The moment the wheels touched down in Santiago, my next stop was already set: San Pedro de Atacama., I wasn’t stopping to smell the roses. My trip was designed around one thing: cheap flights. And the cheapest way into the Atacama Desert wasn’t to ease into Chile with a couple of nights in the capital — it was to land, sprint through the airport, and catch the next domestic flight out. So that’s exactly what I did.
First order of business: find an ATM. New country, different currency, and absolutely nothing works until you have cash in hand. I tracked one down, withdrew enough to not feel like an idiot, and moved on. Second task: activate the travel eSIM. No data in a foreign country and you’re effectively blind — that gets fixed before anything else.
With pesos in pocket and a working SIM, I cleared domestic security and made my way to the gate for my LATAM flight to Calama — the closest airport to San Pedro de Atacama, about 100 kilometres away.
I’d already web checked in, so boarding was smooth. Window seat this time — not my usual preference, but it was a short flight, so I let it go. Turned out to be the right call. The view outside was unlike anything I’d seen before. No green, no trees, no signs of life — just a vast, bone-dry expanse of desert and jagged mountains stretching to the horizon. It looked less like Earth and more like someone had accidentally routed the flight over Mars.
That was my first real glimpse of the Atacama.
Getting to San Pedro de Atacama from Calama
San Pedro de Atacama sits so deep in the desert that flying directly into it isn’t an option. The closest airport is in Calama — and even that’s a hundred kilometres away. To cover that last stretch, you take a shared shuttle. No trains, no buses, no other real option.
The process was easier than I expected. You walk out of the airport, and right there on the pavement are half a dozen agencies all offering the exact same thing: a ride to San Pedro. I did a quick Google check to make sure I wasn’t handing money to the worst one, found Transilver, bought a ticket, and within half an hour the shuttle was loaded and moving.
That drive is where it started to sink in.
One road. Dead straight. Nothing on either side but desert and sky. No signal, barely any traffic, and a landscape so stripped back it almost felt fictional. The shuttle hummed along and I just stared out the window trying to process it.
A couple of days ago I was in Vancouver in the middle of winter — grey skies, cold air, layers. Now I was cutting through one of the driest places on the planet, watching the light bounce off the salt and dust, mountains rising in the distance like they’d been painted there. It was the kind of shift that takes a second to actually believe.
What a way to start a trip.
Just before we reached San Pedro, the shuttle driver suddenly switched into tour guide mode. He pulled over at a viewpoint right on the edge of town — unannounced, unhurried — and gestured everyone out.
And there it was. The town sitting in the desert, framed by mountains, with that particular quality of light you only get at altitude in the middle of nowhere. I’d find out later that this spot is one of the best places in the area to watch the sunset — the kind of thing people plan their whole evening around. But we’d rolled in somewhere around 1 or 2 in the afternoon, so sunset wasn’t on the cards. Didn’t matter. Even at midday, the view was worth the stop.
It was a nice touch from the driver. Nobody asked for it, he just did it — a small moment that set the tone for what San Pedro was actually going to feel like.
We were dropped at the main arrival point in town — the usual spot where shuttles offload passengers. It was hot. Obviously. You’re in the middle of a desert.
My hostel was a twenty to twenty-five minute walk from there. I tightened my bags, locked in, and started moving.
After travelling through a few countries now, I’ve come around to something: the cheapest hostel is not always the right call. After a full day of hiking, exploring, and being on your feet, your base matters. You need somewhere you can actually decompress, sleep properly, and wake up ready to do it all again. So when I was browsing Hostelworld, I wasn’t just filtering by price — I was looking for somewhere good.
That’s how I found Misky Wasi.
I’d booked the first four days there, with the next four held on an easy cancellation — just in case it turned out to be terrible and I needed to bail. It did not turn out to be terrible. I ended up staying all eight days without a second thought.
Here’s the thing about Misky Wasi — it doesn’t feel like a hostel. There are no stacked bunk beds, no dorm room chaos. Each room has two beds, so you’re sharing with one other person at most. Six rooms total, two bathrooms, two toilets — one set for women, one for men. It never felt crowded.
You walk in through a living room with an attached kitchen. Tucked into one corner is a small reception desk, and just behind it, the couple who run the place live in their own two rooms. That detail alone tells you what kind of place this is — not a business running through you, but a home that happens to have guests.
Out the back is a small outdoor area. Chairs, open sky, desert air. That’s where I had most of my breakfasts and dinners when I wasn’t eating out. It became a routine quickly.
When I first walked into my room though, my initial read of the place took a hit. The person already staying there didn’t exactly give off great energy. That’s the moment I was genuinely glad I’d split the booking — because right then, I was mentally already searching for alternatives.
I went to the receptionist and asked, as casually as I could, whether it might be possible to switch rooms if I ended up staying longer. She said yes without any fuss. That small thing changed everything. New room, fresh start, and from that point on the experience only got better. By the time I checked out eight days later, I didn’t want to leave.
Rated 9.7 Superb on Hostelworld. Genuinely one of the best places I stayed on this entire trip. If you’re going to San Pedro, just book Misky Wasi.
Flight days have their own rhythm for me. No agenda, no tours, no trying to squeeze everything in. It’s a reset day — unpack, let your body figure out where it is, and get a feel for the place at a walking pace. So that’s what I did. I unpacked, pulled out my daypack, and by evening I was out in the streets of San Pedro seeing what the town was actually about.
To be continued.