Atacama Desert Road Trip: Salar de Tara to Huacachina
Traverse the Atacama Desert across 1,342.7 km through four remarkable locations: Welcome to Atacama, Salar de Tara, Huacachina Oasis, and Cactus Valley. This 53-minute route showcases the world's driest desert landscape in Chile, from salt flats and mineral-rich valleys to isolated oases and unique desert ecosystems.
- Distance
- 1342.7 km
- Mode
- route
- Start
- Welcome to Atacama
- End
- Cactus Valley
- Stops
- 4
- Video author
- travmap
- Updated
Stops on this route
- Welcome to Atacama — Earth's driest non-polar desert spanning 600 miles along Chile's Pacific coast, featuring otherworldly landscapes and extreme aridity that challenges all life forms.
- Salar de Tara — Near the triple border of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. Tara Lake is the largest body of water fed by the Zapaleri River
- Huacachina Oasis — A lagoon surrounded by towering sand dunes in Peru's desert, offering a lush refuge and adventure activities like sandboarding in an otherwise barren landscape.
- Cactus Valley — A remote canyon showcasing resilient desert vegetation and rock formations shaped by millennia of minimal rainfall and extreme environmental conditions.
Useful for your trip
- Timing
- Visit Valle del Arcoínis between 7-8:30 a.m. when the sun is low and warm for the most intense colored rock formations. After 10 a.m., direct light washes out the red tones.
- Timing
- Arrive at El Tatio Geysers in the dark and freezing temperatures before sunrise to watch over 80 vents exhale simultaneously into the cold morning air.
- Tip
- San Pedro de Atacama sits at 2,400 m elevation, so be prepared for altitude effects.
- Tip
- El Tatio Geysers are located at 14,170 ft (4,320 m) elevation in the Chilean Andes. Expect freezing temperatures at dawn.
- Tip
- The night sky in Atacama is the clearest in the world, making it ideal for stargazing and astronomical observation.
- Tip
- Valle de la Luna was declared a nature sanctuary in 1982. It is a protected area with extreme dryness and forbidding terrain.
- Tip
- Laguna Cejar is a sinkhole lake about 20 km south of San Pedro de Atacama where groundwater pushes up through the salt crust.
Video on this route
Atacama: Life in the World’s Driest Desert | 4K Travel Documentary