is not good enough for the tour, they will cancel and refund the tickets fully. The tour is in English or Spanish.
Moon Valley (CLP$ 29,000 + separate Moon Valley entrance ticket to be bought at least 24 h before the tour for CLP$ 10,800)
Timing: from 3:30PM to 8:30PM inc. transfers (~30 min each way) What? Visit and small hike in the Moon Valley & Duna Mayor (main interest of the tour); quick visit of the the Tres Marías, the Cañón and the Amphitheater and finish the tour with the sunset from Licarantay Lookout Point Our thoughts: the tour start with the main attraction (Moon Valley), which is really worth it and probably the most famous thing to see in Atacama region. It is a sort of a canyon and at the end a huge dune (which tourists used to be able to climb until some tourists started to misbehave!). The rest of the tour has nothing special. The sunset location is a nice viewpoint but is very crowded (as the rest of the tour). It is considered as a must-see in the region and we can understand why! To sum up, a nice tour to do we would recommend but don't expect to be on your own! Equipment required: a sun hat, sunglasses, sun cream and water are absolutely mandatory. The tour even starts in a mini-supermarket to make sure everyone has at least 1 liter of water. It will be very warm (with a 15-min steep hike at the beginning and there won't be any shade in this tour). Around 7:30pm, it starts to be pretty chilled especially from the top of the lookout point so take warmer layers with you (which you can leave in the van when you visit the first view stops). You may also want to take a snack for the sunset!
El Tatio Geysers (CLP$ 33,000 + CLP$ 15.000 entrance fees to pay in cash to the guide)
Timing: it will be a pretty early start! (so don't do the Astrophotography tour the night before!). The van picks you up between 4:30am and 5am at your hotel for a ride of ~1h30 (or more if you need to change a wheel on the way as we had to!). You will be back to San Pedro by 12pm. What? The Tatio Geysers are the highest geysers in the world, with 80 steaming geysers located at 4,200 meters (13,780 ft.). It is quite high and the guides will recommend to walk slowly! (there is not much to walk anyways). You will have a nice breakfast after the geysers' tour with a nice view on the geysers' valley. On the way back to San Pedro de Atacama, the van also stops at Putana River to observe the native flora and fauna of the area, flamingos, lamas, ducks, etc. Our thoughts: again, it is one of most visited location when going to Atacama desert. It is quite nice to see, especially if you have not seen any geysers before.
Equipment required: Don't intend to go in shorts, it will be seriously cold! Expect -10 degrees celsius! As a funny aside, the driver sent back David who was planning to wear shorts when David tried to entered the van! Take with you warm clothes/layers, gloves and a winter hat. If you don't have this with you, there are plenty of shops in the town! You won't regret it!
Cejar Lagoon, Ojos del Salar & Tebinquinche Lagoon (CLP$ 29,000 + entrance fees to pay on-site in cash CLP$ 20,000 in total)
Timing: from 2PM till 7PM approximatively What? You will be visiting a series of lagoons inside the Atacama salt flat, Chile's largest salt flat. There are 3 parts of the visit: 1/ Cejar Lagoon and Piedra Lagoon. While you can only observe the first lagoon from a platform located ~20 meters away from the lagoon itself, you will be able to have a bath for 30min in Piedra Lagoon and float as if you were in the Dead Sea. After a quick shower to remove the salt and get changed, you will drive to 2/ Ojos del Salar and can make a fun picture on the other side of one the "eyes", which are basically two fresh-water wells. 3/ Tebinquinche Lagoon Very cool scenery with the very white salt lake in front of the desert and volcanoes/mountains in the background Our thoughts: it was a nice afternoon with the main highlight being the bath in Piedra Lagoon. A good activity if you have some time but not a must-do.
Equipment required: it will be very hot with no shade so bring lot of water, a hat and sun cream. Given you won't be able to apply/wear any sunscreen until after your bath in Piedra Lagoon (it is forbidden to bring any chemicals into the lagoon), I highly recommend you to wear a light t-shirt and cover your shoulders to avoid being burnt. Bring you swimsuit and a towel. You will be able to use dressing rooms and showers before/after your bath. You can then put some sun cream on!
Salt Flats Route (not tested)
Red Rocks & Altiplanic Lagoons (not tested)
Puritama Hot Springs (not tested)
Astronomical tour (not tested)
Hot Air Balloon ride (not tested)
Uyuni Salt Lake 3 or 4 days (not tested) - in Bolivia
Volcano climbing tours (1 or 2 days) - there are tons of volcanos in the surroundings in the border with Bolivia (e.g. Licancabur or Sairecabur volcanoes). These are at 6,000 meters altitude and are high difficulty climb!
Where to stay in San Pedro de Atacama?
I would highly recommend to stay as close as possible to the 2-3 main commercial streets in the center. We stayed at Jardin de Atacama, Gustavo Le Paige 159 (booked on booking.com), which was perfectly located and a very nice place to stay at. The rooms are quite small but the common areas including external patio are quite nice. There is a possibility to do some remote work from this hotel. If you need to leave the hotel very early before the start of the breakfast, the hotel can prepare a take-away breakfast for you (the Geyser tour requires a pretty early start!).
Where to eat / drink in San Pedro de Atacama?
For breakfast/fresh bread/sandwiches: Franchuteria (Gustavo Le Paige 527): not tested but this French bakery is extremely popular and one of the most iconic store in town. It is run by a talented French baker Arthur Becker.
For lunch: most restaurants will offer you a fixed price lunch menu (starter/main/dessert) at less than 10,000 Chilean pesos per person. Some places can be very popular, so if you really want to go to a certain place, try to go early. La Picada del Indio (Tocopilla 418): very cheap and very popular. We had some great nachos and guacamole as a starter. Sol Inti (Tocopilla 130): also good and very cheap. Some random music clips were displayed on TV when we were there!
Las delicias de Carmen (Calama 370): not tested for lunch, but supposed to be good and cheap
For dinner Las delicias de Carmen (Calama 370): good and cheap. Very traditional. Do not go before 8-8:30pm if you don't want to be on your own. Traditional dishes are available. Adobe (Caracoles 211): quite pricey but very nice and trendy atmosphere (smoky fire in the middle of the main room and very often a live band/musician is playing). Large variety of dishes: pizza (not necessarily our recommendations), ceviche (pretty nice - see picture below), meat, fish/seafood, chilean dishes Pizzeria El Charrua (Tocopilla 254-E): not tested but very well rated if you want to eat a pizza Jardin Meraki (Calama 440): located in the a very nice garden with DJ music, it looks like more a club than a restaurant at first sight. They actually even IDed us when we arrived, we were not really sure why! Personally, I did not find the staff very nice but our negro risotto with gambas was pretty good. Sounds like a nice place if you also want a nice cocktail.
For ice-cream Heladeria Babalu (Caracoles 140): a lot of very local flavours!
For drinks Lola (Toconao 441): bar recommended by a local ChelaCabur (Caracoles 212): bar/pub. they are showing the main soccer games
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