We visited the Atacama Desert for a week in February 2024 and can absolutely recommend this adventure to anyone visiting Chile. For us, it was one of the absolute highlights of our entire South America trip. For those who want to know which tours are available and whether they fit into your budget, we first want to break down the prices of the tours on site.
Tips for Booking a Tour
For Your Information: We booked our tours on-site in San Pedro. It was very easy, as there are various travel agencies scattered throughout the town. We compared prices from three different providers. All had the exact same price list (you can find a picture of it below). However, 2 out of the 3 providers offered us discounts:
ca. 5% for paying in cash.
ca. 5% for booking two tours at once.
Tour Overview and Price List
Here is the list of the offered tours with prices in Chilean Pesos. In February, the exchange rate to US dollars was approximately 1:1000. This means 35,000 Chilean Pesos are about 35 USD or 32 Euros. (Further down, you will find the original photo of the price list with additional details about the tours.)
Valle de la luna (Moon Valley) - 35.000 (+11.000 Entrance)
Laguna Cejar (Cejar Lagoon) - 35.000 (+20.000 Entrance)
Piedras Rojas (Red stones) - 55.000 (+23.000 Entrance)
Geyser del Tatio - 40.000 (+15.000 Entrance)
Tour Astronomico - 35.000
Ruta de salares (Salt flats route) - 50.000
Valle de arcoiris (Rainbow valley) - 35.000 (+10.000 Entrance)
Termas de Puritama (Puritama Hotsprings) - 30.000 (+35.000 Entrance)
Vallecito - 35.000
Lagunas Escondidas Baltinache (Baltinache Hidden Lagoons) - 45.000 (+10.00 Entrance)
Cerro Toco (Toco Mountain) - 80.000
Salar de Uyuni - 3 days 2 nights - 220.000 / 4 days 3 nights -270.000 (+250 Bolivianos)
Salar de Uyuni private tour - 1.500.000 (+250 Bolivianos)
Bike Tours
We rented bikes and did Devil’s Throat and Moon Valley (Valle de la Luna) as half-day and full-day tours. You can easily rent bikes anywhere in San Pedro. Here too, the costs were higher than we expected:
Normal bike (no E-bike) half day - 10.000 CLP
Normal bike full day - 17.000 CLP
We did the bike tours without a guide. However, at the rental places, there was also the following price list for tours with a guide:
Devil’s Throat - 10.000/15.000 (+5.000 Entrance)
Valle de la luna (Moon Valley) E-bike - 25.000/30.000 + (10.8000 Entrance)
Mirador Licanatay E-bike - 15.000
