The Ultimate Atacama Desert Itinerary for 1-4 Days in San Pedro

The Atacama Desert in Chile was one of the top things I wanted to see when visiting. Most people I told were confused as to why I chose Chile and why I wanted to go to the desert. But there are so many unique landscapes to see out there. Whether you stay for one day or several days, there’s plenty to add to your Atacama Desert itinerary.

My trip to Chile revolved mostly around the Atacama Desert and Easter Island. After flying into Santiago, I immediately flew out to Calama the next day, which is the closest airport to San Pedro–the town you’ll stay in to explore the desert.

San Pedro is about an hour and a half from Calama and you’ll either need to rent a car or book a private transfer. A private transfer was very affordable and drops you off right in front of your hotel.

It’s a very interesting town and when I first showed a picture of it on my Instagram, people were definitely wondering why I chose to visit here. The main road is dirt and a lot of the buildings are made of adobe. It’s a very small town that you can walk through and will be your starting point for all the attractions in the surrounding area.

Atacama Desert Itinerary

I ran into a lot of people who seemed to only be spending a day or two in the desert. I spent four days in San Pedro and did a lot of tours and still didn’t have time for some of the things I would have liked to see. There are a lot of things to do in the Atacama Desert, so it depends on how much time you have. A lot of people I talked to picked their favorite highlights to see and moved on.

I have up to a four-day itinerary but like I said, I did a lot of tours and if you want time to rest and relax, you can easily spread them out over more days. However, one thing to keep in mind is that there isn’t a lot to do in the town if you do have an afternoon or two open.

If you only have one day in the Atacama Desert, I would recommend going to see the Red Stones (Piedras Rojas). This was my favorite place to visit–the landscape was stunning and very unique. And you’ll also get to see some other highlights.

Tours to Piedras Rojas are typically full-day tours and include: Red Stones, Miscanti and Miñiques Lagoons (Altiplánicas), Chaxa Lagoon (flamingoes!) and a stop in the town of Socaire.

If you aren’t exhausted after a full day of exploring, you can add on a stargazing tour at night. These typically start around 8pm and last until around 11pm. It will be a full day for sure, but a great way to maximize your time here.

2-Day Atacama Desert Itinerary

For two days in the desert, I’m recommending my top favorites. It’s still going to be a busy time, especially with an early wake-up call, but these are some of my favorite spots.

The Tatio Geyers were pretty neat to see, even if the tour does start at 4:30am. I haven’t seen too many geysers so I don’t have anything to compare this too, but the Tatio Geysers are a geyser field that you can walk among. While the water doesn’t shoot up high, the attraction is the steam and it’s best seen in the very early hours of the morning before the sun comes up.

In the afternoon (post nap), you can take a tour to Valle de la Luna or Moon Valley. This was another favorite stop due to the unique landscape. It looks like you’re on another planet and because of the salt composition, looks like a white dusting is on top of the sand.

Most tours to Moon Valley take you to several highlights within the park and then end with a sunset stop at the Mirador de Kari. The overlook is outside the park and gives you a view of the landscape and surrounding volcanoes.

+ Stargazing Tour

If you’re doing the Tatio Geysers with two days in the Atacama Desert, there’s no great time to do a stargazing tour since the pickup time is so early for the geysers. You won’t want to do it the night before, so that leaves the second day.

If you want to suck it up and pack in three tours in a day, it’s doable timing wise. But it’ll be exhausting. Mind you, I did the Tatio Geysers, took a power nap and then went and hiked up a sand dune 15 times to sandboard until the sun went down.

Otherwise, you can forgo the Moon Valley tour to rest in the afternoon before stargazing. Or you can not get up at 4:30am for the geysers, have a relaxing morning, head to Moon Valley in the afternoon and stargaze at night.

3-Day Atacama Desert Itinerary

If you have three days, you can cover a lot of ground. But it totally depends on how busy you want to be during your 3 days. You can do two tours every day if you want to see as much as possible, or take it easy and do one each day.

Same as above–you’ll see the red rocks and several lagoons (Miscanti and Miñiques Lagoons, Chaxa Lagoon). This is definitely my top place to see in the Atacama Desert.

Because the Tatio Geysers tour is so early in the morning (4:30am), you’ll get back pretty early. I was back at my place by about 11:00am and went right to bed. You can either take it easy for the afternoon and recover from the early start time or book an afternoon tour once you’ve relaxed for a bit.

Moon Valley is a great tour to do in the afternoon as it typically starts later and part of the tour is catching the sunset from a viewpoint. You could also swap it for Laguna Cejar to relax in the water after waking up so early.

If you don’t end up seeing Moon Valley on day 2, I would definitely head here for day 3. The landscape is very cool and otherworldly.

Rainbow Valley is an easy hike through some rock formations of various colors. It was neat to see but probably one of my least favorite tours only because I expected a little bit more.

I also couldn’t help comparing it to the landscape in Utah which is crazy and this did not compare. However, it was still a nice hike and morning exploring. You’ll also see petroglyphs on this tour.

For the afternoon, you can head out on a lagoon tour. Laguna Cejar is a popular tour where you can float in one of the lagoons because of the high salt content. It’s currently one of the only lagoons you can swim in on an organized tour. It’s also best done in the afternoon when the sun is at its hottest as the water can be very cold.

Another option for an afternoon lagoon tour is the Baltinache Lagoons. The hidden Baltinache Lagoons are a series of turquoise pools amongst salt flats. The tour takes you along a boardwalk where the surrounding landscape is reminiscent of Death Valley in California.

A lot of the lagoon tours have morning and afternoon time slots. If you’re doing Laguna Cejar, that tour is best done in the afternoon as it can be pretty cold water. BUT I went to the Baltinache Lagoons on an early tour (11:00am) when you could still swim in one of those. It was cold, but the sun was still very hot by the time we made it to the swimming lagoon, so you could do either time slots.

One of the items on my bucket list was going sandboarding in the desert so this was a tour I tried to prioritize. I actually canceled a lagoon tour to do this one instead and I’m glad I did as I saw lagoons on other tours.

Sandboarding in Death Valley is a fun tour done in the late afternoon/sunset. They’ll take you back into Valle de la Muerte to a tall sand dune to give you lessons. I know how to snowboard, so it was easier for me, but sand is much harder to turn in than snow!

And you’ll also need to keep in mind, that you have to hike up a sand dune after every trip down haha. Exhausting, but so much fun and something different to do! Plus, the desert view was so pretty at sun down.

+ Stargazing Tour

This tour can be hard to decide when to do since it happens around midnight, especially if you are also doing the 4:30am geyser tour at some point. And you’ll want to book it ahead of time because they do sell out. So you have to commit to it prior to seeing how you are feeling that day after doing other tours.

4-Day Atacama Desert Itinerary

Four days is a great amount of time to explore the desert and you can cover a lot during this time. You can also rearrange these days depending on what works for your arrival/departure schedule. It’s hard to see everything and it can be hard to plan since the tours are either full day or start early/late.

Day 1: Piedras Rojas Tour

(Full day tour)

One of the best places to see in the Atacama Desert. The full day tour includes the red rocks, lunch, stops at lagoons and the town of Socaire.

Day 2: Tatio Geysers + Moon Valley

(Early morning tour + Late afternoon/sunset tour)

I like pairing these two together because Moon Valley is a little later of a start since it includes the sunset. Otherwise you can swap it around and head to Laguna Cejar if you’d like to spend the afternoon relaxing after the early start.

Easy Day 3

If you aren’t trying to do as many tours as possible and want to take it easy but still see some things, you can head to the lagoons in the afternoon. Both Laguna Cejar and the Baltinache Lagoons have afternoon tours. You can have a leisurely morning in San Pedro, then head to a lagoon to either float in the water or walk among the turquoise lagoons.

And since you’ve had a late start and can catch up on sleep, you could choose day 3 to go stargazing at night or save it for the following day depending on when your departure is the next day.

Easy Day 4

Rainbow valley is a morning tour and you’ll have breakfast out in the desert before starting the tour. It’s an easy walk through rock formations and petroglyphs, and you’ll arrive back around lunchtime. You can rest in the afternoon and if you haven’t done the stargazing tour, you can do that on your last night.

Aggressive Day 3

If you’re hellbent on seeing as much as possible like I was, buckle up because you’ll be thoroughly worn out once you leave. For day 3, you can start the morning at Rainbow Valley (which I believe only does morning tours). You’ll be picked up early, have breakfast in the desert and have some easy hiking and sites to see.

You’ll be back in San Pedro and have enough time to grab some lunch and a change of clothes before heading on an afternoon tour. The lagoon tours typically start around 2pm or so, but they’ll confirm when you book it. Laguna Cejar is a more popular lagoon and where you’ll be able to float in one of the pools.

For the stargazing tour, you can do it on day 3 or 4.

Aggressive Day 4

Since the Baltinache lagoons no longer allow swimming, this is a good tour to do in the morning. The walk along the boardwalk is also in direct sun, so it’s a bit cooler to do earlier in the day.

Valle de la Muerte or Death Valley (also known as Mars Valley) is where the sandboarding tours take place. Death Valley is not so far outside of San Pedro. Some people actually walk to it (though I wouldn’t recommend that). If you don’t want to try sandboarding, you can easily bike to Death Valley. Or there are even some horseback riding tours through here I believe.

However you explore it, you definitely want to get to the top of the dunes to see the view of the volcanos beyond the sand dunes.

Booking Tours

Unless you rent a car and decide to visit places on your own, you’ll need to book tours to visit most the highlights in the Atacama Desert. Most tours will include a few stops and it can be a bit exhausting to have to go on a tour for each place you want to see. Especially if you do 3-4 days of tours.

You can go about booking tours for the Atacama Desert several ways. You can book ahead for peace of mind and so you don’t have to scramble when you arrive/between tours. This also ensures that none of the tours will book out, because they can. However, booking online is typically more expensive unless you find a local company.

Or you can decide to book tours when you arrive. There are a ton of agencies all along the main road, all offering the same tours for roughly the same price. But, they can sell out–especially the stargazing tours.

I ended up booking ahead of time purely by accident. I booked a transfer from Calama to San Pedro and the company sent me over available tours they had. They were a lot cheaper than I had seen in other places online, so I ended up booking everything beforehand. It also seemed pretty comparable to what I would have paid in person.

Renting a Car

If you want to explore these places on your own and rent a car, you absolutely can. Your best option is to rent a car from the Calama Airport, drive to San Pedro on your own and return the car at the airport.

I usually opt for renting a car, but since I was traveling solo in Chile, I went with tours instead. I wasn’t about to be lost in the desert alone or have my car break down and be on my own with limited resources.

The downside to going to these places along though is that you won’t have a guide. I learned a lot about the Atacama Desert. Our guides always stopped to point out desert animals and give us facts about the area.

What to Bring

Because I was so drastically unprepared, I’m here to help you not show up as the most underdressed. I visited Chile in the fall but I’ve evidently lived in Florida for too long and forgot how bi-polar fall can be. (I’m from the midwest so I should know better.)

Another thing to keep in mind is that San Pedro is actually at a higher altitude (something I learned in real time). It’s at about 8,000 feet and you’ll travel UP to visit most of the attractions, so you’ll be at an even higher altitude. To put this into perspective, the Tatio Geysers are at an altitude of 14,173 ft and the summit of Breckenridge ski resort in Colorado is at 12,998 ft.

You can expect cool, cold or very cold temperatures in the early morning and evening. During the day between about 11:00-4:00pm, it will be very hot.

• LAYERS – no matter when you visit, you’ll be at a high altitude, so make sure you have warm clothes and layers that you can remove or add.
• Coat & gloves – if you’re visiting in the spring, fall or winter
• Tennis Shoes – the hikes aren’t strenuous and regular tennis shoes are fine rather than hiking boots
• Sunscreen – even if it’s cold, you can still burn up there. Also, the middle of the day for us was HOT.
• Sunglasses
• Swimsuit – you can float in some of the lagoons!
• Hat – many of the hikes are in direct sun with absolutely no shade.
• Water bottle – definitely bring one with you as you won’t be able to buy any once you leave on tour.

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