Moon Valley Tour from San Pedro de Atacama
Description
See the unearthly landscape of the Valle de la Luna — Moon Valley — on a tour from San Pedro de Atacama. One of the driest places on the planet, the valley is made up of dunes, caverns, sharp peaks and natural depressions, creating an unbelievable moon-like scene in the Salt Mountain Range. With a guide, you’ll explore the area on foot, checking out caves, canyons and climbing a dune for a sunset view that will take your breath away.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Your day trip from San Pedro de Atacama begins with hotel pickup Remember that the Hotel pick up and drop off is included only on hotels nearby the town and you have to let us know the correct information about your Hotel for being picked up. Please reconfirm pick-up information and time at least 1 day before the tour.
The best place to enjoy the much anticipated Chilean sunset is in the Salt Mountain range, the location of the Mars and Moon valleys. The valleys contain a variety of stone, sand-like formations - a result of water and wind. As the sun sinks below the horizon, experience the wonder of the area and its close resemblance to the moon. In the evening, one of the most expected moments is the sunset and the best place to appreciate it is the mountain range of the Salt, with its Mars and Moon Valleys that are saline and sacrilegious conformations product of the mineralogical folding that has taken place for one hundred million years and that originated small mountains of capricious and sculptural forms that at sunset resemble a Lunar landscape. We will visit 3 main points, starting with a view to the Cordillera de la Sal in the Valley of death. Incredible landcapes from the desert we can find here, and amazing postals too!
After the Cordillera de la Sal, we will visit the Licanantay viewpoint where you can see the mountains of salt from above. Beautiful landscapes, where the desert gives us the opportunity to see how great and incredible is it, full of colors and history behind its sand, rocks and mountains.
Finally, we will visit the Valley of the Moon, where 3 sites are visited. First, a tour of the salt caves is subsequently the salt statues "Las Tres Marias", the amphitheater and the large sand dune in the central part of the Moon Valley. We wait for the sunset at the Coyote stone. After an incredible scenic sunset, we begin the trip back to your Hotel in San Pedro de Atacama.
Finally, after getting marvelled by the colors and the majesty of the desert, enjoying the sunset in the Moon Valley at the Coyote stone viewpoint, we will begin our trip back to San Pedro de Atacama.
Highlights
What's included
Pickup Locations & Times
Remember that the Hotel pick up is included only on hotels nearby the town and you have to let us know the correct information about your Hotel for being picked up. Please reconfirm pick-up information and time at least 1 day before the tour.
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
- It is recommended that you wear comfortable clothes such as trekking pants, socks and trekking shoes, as you will be walking on sand
- Please bring a windbreaker or jacket, gloves, and carry water, sunblock and sunglasses
- Note: Please bring cash to pay for the entrance fees
- Pick up is from 15:00 to 15:40 summer time and 14:30 to 15:10 winter time.
Reviews(59)
excellent tour, fantastic scenery. A great afternoon experiencing this very unique landscape. The best thing was the way Leo our guide looked after everyone, especially as he had to switch from Spanish to English. Eric our driver was great and prepared a nice cocktail and snacks at the end of the tour. Highly recommend it.
Thank you very much for your wonderful review! We’re delighted to hear that you enjoyed the tour and the fantastic scenery, and that you had such a great afternoon experiencing this unique landscape. It’s especially nice to know that Leo took such great care of the group and smoothly switched between Spanish and English, and that Eric added a special touch at the end with cocktails and snacks. Thank you for the recommendation. We truly hope to welcome you again soon!
The places we visited were beautiful however our tour guide, Valeria was not knowledgable and did not speak English well. She did not explain the geography of the land or what we were seeing other than a few obligatory words. She did not engage the crowd. Her sense of time and distance was horribly off and did not help in allowing the tour group to anticipate the plan or what was next. She was polite enough and accommodated our request to be picked up later at the beginning of the tour so we could check into our hotel.
Thank you for sharing your detailed feedback with us. We appreciate you taking the time to do so. We would like to mention that Valeria has over four years of experience guiding tours in San Pedro de Atacama, has knowledge of the destination, and normally conducts tours in English. However, we are truly sorry that on this occasion the experience did not meet your expectations. We will review internally what may have happened during this tour, as maintaining clear communication, accurate information, and engaging guiding is very important to us. Thank you again for your comments. We regret that your experience was not fully satisfactory and appreciate your feedback, which helps us continue to improve our services.
It was a very nice tour of the valley with a lovely cocktail break afterwards and ended with a beautiful sunset viewing.
Such a cool place. Neil Armstrong said it was the most similar place to the moon on planet Earth. Our guide was amazing. Loved this trip.
Only a half day tour but absolutely breath taking scenery. One can imagine this to be what Mars or the Moon surface would look like.
Excellent tour. Andrea the guide and Daniel the driver, very friendly. Beautiful place, excellent explanations from Andrea and to close a delicious snack or snack!!!
We loved the tour, surreal place!! I would come back a thousand times!! Everything well organized!! Guide Victor was great!! It was really worth it!!
The place was very beautiful, except that I found that perhaps the organization on the part of the tourism company was not the best, since, due to the company's organization, we were a little delayed in being able to enter, the delay was short but it is still something that can be improved with more organization and preparation. Furthermore, the information they gave said to bring cash for the entrance, then when the guide arrived he said that you had to pay by card, in my case I had to be able to pay with both but it is a situation that perhaps can improve.
The Moon Valley tour was cancelled so we were offered an alternative. It was OK but not what we expected. Suddenly we were asked to climb a steep hill on a very narrow path and with wind gusts that could potentially knock you off the path. Not an experience I would repeat.
First time visiting Atacama; I had two great tour guides Damian Berrios and Edgar. They were very knowledgeable about the are and did a great job explaining to the group the different landscapes and formations. They were very kind, helping us take pictures and preparing a nice spread at sunset. Highly recommend this tour!
