Known for landmarks like the extraterrestrial Valley of the Moon and the flamingo-filled Chaxa Lagoon, the Atacama Desert is a legendary stop in Chile. But with that fame and record-breaking visitor numbers, certain parts—like the tiny gateway town of San Pedro de Atacama—are suffering from over-tourism.
The vast desert spans four of Chile’s 16 administrative regions, but only the southernmost one is officially named the Atacama Region—and it’s surprisingly the least visited. Less than 2 percent of all foreign visitors to the Atacama Desert reach this part. Yet, with a nature reserve, three national parks, and barely any light pollution, the Atacama Region is an ideal hiking and astro-tourism destination. Sandwiched between the Andean plateaus and the Pacific Ocean, the trails pass seaside cliffs, rolling cactus fields, and occasional guanacos (the smaller, undomesticated cousins of llamas).
Lucky visitors can also witness a rare, dramatic superbloom event, when the world’s driest nonpolar desert gets carpeted with more than 200 species of flowers, including the magenta-pink bursts of the endemic pata de guanaco (guanaco’s paw). The last two superblooms occurred in 2022 and 2025. To protect this fragile ecosystem, 220 square miles near the region’s capital, Copiapó, were designated as Desierto Florido National Park in 2023.
Conservation efforts are necessary here. Beneath the Atacama’s salted soil lies gold and the largest reserves of copper and lithium in the world. The Incas made this region part of their empire in the 15th century, sending the desert’s treasured deposits via llamas all the way to Cuzco. In the 1980s, national and foreign companies created massive open-pit mines near the region’s water sources. That mining threatens the glacier ecosystems that Indigenous communities rely on.
“We don’t want to lose our river,” says Paula Carvajal Bórquez, a Diaguita Molle Kay Kko cultural practitioner who runs heritage workshops in Alto del Carmen. She and other local residents are starting businesses that don’t harm the environment and show visitors the beauty of the region’s nature. “We don’t want massive tourism,” she adds. “We want to find people who can respect the beauty of our nature and the lifestyle of our communities. This kind of tourism is not only about surviving economically; it’s here to protect our place.”
English-speaking local tour operator Alaya helped me arrange the trip, booking guides, experiences, and transportation between the region’s numerous valleys, beaches, and mountain plateaus. Here’s what to do in the Atacama Region and why, on your next trip to Atacama, you should head south.
Turn minerals into art and nature into food
Locals make crafts from the desert materials, from copper jewelry to clay murals and even soil candles at Espacio Mehuen bed-and-breakfast.
Photos by Yulia Denisyuk
For centuries, Indigenous people—such as the coastal Camanchacos (locally known as Changos), the Molle, the Aymara, and the Diaguita—used the desert’s minerals for artisanal purposes. “In 200 B.C.E., the Molle culture already knew metallurgical techniques,” says Iván Torres Iriarte, a Diaguita jewelry maker who’s revitalizing the forgotten practice of copper metalwork in his designs. Travelers can head to Pukará Cultural Center in Vallenar Valley to buy his jewelry and watch the maker in action at his studio nearby.
Through Alaya, visitors can sign up for Carvajal Bórquez’s ancestral workshops in Alto del Carmen, including Indigenous gastronomy or art themes alongside the valley’s heritage mural route. In these experiences, guests learn the region’s traditional practices, such as cooking chícharo, a type of legume that mountain shepherds rely on, and making murals with clay, mineral pigments, and a cactus plant called penca de tuna that binds the raw materials together.
Carvajal Bórquez also teaches people artisanal doll-making, a Diaguita craft safeguarded by seven generations of women in her family. Stuffed with wild-harvested herbs like chachacoma, a type of medicinal shrub, Palinay Muñecas Indígenas are amulets for physical and emotional health.
Hike to ancient petroglyphs
In areas like nearby Freirina or El Tránsito, Atacama ancients left messages in the landscape for their descendants to decipher. These petroglyphs depict figures in worship, celestial objects, and lines connected in one intricate system.
To behold these rarely seen images, Alaya arranges for travelers to go on a hike with Bruma Altiplánica, a new hiking outfitter led by experienced Diaguita guide Evelyn Isabel Iriarte Aracena. With the goal of making her ancestors’ culture more visible, Iriarte Aracena guides daytime and nocturnal hikes through the 2.5-mile Piedra del Indio and the more challenging 5-mile Quebrada de La Totora.
Get on the water for whales, penguins, and Indigenous canoes
At this rare coastal desert, even when you’re surrounded by sand, you’re never far from the sea.
Photo by Erlantz P.R/Shutterstock (L); photo by Yulia Denisyuk (R)
Chango Adventure organizes Polynesian-style canoe expeditions across the bay of Bahía Inglesa on Vaka Te Pakakina, or “canoe of the North.” These vessels serve as proof for cultural exchange between local Indigenous groups and Polynesian sailors, who almost certainly reached South America centuries before Columbus did.
While you paddle, guides will tell you about the Camanchacos/Changos, nomadic mariners who have lived at the intersection of desert and ocean for thousands of years, learning how to thrive on little fresh water as they foraged for mollusks and hunted whales on rafts made from sea lion skins. Although this is one of the smallest Indigenous groups in Chile (at about 4,000 people) that only recently gained official government recognition, the word camanchaca has long been used in Chile to refer to the coastal desert fog.
Farther south, the Indigenous tourism collective Chango Robe offers whale watching tours around Chañaral Island, which is part of the Humboldt Penguin Reserve and a popular place for penguin watching. Chango Robe also occasionally offers ancestral food tastings and workshops that recreate the emblematic Chango sea lion rafts at their own museum in Caleta Chañaral.
Drink pisco and sun wine
The extreme microclimate of the Huasco Valley and its calcium-rich soil have turned the area into an oasis inside the arid desert. “We are the last green frontier in the north, because we have a river that’s alive,” says Carvajal Bórquez. Known as the Garden of Atacama, the valley produces sweet pajarete dessert wine (also known as “sun wine”), Chilean pisco, olive oil, and saline, mineral-tasting wines like sauvignon blanc, all protected by the Huasco destination of origin denomination.
Local winery Buena Esperanza runs bicycle tours through its vineyards, with a stop by a soil pit you can descend into to understand how the terroir affects the wine. Nearby, Viña Kunza names its bottles with words from the now-extinct Indigenous Kunza language. In its shaded courtyard, guests can try Akainik (Rainbow) chardonnay and Muskuy (Dreamy) pinot noir. “I would love for my home to be recognized precisely for its Indigenous heritage,” says Diaguita tourism entrepreneur Sandra López, who organizes tasting lunches at the winery.
Try a sound healing session
The Pirámide de Sal is a beautiful rock formation where Centro Pachacama does sound healing sessions.
Photo by Yulia Denisyuk
Centro Pachacama offers a sound healing practice at the intersection of ancestral knowledge and contemporary art. Using voice, ethereal tongue drums, and clay ocarinas (a wind instrument used by Indigenous people here for millennia), the owners create a kind of barefoot meditative conversation with the land.
Settings include the 20-foot-tall rock formation called Pirámide de Sal (Salt Pyramid), a fragile, ever-shifting geological marvel that seems to be at risk of vanishing into the ocean at any minute. “This land carries the memories of our ancestors,” explains cofounder Alfonso “Choncho” Octavio Silva Ramírez. “It teaches us how to listen, how to help preserve it and share it with others.”
Where to stay in the Atacama Region
Hotel Orígenes in the Huasco Valley is an 18-room family-owned boutique with a living-room style lobby and an outstanding selection of artisanal piscos. Or book a stay at the solar-powered bed-and-breakfast, Espacio Mehuen, run by a local Sufi couple who built their dwellings from scratch. The home’s location on an isolated hill near Vallenar is perfect for stargazing sessions and making candles with Atacama’s soil.
