San Pedro de Atacama 2-Day Itinerary: What We Did by Rental Car

San Pedro de Atacama is the main hub for exploring the visually stunning Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

On a recent bucket-list trip with my dad, we spent three nights (two full days) here, using the town as our base, before heading on a 3-day return tour to Uyuni in Bolivia.

For our two full days in San Pedro, we rented a desert-friendly vehicle and headed out on two self-drive day trips – one south, one north. In this guide, I’ll share exactly how we planned those days, including some major sights we skipped and a few lesser-known ones we chose instead.

Having our own vehicle made all the difference, giving us the freedom to travel at our own pace, stop whenever we liked, and enjoy a greater sense of adventure.

Our San Pedro de Atacama Itinerary: Quick Summary

Here’s a quick overview of our 3-night, 2-day San Pedro de Atacama itinerary, including how we got around, where we stayed, and what we chose to do (and skip).

• Before arriving in San Pedro de Atacama, my father and I had spent six days on Easter Island.
• We then flew back to Santiago, spent a night at the Wyndham Airport Hotel (see on Booking / Agoda), and caught a flight to Calama (the closest airport to San Pedro) the next day.
• While there are car rentals at Calama Airport, we chose to take this transfer service to San Pedro and rent a Suzuki Jimny here in San Pedro the next day instead.
• This worked better for our plans, as we would next be heading out on a three-day tour from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia (see the tour here on GetYourGuide) and back – otherwise, we would have had to leave our rental car unused in San Pedro for three days.
• In San Pedro, we stayed three nights in a charming cabin at Hotel Kimal (see on Booking / Agoda), which featured traditional desert architecture, a cold pool and hot tub (extra fee), and was just off the main street.

• On our first full day with the vehicle, we headed south. Instead of the typical Laguna Cejar route, we visited the lesser-known Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache. We then made a bumpy side trip to the remote “Magic Bus” and finished our day exploring the must-visit Valle de la Luna.
• On day two with the vehicle, now that we had acclimatized to the elevation, we drove very high up to the Geysers del Tatio, then spent the afternoon soaking at Termas de Puritama on the way back down.
• After we did our three-day tour to Uyuni and came back, we took a local bus from San Pedro to Calama (CLP 5000 per person), then took an Uber to Park Hotel Calama (see on Booking / Agoda) near the airport and spent the night before our flight back to Santiago the next morning.

Overall, this itinerary is ideal if you prefer a flexible, self-driving approach and don’t mind skipping a few of the most popular tours in favor of more off-the-beaten-track (and less crowded) ones.

Arrival Day: Town Walk & Meteorite Museum

Three airlines (LATAM, Sky Airline, and JetSMART) cover the route from Santiago to Calama, which means we had many flight times to choose from. We opted for an afternoon flight which got us into Calama at 4 PM.

I highly recommend choosing a window seat on the right side of the plane for this flight. I enjoyed stunning views of the Andes mountains the whole way, as well as some bright blue lagunas (lagoons), white salt flats, and as we got closer to Calama, seas of solar panels and wind turbines.

After we landed at the small Calama Airport, a representative from the transfer service to San Pedro was waiting with our names on a sign.

They pooled a group of us into a minibus for the 1.5-hour drive through the Atacama Desert to San Pedro.

On the drive through the rather desolate desert, we saw lots of wind turbines and caught our first glimpse of Volcan Licancabur, the volcano which is visible from San Pedro.

We were one of the first to get off the bus, at Hotel Kimal. We checked in to our cute little cabin, which ended up being the coziest room of our whole trip.

After settling into our room, we enjoyed our welcome drinks while exploring the atmospheric hotel grounds.

These included a freezing cold swimming pool, which we never used, and a hot tub (fee required to heat it up), which I thought we’d enjoy one evening, but we ended up being too tired every day to even bother! Still, they were nice to look at.

Next, we made the short walk to Plaza de San Pedro de Atacama (here), the town square, where some vendors were selling local products like desert herbs and liquors made from them.

I highly recommend stepping into the adjacent Iglesia San Pedro (here, free to enter, make sure to check opening times on GoogleMaps), which is famous for its impressive wooden ceiling.

After that, we headed to the nearby Meteorite Museum (here, CLP 7000), where we learned all about meteorites that have fallen in the Atacama Desert.

The visit included an audio tour of the displays then a guided portion in which we got to touch several larger meteorites.

For our first dinner in San Pedro, we decided to skip all the tourist restaurants on the main street and tried this very local restaurant instead, where we had simple chicken with rice.

On the way back to our hotel, we walked down Calle Caracoles (here, the main tourist street), which in the evening is bustling with visitors, lazy dogs, shops, and restaurants with live music.

We had to stop for ice cream and one of several ice cream shops along the road. They have several unique flavors, like rica rica (a citrusy desert spice), ayrampo (cactus flower seeds), and manjar (caramel-like and similar to dulce de leche).

We’d try a few restaurants on this street in the coming days. Now it was time to get some sleep for our big days ahead!

Day 1: Self-Drive South (Baltinache, Magic Bus & Valle de la Luna)

After an excellent buffet breakfast at our hotel, we walked about 15 minutes to West Rent a Car (here), the only car rental shop I’d been able to find in town.

I had booked our vehicle weeks in advance via their website. We opted for a Suzuki Jimny, which would be ideal for some of the challenging roads we’d be driving.

To rent the vehicle, we needed an International Driver’s Permit and a CLP 480,000 (USD 520) hold was placed on my credit card, to be canceled at the end – so make sure your limit can cover this. We settled the rental fee at the end – $153 USD for two full days, plus we had to fill the gas tank before returning it.

We arrived at the rental shop around 9 AM (they open at 8:30). After the formalities, we set off at 9:30 AM, with my Dad in the driver’s seat, since I don’t know how to drive a stick shift.

Knowing that I wouldn’t have cell phone reception for most of our explorations outside of San Pedro, I had already downloaded offline maps (here is how) for the whole region on GoogleMaps and pinned all of our stops. This meant that GoogleMaps would still work (with limited functions) even once we lost reception.

I used this Latin America eSIM from Holafly for our whole trip (including Easter Island, mainland Chile, and Bolivia). It was super easy to purchase and set up, and it worked seamlessly as we traveled between countries (whenever reception was available, of course). Even in hotels, it worked much better than the free WiFi available in them, so I would share my phone’s Internet with my dad by hotspot.

Our first stop, and the furthest from town we would go on this day, was Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache (here). I chose this as an alternative to Laguna Cejar, which is on a much more popular route going directly south from town.

You are allowed to float on the water at both lagunas. However, Laguna Cejar gets all the tour groups – it’s so popular that you even have to book a spot. Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache is just as beautiful, but we had it practically to ourselves.

While GoogleMaps said the drive from San Pedro to Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache would take us 50 minutes, it actually took double that time to get there.

Most of the drive was down an unpaved road southwest of town. Although it seemed pretty bumpy to us city folk, it was nothing compared to the roads we’d face later on.

Along the way, the Atacama desert scenery was totally barren – it was mesmerizing, but there were no major landmarks which caused us to stop and take photos.

Arriving at Lagunas Escondidas de Baltinache, we checked in, paid the entrance fee (CLP 9000 per person), and got a map of the seven lagunas on site.

From there, we drove to the first one and parked briefly to see it. The colors were spectacular!

Then we drove on to the parking lot at the end and visited the rest of the lagoons from there. The last one (Laguna 7) is the one you can swim in.

Before doing our swim, we walked along the boardwalk to visit the others, with their stunning aquamarine colors.

We saved our float for the end, because once you’re covered in salt water, you’ll want to return to your car and drive back to the entrance for a shower ASAP.

Floating on the laguna was a surreal experience, reminding me of my visit to the Dead Sea many years ago.

Once you go deep enough (to your waist), your legs naturally want to come up. You can’t help but lie back and just start floating. It’s more relaxing than you might expect – I could have easily floated for a long time and possibly even fallen asleep on the water!

Officially, they say you get a maximum of 20 minutes floating time, which is more than enough. But with almost no other visitors when we went, they may only enforce this at busier times.

You aren’t allowed to use sunscreen before floating on the lagoon. But bring lots for after, as the UV rays in the Atacama are very strong!

After soaking, we air dried as we walked along the boardwalk to our vehicle. But this left a layer of dried salt all over our bodies, which was such a strange feeling. We sat on towels in our car so as not to mess it up with salt.

Back at the entrance, we were allowed a maximum 30-second shower (due to water shortage), and this was strictly enforced – a guard literally stood there watching us and timed us with a stopwatch.

There are no shops or restaurants on this route, so we had brought our own drinking water and food for lunch.

We left the lagunas around 1 PM and drove back the same way we’d come. Our next planned stop was a remote and quirky attraction called Magic Bus, an abandoned bus in the desert which is covered in graffiti.

The bus lies a ways down an extremely bumpy desert road. There are no signs for it, so I had pinned the exact point we had to turn off the highway (here) and the exact location of the Magic Bus (here).

The bus is actually very close to the western end of the famous Valley of the Moon, except that you can’t access the valley from this side.

Our little detour to the bus (about 30 minutes off the main road) was a more challenging drive, with some very large bumps that my Dad had to navigate slowly and carefully.

The scenery along the way was more impressive than on the main road we’d just left, with some cool rock formations in the desert.

When we finally arrived at the bus, after seeing so few vehicles on the drive so far that day, we were surprised to find several groups of people here (thank you, Instagram!)

I’d expected an intimate moment with just my dad, the bus, and I. But instead we met a group of dudes from Brazil who were crossing the continent by motorbike, a multi-generational local family, and a woman posing in a fancy dress on top of the bus as her partner took countless photos.

I had to get some similar photos of my own, but – I’m not even kidding – I had to photoshop the other people out of them. We were at the Magic Bus from roughly 2:00 to 2:30 PM.

Returning to the main road and then the turnoff for the main highway back to San Pedro, my father noticed what looked like a long mound of something just off the road, so we decided to check it out.

It was Llama de dos Cabezas (here), a llama-shaped geoglyph constructed by Indigenous people of the Atacama desert. We didn’t even realize it was in the shape of animal until we got right up to it.

Note that you aren’t supposed to walk on it, as tempting as that is.

Our next plan for the day was the Valley of the Moon (Valle de la Luna), the most famous attraction around San Pedro de Atacama.

Most visitors, including the many people on half-day tours from San Pedro (like this one) visit Valle de la Luna in the late afternoon, when the lower rays of sun make the whole valley look more beautiful, and then finish with sunset before going back to the city.

On the way to the valley entrance, we stopped at Mirador Likan-Antay, an excellent (and free) lookout point over the Valley of the Moon, which is along the main highway into San Pedro.

This viewpoint immediately showed us where the valley gets its name from. The lunar landscape is even more apparent from here than when you are actually inside the valley.

We would actually come back here again later for sunset (we’ll get to that below).

After that, we made a brief detour back to this supermarket on the edge of San Pedro to get some ice creams and much needed cold drinks before heading into the Valley of the Moon.

We reached the entrance of the Valle of the Moon (here) at 3:30 PM, which I felt was the perfect time to enter and see the main sights before they closed and get to the sunset viewpoint with time to spare.

The latest you’re allowed to enter the valley is 5 PM in winter and 6 PM in summer, but if you pushed it that late, you’d miss the cutoff time for some of the sights in the valley.

Each sight in the valley has its own closing time. When we went (summer hours), each sight had a last entry time ranging from around 5:30 to 6:30 PM, depending on how long it typically takes to visit. These times were posted in the ticket center.

On the large screen in the entrance center, I paid CLP 10,800 and my dad got a discounted senior’s rate of 5400, paid with credit card. Then the staff gave us a map with some key visiting info.

We opted to drive all the way to the end of the valley and then work our way back to the entrance. Driving through the valley, the speed limit was very low, the road was shitty, and the scenery was stunning.

The furthest you can drive to at the end of the valley, and the first place we would stop, is Tres Marías (here), three photogenic rock formations which only take a few minutes to visit.

The next stop as we worked our way back was Victoria Mine (here), which has two separate parking lots to access it – we parked at the first one, but the second one is closer to the mine itself. We spent about 30 minutes here.

Along the short interpretive trail, we saw the ruins of an old salt mine, including a few old buildings, mining equipment, and cliff walls encrusted with salt.

Moving along, we skipped Sendero Mirador Achaches (here), which is a longer and more difficult hike, and parked at Duna Mayor (here), the most famous sight in the valley.

From the large parking lot, a trail leads up the huge sand dune (left side of above image).

Once we had almost reached the highest point, we had the option to go left on a longer trail that follows a ridge (total 1.5 hours, last entrance at 5 PM at the time of our visit) or go right to the shorter trail (last entrance 6 PM) to the main view of the dune and then back down (total 30 minutes).

We kept to the shorter route, which took us immediate to the sandy peak of the Duna Mayor.

At the top, we admired the jaw-dropping views across the sand dune, with the equally impressive Moon Valley Amphitheater visible in the distance.

We then descended the dune steeply and followed the path at the side of the road back to the main parking lot.

Even as we walked down, the stunning views of the valley and dune just would not stop.

From there, we drove out of the valley the same way we’d come in. In total, we’d spend just under three hours in the valley.

The Valle de la Luna ticket includes entrance to a sunset viewpoint called Mirador de Kari – Piedra del Coyote (here), which is actually outside of the valley and looking down upon it from the north, along the main road into San Pedro de Atacama.

Based on the reviews of this viewpoint, I knew that it gets jam-packed with tourists because everyone goes there after their Valle de la Luna tour.

Therefore, we decided to go instead to the same free viewpoint we had visited earlier in the day, Mirador Linkan-Antay (here), which is right next to the famous viewpoint. There were only a couple dozen visitors here, rather than the hundreds you might find at the more popular one, yet the view is pretty much the same.

Arriving here around 6:30 PM, we were well ahead of the 8 PM sunset time. Hungry and tired after a long day of exploring in the hot sun, we snapped a few photos of the valley as it changed colors under the dropping sun, but decided not to stick around until the actual sunset.

After parking our vehicle at the hotel, we walked down Caracoles to Cervecería St. Peter (here), the only brewery in town, with monastic vibes.

We had llama steaks for dinner (nowhere near as good as the llama meat sticks we’d have the next day on the road) and craft beers brewed on site.

Day 2: High-Altitude Drive North (Tatio Geysers & Puritama Hot Springs)

On our second day with the car, we intentionally pushed the limits of our acclimatization, going from 2400 meters (San Pedro) to 4320 meters (Geysers del Tatio), including going as high as 4500 meters on the way.

I would not recommend doing this on your first day after flying into San Pedro de Atacama. You need time to acclimatize to the elevation before trying to go even higher, and 4500 meters is very high! If you went that high right away, there’s a good chance you’d get very sick.

We also got Diamox prescribed by our doctor before leaving home. This helps to reduce the symptoms of high elevation. Locals also chew coca leaves (or make coca tea) – our hotel even had some at the coffee station in the lobby.

This was also the perfect way for us to acclimatize for our trip to Uyuni in Bolivia the next day, where we would go even higher (above 5000 meters). By going up to the geysers for just a short time, then going back down within a few hours, we were able to push our bodies’ acclimatizing up in increments without actually getting sick.

Most people leave San Pedro well before sunrise to visit the geysers in the early morning, when they produce more steam in nearly-freezing air. We opted to leave at a more reasonable time. The geysers would be less impressive but also crowd-free.

Just like the day before, I had already downloaded offline maps so my GoogleMaps would work the whole way. And the driving time would again be more than twice as long as GoogleMaps indicated, especially as we got closer to the geysers and the road got REALLY bad.

Part of the reason times were much slower is that the road went from bad to worse as our day would progress. But we’ll get to that below!

Setting out from San Pedro at 9:15 AM, we passed through the Cactus Canyon (Quebrada de Cardones) around Guatin (here) about 45 minutes later. Towering cacti covered the dry slopes on either side of the road as we passed through.

Guatin would also be our turnoff point to Puritama hot springs on the way back down.

Continuing along, we were so happy we had the vehicle, which allowed us to stop and take random photos of animals (including dozens of llamas and, as we got higher, hundreds of vicuñas), random little ruins, and so on.

Sometimes I even manage to take decent landscape shots from the car window as my dad was driving, like the below volcano shot. You wouldn’t be able to do that from a tour bus!

We stopped briefly for photos at Flamingos Lagoon (here), which indeed had many flamingos.

This is also the point where we began really feeling the elevation, especially my dad, who has a history of migraines, but he carries strong medications and that helped fight off the headache he was starting to get.

Next, we passed the village of Machuca (here), where most tour groups stop to visit the picturesque Church of Machuca and eat some llama meat sticks (see below – we’d save this for the drive back down).

We stopped briefly at the side of the highway to take a photograph of the village from above after we passed it.

After Machuca village, we kept gaining elevation. The roads got progressively worse, to the point that we had to abandon the main road in favor of newer ones off to the sides. We were constantly switching roads, depending on which one seemed better or worse.

While my dad was busy navigating that, I was more obsessed with photographing the gorgeous, if barren scenery.

Next, we made another brief stop to photograph the beautiful colors at Vado Río Putana, which was the highest point of our drive that day, at around 4500 meters.

Even I was starting to feel the elevation here – not sick or a headache or anything – but a general feeling of discomfort and shortness of breath when we walked anywhere.

After Vado Río Putana, the road turned from very bad to ridiculously bad for the final push to Geysers del Tatio. It was the worst road either of us had ever been on.

Some sections had crazy washboard bumps, causing us to slow down to a crawl and our whole bodies to rattle. There were even more side tracks in the desert here, each abandoned at some point once it became too terrible to use.

According to some locals we chatted with, the road at the time of our visit was worse than usual due do some rare rain in the prior season.

We finally pulled up to Geysers del Tatio (here) at 11:45 AM, or 2.5 hours after setting out. After stopping to pay the entrance fee of CLP 15,000 per person, we continued in by car to the second of two large clusters of geysers.

The geysers were mostly on the smaller side, but with many vibrant colors and stunning surrounding scenery.

After spending a full hour at the first cluster, we decided to skip the second one altogether due to time constraints. Because the drive to get there had taken longer than I had expected, I was concerned we wouldn’t be able to get the vehicle back to the rental shop before it closed at 6 PM.

On the drive back down, which was every bit as bumpy, we saw some things we hadn’t even noticed when driving up, like:

This time, we actually stopped at Machuca (from around 2:10 to 2:40 PM) to try those famous llama meat sticks. They weren’t hard to find – we just walked to the smoke rising off a grill.

This also ended up taking longer than expected, as it took the lady over 20 minutes to grill our meat sticks. The meat chunks were enormous and had to be cooked through. She used a bundle of fresh parsley as a brush to lather a native herb-infused sauce onto the meat as it cooked.

But the meat sticks were exquisitely tender and delicious. In the moment, I was getting a little stressed about the time constraints, but looking back, those meat sticks were totally worth it.

By the time we returned to Guatin, and then turned off the highway to reach Termas de Puritama (here), it was already 3:15 PM.

I had already booked and paid for our entrance tickets online before our trip, because they sometimes reach capacity.

They offer two time slots (9:30-1:30 and 2:30-6 PM) for a rather steep cost of CLP 35,000 (USD 38) per person. After booking, remember to screenshot your tickets because there’s no reception when you get there. I actually forgot to, but luckily the lady was able to dig up my ticket purchase in their email account.

I had expected to arrive earlier, so we only had about 1.5 hours at the hot springs, including time to walk down to it (15 minutes), change (lockers are available but bring your own lock and towel), soak, and walk back up.

The site includes eight separate soaking pools along a hot river, with boardwalk paths between them. Despite the short time we had, my dad was determined to try all eight pools, which we just barely managed to.

Each pool was a little different, but all very scenic. Some had a waterfall spilling into them or an infinity pool feel where it spilled down to the next one. And some were surrounded by beautiful pampas grass.

There’s no shower for after, but the hot springs don’t have any smell.

Overall, the hot springs were a very cool experience and worth the money. I only wish we would have left San Pedro a couple hours earlier in the morning, then we would have been less rushed the whole day.

After the hot springs, we drove back to town, including stopping to fill the car at the only gas station in San Pedro (here), and made it back to the rental shop before the 6 PM closure time.

For dinner that night, we tried one of the biggest tourist restaurants on Caracoles, La Casona (here). The restaurant had large indoor and outdoor seating areas and even a stage with live music.

I wanted to try some classic traditional Chilean foods, which so far we hadn’t really gotten a chance to try on this trip.

Specifically, I heard they had some of the best pastel de choclo (a baked dish containing all kinds of goodies, like ground beef, chicken, olives, hard-boiled egg, and topped with a layer of sweet mashed corn) in town. This dish ended up being my favorite on our whole trip.

My dad had some really good stewed beef here, which also came with that delicious sweet mashed corn.

The cocktails here were next level, including pisco sour with rica rica and some more creative cocktails with local ingredients.

After each band played on the stage, they passed around an envelope for tips. We now knew where the music we could hear every evening from our room came from (if you stay anywhere near the main street, this will be an issue).

But in that moment, with a light buzz from the cocktails and time to reflect on the last few days of driving around San Pedro with my dad, it all felt worth it.

The next morning we’d be up extra early for our three-day return tour to Uyuni in Bolivia!