The high desert in northern Chile is one of the most unique places in the world. At the center of it is the dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama that springs up like a literal oasis. From the clearest Milky Way, beguiling pastel mountains, vicuña roaming the plains, and bubbling geothermal activity, this is a traveller’s dream.
For those that like to travel more independently, planning a 6 day San Pedro de Atacama itinerary with a car rental is entirely possible but can be a little tricky. This is why we cover in considerable detail how to get tickets, the driving conditions, untold secrets, and more to make sure your vacation goes off without a hitch.
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6 Day Atacama Itinerary
The Atacama Desert has one of the most unique desert landscapes where you’ll find small oasis towns, ethereal moonscapes, jutting volcanoes, pristine salt lakes, rejuvenating hot springs, and the clearest sky, there are so many reasons why this is a must-visit part of Chile.
This desert plateau is the driest nonpolar desert in the world and there’s a reason why it’s been used as a simulation for Mars. There’s also a reason why the largest astronomical project, ALMA Observatory, is located here. It is truly a window to another world and galaxy from here.
Background Of This Itinerary
Context matters and so to tee up this itinerary, let’s quickly chat about how this trip fit in our larger month in Chile (full itinerary coming soon).
The Atacama Desert was the second leg of the trip and followed immediately after a physically demanding Torres del Paine National Park. As a result, we wanted this to be slower-paced. Normally, folks try to do this in 3-4 days but every itinerary we reviewed looked way too jam-packed.
For better or worse, we decided to rent a car because we wanted the freedom and flexibility to explore which we didn’t quite have in Patagonia since that comprised of tour packages.
Since we’d be doing it on our own, we didn’t book any tours in advance. The approach was to have a loose idea of the itinerary and figure the rest out on the ground. We’d learn later that this presented a ton of challenges.
How To Use This Itinerary
When you compare to our 10 day Patagonia itinerary, 6 day Smoky Mountains…
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