Chile was rated the Number 1 country to go to in 2018 by Lonely Planet. Luckily for me, my job took me to this amazing place and before I had to start working again, I was able to take a 5-day trip to the Atacama Desert.

Here are the quickies:

• Time of Year: May 23 – 27, 2018
• City: San Pedro de Atacama
• Airport: El Loa Airport (CJC), Calama
• Accommodation: Casa SORBAC

All I knew about the Atacama Desert was… nothing! Some colleagues had mentioned going and once I saw their pictures, I started getting more intrigued! It is known as the driest desert in the world as it only rains in some areas 1-2 days out of the entire year! Being a girl from Vancouver, British Columbia where it rains more like 8 months straight – this fact just doesn’t seem possible!

We started to plan our trip and realized there were just mounds of places to choose from. We finally settled on SORBAC because of the promise of smaller tours and you got a discount on your tours if you were staying as a guest. Since there were 4 of us, we splurged on the private room/bathroom option. SORBAC was SUPER clean and included breakfast every day. They could also cook lunch or dinner if you were hanging around the hostel for the day, which was good because it was located just outside of downtown San Pedro so we needed to get a “taxi” or luck out on a shuttle that was picking up tours to get to town (only 3.5km or 8-minute drive on a dirt road). It felt more like “glamping” – or glamorous camping than a hotel, which was fitting for the rustic desert we were in.

Once we arrived in town, we realized that EVERY store was one of 3 things:

1. A Tour Company
2. A Hostel
3. A Restaurant

So, I would say you definitely don’t need to plan ahead if you’re more of a last minute kind of butterfly and don’t worry if your Spanish is non-existent. There are plenty of people who are around and can speak English and most tours offer bi-lingual guides. Since we were unsure of how easily available tours were and had a pretty tight schedule, we went ahead and pre-booked 2 tours through SORBAC that we knew we really wanted to do:

• Full Day Tour: Geiser Tatio + Machuca + Putana
• Camping: Noche de Estrellas + Cordillera de Sal + Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache

Our first afternoon was spent looking around the local market and pricing out other tours. The Tourism Office located in the main square had loads of information and even a book that tourists could leave feedback for which company they went on and why they liked a particular tour or not. Trip Advisor has not taken over this town! A. You’re in the middle of the desert so data is scarce B. The wifi hotspots around town are sketch! The number of tour companies in town were very overwhelming so the book came in handy! Think about the fact the city is thriving due solely to tourism, but competition is surprisingly somewhat passive as all of the prices and tours were relatively the exact same lol.

We ended up booking the remaining tours with Lithium Aventura.  These guys were great! I actually enjoyed them better than our SORBAC tours as I felt the guides had more information on the places we went to. And of course, still had English-speaking guides. We found out that if you book more than one tour, you also get a discounted price on other tours as well, so we booked the following:

• Valle de la Luna + Valle de Muerte (Valley of the Moon & Valley of Death)
• Salar de Talar

Guys – I’ve travelled a lot, but WOW! These tours made me realize how empty our lives are until we see views like this. My pictures in this post are only small captures for those who cannot travel. To those wanderlusters who just don’t know where to go next… put the Atacama Desert on the list next!

Check out my travels on Instagram #EarthDragonTravels.