Five days on Easter Island: the loneliest place people ever chose to live

Four nights on Rapa Nui, taking the quarry and the fifteen moai at Tongariki, the birdman village on the crater rim, the caves and the seven statues that face the sea.

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Length
5 days, 4 nights
Where you stay
Easter Island
Places
13 across 5 days
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Rapa Nui is 3,700 km off the coast of Chile and about 2,000 km from the nearest inhabited land, which is Pitcairn, population several dozen. Polynesian voyagers found it, settled it, and then carved almost nine hundred stone figures, moved them across a treeless island and stood them up on platforms facing inland, watching over the villages.

The moai are what everyone comes for and they are not a disappointment. What surprises people is everything around them: a volcanic crater half a kilometre across with a lake in the bottom, a cliff-edge village where men once competed to swim to an islet and bring back a bird's egg, lava tubes you climb into on your hands and knees, and a beach of white coral sand with palms behind it.

Four nights is the practical stay, because flights arrive and leave on a fixed rhythm and because the park ticket lets you into the two headline sites once each. Five days gives you a spare one for the weather, which matters more here than the latitude suggests.

Highlights

  • Rano Raraku, the quarry, with hundreds of unfinished statues still lying in the hillside
  • Ahu Tongariki at sunrise, fifteen moai in a row with the Pacific behind them
  • Orongo, a village of stone houses on a cliff between an ocean and a crater lake
  • Ahu Akivi, the only seven statues on the island that look out to sea
  • Anakena, white coral sand, palm trees and two restored platforms just behind the shore

Where to stay

Rapa Nui

The island is a triangle about twenty four kilometres along its longest side, made of three extinct volcanoes, treeless over most of its area and green in a way that photographs never convey. Around seven thousand people live in Hanga Roa on the west coast, which has the airport, the harbour, the shops and every hotel.

Four nights divide neatly by geography: the town and the nearest platforms, the east coast with the quarry and Tongariki, the southwest with the crater and Orongo, and the northwest with the caves and Akivi. The last morning is for the harbour and the flight.

Day by day

Day 1 in Easter Island

Hanga Roa, the museum and the first moai at sunset

The flight from Santiago lands in the early afternoon and the runway takes up a good part of the island's width. Buy the park ticket in the terminal before you leave it.

Start at the museum, which is small, free of hype and the best hour you can spend before seeing anything else. It explains what the moai were for, who carved them, how the rongorongo script has never been read, and what happened to the population in the nineteenth century, when Peruvian slave raids and introduced disease reduced it to barely a hundred people.

Then walk five minutes to Ahu Tahai, the group of platforms just north of town, and sit there for sunset. One of the statues here has had its coral eyes restored, which is how all of them originally looked, and the effect is unnerving.

That is enough for a day that started with a five and a half hour flight.

  1. 15:00

    Pater Sebastian Englert anthropologic museum

    Culture

    The island's anthropological museum, named for the Bavarian priest who spent decades recording Rapa Nui language and tradition. Small, clearly labelled in Spanish and English, and the necessary context for everything else. Twenty minutes on foot from the harbour.

  2. 18:00

    Ahu Tahai

    Historic

    Three platforms on the shore just north of Hanga Roa, restored in the 1960s, with the sun going down behind them and horses wandering through. The single statue on Ahu Ko Te Riku has its white coral and obsidian eyes back in place.

With more time: The harbour at Caleta Hanga Roa is a two minute walk and has a small platform of its own beside the fishing boats, plus the restaurants where you should eat tuna on your first night. If you happen to be here on a Sunday, the ten o'clock mass at the parish church is sung in Rapa Nui and is the one thing on the island that is entirely for the islanders.

Day 2 in Easter Island

The quarry, and fifteen statues facing the wrong way

Nearly every moai on the island came out of one hillside. Rano Raraku is a crater of soft volcanic tuff on the east side, and the quarry face is still covered in statues at every stage: outlines cut into the rock, figures nearly free, and dozens standing part-buried on the slope where they were left when the carving stopped. There are around four hundred of them here.

You get one entry on your ticket, so give it three hours rather than one, and walk the inner crater path as well as the outer.

Ahu Tongariki is a kilometre down the road and it is the largest platform on the island: fifteen moai in a line about a hundred and fifty metres long, with the sea behind them. They were toppled during the island's internal wars, then scattered inland by the tsunami that followed the 1960 Chilean earthquake, and put back up in the 1990s with Japanese help. Sunrise here is the photograph, and it means leaving Hanga Roa in the dark.

Finish at Anakena in the afternoon, which is where the first settlers are said to have landed and is now the island's beach: white coral sand, imported palms, and a line of moai standing behind the sunbathers.

  1. 09:00

    Rano Raraku

    Nature

    The quarry where almost every statue on the island was cut, with hundreds of moai still in the hillside at every stage of carving, including one more than twenty metres long that was never lifted. One entry per ticket, so take your time.

  2. 12:30

    Ahu Tongariki

    Other

    Fifteen moai on the longest platform on the island, knocked down in the old wars, swept inland by the 1960 tsunami and re-erected in the 1990s. Come at sunrise if you can face it, and note that only one of the fifteen still wears its topknot.

  3. 14:30

    Anakena beach

    Visit

    The island's main beach, up on the north shore, with coral sand, coconut palms planted in the last century and two restored platforms behind it. Swimming is easy and the water is warm. There are a couple of food stalls and nothing else.

With more time: The south coast road back from Tongariki passes Ahu Akahanga and Ahu Vaihu, which have deliberately not been restored: the moai lie face down where they were pushed over, some with their heads snapped off. They are the most affecting sites on the island precisely because nobody has tidied them, and neither takes more than fifteen minutes.

Day 3 in Easter Island

Rano Kau, the birdman village and the fitted stones

Rano Kau is the crater at the southwest corner, more than a kilometre across, with a reed-covered lake in the bottom and one side eaten away by the sea. The rim road climbs steeply out of Hanga Roa and the view down into it is the best on the island.

Orongo sits on the narrowest part of that rim, between the crater on one side and a three hundred metre drop to the ocean on the other. It is a village of about fifty low stone houses with turf roofs, built for one purpose: each spring the competitors, or their champions, climbed down the cliff, swam to the islet of Motu Nui through shark water, and waited for the first sooty tern egg of the season. Whoever brought one back intact made his sponsor birdman for the year.

That cult replaced the moai carving, which is the part that takes a moment to absorb: the statue culture ended and this began. One entry per ticket here too.

On the way back, stop at Ahu Vinapu behind the airport. Its platform is built of enormous stones cut and fitted without mortar to a standard that looks Andean rather than Polynesian, and archaeologists have argued about it for a century. Puna Pau, the small red quarry inland, is where the topknots came from and takes twenty minutes.

  1. 09:30

    Orongo

    Historic

    A ceremonial village of low stone houses on the crater rim, with the birdman petroglyphs carved into the rocks at the cliff edge and the three islets below. One entry per ticket. Windy and exposed; take a layer even in January.

  2. 13:00

    Lunch back in Hanga Roa

    Eat

    There is nothing to eat on the crater rim. Come back down into town for a tuna empanada or ceviche at the harbour, which is fifteen minutes from Orongo by road.

  3. 14:30

    Ahu Vinapu

    Other

    A platform at the end of the runway built from huge stones dressed and fitted so precisely that early visitors assumed South American builders. It is the finest masonry on the island and almost nobody stops here.

  4. 15:45

    Puna Pau

    Other

    The small red scoria quarry where the pukao, the cylindrical topknots that sat on the statues' heads, were cut. Several unfinished ones lie in the crater and on the track below it. Twenty minutes, on the same ticket.

With more time: The cliff path along the crater rim beyond Orongo is closed at various points and the view from the road is nearly as good. If the weather turns, Rano Kau is the site most worth swapping to another day, because in cloud you will see nothing of the crater at all.

Day 4 in Easter Island

The caves, the seven that face the sea, and the high point

The northwest is the emptiest part of the island and the part most people skip. It has the lava tubes: long tunnels left by flowing basalt, some with gardens of banana and taro growing in the collapsed sections where light gets in, and at least one that opens through a hole in a sea cliff with nothing beyond it but water.

Ahu Akivi, inland from the caves, has seven moai standing in a row and they are the only ones on the island facing the ocean. Every other statue faced inland, watching the village that raised it. The usual explanation is that the village these seven watched over was between them and the water, which is either satisfying or a let-down depending on how much you wanted a mystery.

If the day is clear, walk up Maunga Terevaka. It is the highest point at just over five hundred metres, the climb from the road takes a couple of hours on foot or less on a horse, and from the top you can see the entire coastline at once, which is the only place on the island where the sea surrounds you visually as well as actually.

  1. 09:30

    Ana Te Pahu

    Visit

    A cave system reached from the northwest road, with a large collapsed entrance planted with banana and taro by the islanders who once sheltered here. Bring a torch and expect to bend double in places.

  2. 11:30

    Ahu Akivi

    Other

    Seven moai in a line, restored in the 1960s, and the only ones facing the ocean rather than inland. Set back from the coast in open pasture, usually quiet, and best in the late afternoon when the light comes at them from the front.

  3. 13:30

    Maunga Terevaka

    Nature

    The highest point on the island at a little over five hundred metres, walked or ridden from the north road in about two hours. Bare, windy and the only place with a full three hundred and sixty degree view of the coast and the ocean.

With more time: Ana Kakenga, the two-window cave, is a short crawl that opens onto a sheer sea cliff through two natural holes, and it is the single most disorienting five minutes on Rapa Nui. Ahu Tepeu, on the same coast, has the foundations of hare paenga, the long boat-shaped houses people actually lived in, which are easy to walk past without noticing.

Day 5 in Easter Island

The harbour, the last statues and the flight east

Flights to Santiago leave in the afternoon, so the last morning is real. Spend it in Hanga Roa, which most visitors treat as a car park and which is worth a couple of unhurried hours.

Caleta Hanga Piko is the working harbour where the fishing boats come in and the supply ship is unloaded, with a small restored platform beside it. It is the least monumental thing you will see here and it explains how the island actually feeds itself.

The parish church is five minutes up the hill and is worth looking into for the carvings, where Catholic saints have been given Rapa Nui faces and birdman attributes by local sculptors. The market beside it sells wood and stone carving, and the good work is expensive for the right reasons.

The airport is a ten minute drive from anywhere in town, which is one of the pleasures of the place.

  1. 09:30

    Caleta de pescadores

    Visit

    The fishermen's cove, with painted boats, the day's tuna coming ashore and a platform of moai looking over it. Ten minutes on foot from the centre and the best place on the island to watch something ordinary happen.

  2. 10:45

    Iglesia Santa Cruz

    Visit

    The parish church, where the carved saints have been given the features and attributes of Rapa Nui figures by island sculptors. Small, still in daily use, and a short walk up the hill from the harbour.

  3. 12:30

    Last tuna on the seafront

    Eat

    The restaurants along the coast road do ceviche and grilled tuna with sweet potato. Sit outside, watch the surf on the rocks, and accept the bill.

With more time: The botanical garden above town has around twelve hundred species with an emphasis on Polynesian plants, which is more interesting here than it sounds given how little of the original forest survived. Ovahe, the small beach on the north coast near Anakena, is the alternative last morning if you would rather swim than shop.

Before you go

Getting there, and getting around

One airline flies here, from Santiago, in about five and a half hours, with a handful of services a week and an onward connection to Tahiti on some schedules. Book early: fares are high, the plane is often full, and there is no alternative. You will be asked for proof of a return flight and of booked accommodation before boarding.

Everything is on the island's single road network and Hanga Roa is the only town. Renting a car or a quad for two of your days is the standard approach, and there is no insurance available on hire cars here, which is worth knowing before you take one down a farm track. Bicycles work for the near sites and not for the far ones.

Guided day tours cover the east coast circuit and the south in half or full days, and are good value once you count the entry rules and the driving.

The park ticket, and the rules

Almost everything worth seeing is inside Rapa Nui National Park, and there is one ticket, bought at the airport on arrival or in Hanga Roa, valid for ten days. Buy it immediately; nothing on the island is cheaper later.

Two rules catch people out. Rano Raraku and Orongo can each be entered once only on that ticket, so do not go to either for a quick look, and do not plan a sunset and a sunrise at the quarry. And most sites now have to be visited in the company of a local authorised guide, with only a few open to independent visitors, so check the current list when you buy the ticket rather than assuming.

The other rules are simple and enforced: stay on the marked paths, do not touch or climb any moai or platform, and do not walk on the ahu. These are graves.

Costs, food and supplies

Everything except fish and some fruit arrives by plane or by the ship that comes a few times a year, so prices are far above mainland Chile and roughly what you would pay in western Europe. Cash machines exist in Hanga Roa and run dry; bring pesos.

Eat tuna. The fish here is excellent and comes in ceviche, raw, or grilled with sweet potato, and it is the one thing that is good value. Empanadas filled with tuna are the standard cheap lunch. The restaurants along the harbour front do the best of it.

Buy water and snacks for any day you drive out, because outside the town there is nothing at all, including at the biggest sites.

Weather and when to come

Subtropical and changeable: warm all year, in the low to mid twenties in the southern summer and a few degrees cooler in winter, with rain possible in any month and often arriving as a sudden squall that passes in twenty minutes. Wind is constant.

January and February are hottest and busiest, and the Tapati festival in the first half of February fills the island with music, competitions and body paint and books out every bed months ahead. April to June and September to November are quieter and perfectly good.

Take a light waterproof, sun protection that survives sweat, and shoes you can walk lava in.

Respect

This is a living Rapa Nui community of a few thousand people, not an open-air museum, and the relationship with mainland Chile is complicated and current. The archaeological sites are ancestral burial grounds and are treated as such.

Learn iorana for hello and maururu for thank you, ask before photographing people, and do not remove so much as a pebble. Removing stones from the island is illegal and taken seriously.

What stays with people is not the size of the moai, which are smaller in the flesh than the photographs suggest. It is the arithmetic: a few thousand people on a triangle of rock in the middle of the largest ocean on earth, with no possibility of help or of leaving, who spent centuries carving nine hundred ancestors out of a hillside and dragging them to the coast.

The only way off is the way you came, unless you are continuing to Tahiti, which some schedules allow and which is a fine way to keep going west.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

How many days do I actually need?
Four nights covers everything above without rushing. Three is possible and means giving up either the northwest or the spare day, and on an island where a squall can shut a crater in cloud for an afternoon, the spare day earns its place. More than five nights and you will have seen it, which is fine if you came to swim and read.
Do I have to hire a guide?
For most of the park, yes, under the current rules, and it is not the imposition it sounds: the guides are Rapa Nui, they know their own family history at these sites, and the sites are otherwise a lot of stone with no signage. A few areas remain open to independent visitors. Confirm the list when you buy the ticket.
Is it really that expensive?
Yes. The flight, the park ticket, the accommodation and the food are all well above mainland Chilean prices and there is no cheap version, because everything is flown in and there is one airline. Budget for it and it will not spoil the trip; expect Chilean prices and it will.
What actually happened to the trees?
The old story that the islanders felled the last palm and collapsed their own society has been substantially revised: rats brought by the first canoes ate the palm seeds, the forest failed slowly, and the population that collapsed did so after Europeans arrived with slave ships and smallpox. The museum sets this out well, and it is worth arriving having unlearned the simpler version.
Can I change this plan?
Yes. Copy it, move the Tongariki sunrise to whichever morning has the clearer forecast, swap the summit walk for a beach, drop the caves.