RAPA NUI
INTRO
Rapa Nui — otherwise known as Easter Island or Isla de Pascua — hardly needs an introduction. Famous for its mysterious stone heads, called moais (moh-eyes), the island is a dream destination for many around the world — and the most isolated permanently inhabited island on the planet. Whether you're encountering the moais firsthand, experiencing the sights, sounds, and tastes of Polynesian culture, or relaxing on blissful beaches, Rapa Nui packs an incredible amount of wonder into a small area.
The majority of the island's famous sites lie within Rapa Nui National Park. It's important to note that as of August 2022, you can only visit the national park with a licensed guide. Rapa Nui is known to be a rather expensive destination, and while we don't doubt there are ways to have very pricey trips to the island, it is possible to go on a budget. See below for what you need to know, as well as budgeting tips throughout the guide!
Map of Rapa Nui — click to enlarge (source: Rapa Nui National Park)
Know before you go: The Indigenous name for the island is Rapa Nui — locals prefer the use of this name than the one given by Europeans, Easter Island. The people of the island are also known as the Rapa Nui.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Duration: 5-8 days (including your arrival/departure days). This will allow you to see all the primary national park sites (which are usually visited on one full-day tour and two half-day tours), as well as have time to explore Hanga Roa, enjoy the beaches, and experience the magic of the Polynesian island culture. We had 6 days there and wish we had more — it's a once-in-a-lifetime destination, so I'd recommend spending as much time on the island as you can.
When to go: Rapa Nui's high season is between January and March (the southern hemisphere's summer months) given ideal weather. March to April (fall) and October to November (spring) are the shoulder seasons, where weather is still fine but crowds are smaller and prices tend to be lower.
Accommodations + facilities: there are a variety of guesthouses, hotels, Airbnbs, and campsites on the island, all mostly in the island's main town of Hanga Roa. The cheapest option by far is camping. We would HIGHLY recommend Camping Moehiva. The prices are fair, the hosts are awesome, and they also offer more affordable guided tours than anywhere else we saw — an essential given you need a guide to go to many of the island's sites. At Camping Moehiva, you can either pitch your own tent or camp in one of theirs; in addition, they have nice bathrooms and a great kitchen/hangout area.
Food + water: Restaurants on Rapa Nui are pricey, as are the local markets. Especially for goods that are imported to the island from elsewhere, expect to pay much more than you would on mainland Chile. That being said, some great things are cheap, or at least cheaper, than you'll find elsewhere. Think: fresh tuna, pineapple, guava, avocado — all delicious and in abundance. Given our tight budget, we ate out a couple times, but also took the advice of other budget travelers, grocery shopping in Santiago and cooking most of our own meals in our campsite's kitchen.
Guide or no guide: While you can explore Hanga Roa and enjoy the beaches on your own, as of August 2022, you need a guide to visit the majority of the national park sites — where most of the moais and other culturally significant sites are located. The exceptions to this are Ahu Tahai (near Hanga Roa) and Anakena Beach (in the north of the island), which you can visit on your own. You can find guides and tour options online, but in our experience, the prices tended to look a lot higher online than once we actually arrived on the island. We ended up going on our tours with our campground host, who is also a guide. Even if you aren't a camper, we'd recommend reaching out about his tours!
Make sure you have: Proper paperwork to board your flight — including an immigration slip you must get at the airport! There are quite a few entry forms you must complete before you board your flight, so be sure to check the most up-to-date requirements (we recommend EcoChile as a reliable source). Most of these can be done before the airport, but when you go to the Santiago airport, be sure to find the special immigration line for Rapa Nui flights. Even though it's technically a domestic flight from Santiago to Rapa Nui, given the island's unique ecosystem, they are extra careful about what people bring in and out, so you have to go through a special screening process in a different line than regular security. LATAM (the only airline that flies to Rapa Nui) is self-service check-in and bag check, so you don't necessarily have an airline employee pointing you in the right direction (and if you saw us sprinting through the Santiago airport back to the Rapa Nui security line after unsuccessfully trying to board our flight… no you didn’t).
Primary costs: Our major costs for our Rapa Nui trip were as follows:
National park entrance ticket: 65,500 CLP (80 USD) for an adult ticket for international visitors (the price is lower for Chilean nationals). The ticket lasts for 10 days and allows for re-entry at most sites. You can buy your ticket online from the national park website or in person at the CONAF Parque Nacional Ticket Office.
Camping Moehiva campsite: 10,000 CLP (12.50 USD) per person, per night. This was the price using our own equipment; it is 12,000 CLP (15 USD) per person, per night if using the campsite’s tents and mattress/blankets.
Tour costs: we arranged a tour package with our campground host and the other camper who was at the campsite for the same days as us. The deal we worked out was doing one full-day tour and two half-day tours — seeing all the major national park sites across the island — for 25,000 CLP (~30 USD) per person per day. So, that came to 75,000 CLP/90 USD total per person, which included transportation, lunch, and water each day (specifically highlighting transportation, because it isn’t uncommon for guides to ask you to provide a rental car for tours).
Snorkeling tour: 20,000 CLP per person (~25 USD)
1-day car rental: 45,000 CLP (~56 USD) — we split a 24-hour car rental with the other camper at our campsite. This worked great to be able to drive across the island to enjoy Ovahe and Anakena beach on our own time, as well as drive on our own to see the sunrise outside the Ahu Tongariki site. There are a number of car rental agencies in town that you can walk into (it didn’t seem like you needed to reserve too far in advance), so we walked around and did some price shopping to find the best deal.
THINGS TO DO
Tour the major sites: as noted above, as of August 2022, you need a guide to visit the majority of the national park sites — where most of the moais and other culturally significant sites are located. Guides offer circuits to see all of the sites, and if you want to see all the major sites, it's most commonly done in 3 tours across 3 days: one full-day tour and two half-day tours.
Explore Hanga Roa: Hanga Roa is pretty small, so it's easy to explore the town by foot. There are many shops and restaurants, as well as a few souvenir markets. Would highly recommend Aloha Food Truck for delicious ceviche at a lower price point than most sit-down restaurants. If you're looking to do some unique souvenir shopping, I'd really recommend Hotumatua's Favorite Store. The store's owner is an incredible local artist who designed the colorful posters for the Tapati Rapa Nui festival in the 80's and 90's. These unique vintage posters, as well as other amazing work by him, are for sale in his shop.
Spot sea turtles along the coast: sea turtles frequent the bays of Hanga Roa and Hanga Piko. Spend a few minutes (or seconds) looking along the coast and you'll likely get to see some turtles that come to the rocks to feed on algae.
Sunrise at Ahu Tongariki: the classic sunsrise spot on the island. To actually enter this site, you have to go with a guide, and as such, many guides offer early morning picnic/sunrise tours. Since we saw this site up close during the day, we opted to drive from Hanga Roa on our own and watch the sunrise from just outside the site complex — still beautiful!
Sunset at Ahu Tahai: the classic sunset spot on the island, and one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. You can do this without a guide since this is one of the moai sites that is fully open to the public.
Snorkel at Ovahe or Anakena beach: both of these beaches are on the north of the island. Anakena is a bigger, more popular beach, whereas Ovahe is smaller and more isolated. Both are beautiful and offer great snorkeling!
Hike Terevaka: the youngest and highest volcano on Rapa Nui can be hiked in a half-day outing and offers rewarding 360-degree views of the island. This isn’t usually included in the 3 classic tours, so you’ll want to ask about fitting it into a morning/afternoon, or pairing it up with snorkeling for a full day. As of March 2023, it was unclear whether a guide is required for the hike.
GETTING THERE
LATAM is the only carrier that flies to and from Rapa Nui. All flights fly in and out of Santiago, Chile, since the island is a Chilean territory. Post-pandemic, flights are running a few times per week, so be sure to keep the limited options available when planning your trip. Also, flight prices fluctuate a LOT, and flights seemed to be listed one day, then not listed the next, then listed again. If you have a tight budget but a flexible schedule, I would highly recommend keeping a close eye on prices to find cheap tickets. The LATAM flights to and from Rapa Nui are also usually refundable, so you can book your departure and return flights at separate times if you want to keep an eye out for the best prices both ways. I was refreshing Google Flights multiple times a day for when we were hoping to go (the usual flight alert tools didn’t work given the weird airline listing situation), and we bought our return flights a few weeks after we had bought our departure flights. It was all worth it because we ended up getting flights for ~$200 each way, as compared to the $800+ fare that many people pay!
Last updated: 1 April 2023
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