How many of you, like me, grew up traveling the world through China’s first generation of superstar travel vloggers/UP creators—who also doubled as the ad models wearing the least clothing? The episode I remember most vividly was the one where the “Thunder and Rain” brothers went to a deserted island: thunder, lightning, pouring rain, and a bunch of giant stone figures. It genuinely scared me as a kid...

Who would’ve thought that many years later, I’d end up on that island too—wearing just as little.

Quick takeaway: I met quite a few people who had already been to Easter Island, and the reviews were very polarized. If you’re only coming to check the Moai statues off your list, you’ll probably feel it’s not especially worth it. But if you can really enjoy life on a South Pacific island, this place may be right up your alley. Stay a few days, and the experience quickly rises to near top-tier by South America standards.

This post will focus on the practical guide and the actual experience first. I’ll save the sentimental stuff for next time.

01 How do you get to Easter Island?

Right now, the only way to get to Easter Island is by air, and there is only one route: Santiago, Chile - Easter Island. There are 1 to 2 flights a day, the flight takes 5 hours one way, and the route is monopolized by LATAM. And when there’s a monopoly on access, there’s a monopoly on pricing. On platforms like Ctrip, round-trip tickets were showing at more than 6,000 yuan, which is no small expense and almost made me give up on the trip.

Then someone told me the trick: search on the Spanish-language version of LATAM’s official website. The price was instantly cut in half, and plenty of dates had cheap tickets. Does that count as a form of price discrimination? In the end, I booked the round trip for just 2,300 yuan.

On the island, I met a Serbian guy living in New York. He asked how much I paid for my ticket, and when he heard the answer, he joked, “You ruined my trip.” He got pretty depressed thinking about the fact that he had spent more than $1,000.

You can also find some lower fares on Skyscanner or Google Flights, but LATAM’s own website is still the most reliable.

If you know how to use airline miles, the value can be huge. You can redeem a business-class ticket for 33,000 Cathay Pacific miles, and even two long-haul business-class segments from New York to Easter Island only cost 60,000 Alaska Airlines miles. After LATAM left oneworld, Cathay and Alaska became two of the few remaining partners through which you can still redeem these flights.

I also met an older gentleman from Texas who proudly told us how he had opened a new credit card, used the welcome bonus to buy a new phone, then used the bonus airline miles to redeem the ticket here and finally take the dream trip he’d wanted since he was young. We were all genuinely happy for him.

02 What’s the best way to visit Easter Island?

Naturally, you come to Easter Island to see the Moai. There are stone figures everywhere here, so let’s use the map below to go over which sites are actually the most worth seeing.

Easter Island is roughly triangular overall, a bit like a boomerang, and the main sights are spread along its three coastal edges.

Hanga Roa, next to the little airplane icon (the airport) in the lower-left corner, is the liveliest town on the island. Most hotels and restaurants are concentrated there. The red-hatted stone figures above it are Ahu Tahai (“the sea” in my shorthand), and that’s where everyone goes to watch sunset.

A few kilometers farther north is Ahu Akivi, the site of the seven statues (“the seven warriors” in my shorthand). Between the two are some secondary sights like cliffs and caves.

In the lower-left corner, Rano Kau is a huge crater lake formed by a volcano, and it’s quite beautiful. Together with nearby Orongo village, it makes up one connected sightseeing area. Orongo is the main site of the island’s Birdman culture, separate from its Moai culture.

From there, if you follow the island’s longest side, you’ll pass several relatively plain minor stops before reaching the two core sights in the lower-right corner. I call Rano Raraku the stone statue factory, since it was the main production site for the Moai. Right next to it is Ahu Tongariki ("the fifteen statues"), the iconic landmark of Easter Island, with fifteen Moai lined up in a row and an incredible foreground for sunrise and stargazing.

Farther north, after a particularly beautiful uphill stretch, a few palm trees mark the two beaches, Anakena and Ovahe. Very relaxing.

That’s basically the full lineup.

Only “Tahai,” the crater, and the beaches are free, so all visitors to the island need to pay a 72,000 Chilean peso conservation fee ticket (about 530 yuan). I’d suggest buying it in person, since the paper ticket lets you collect entry stamps at the different checkpoints.

Some budget travelers do choose not to buy the ticket. Honestly, I also think that aside from the stone statue factory and the fifteen statues—and maybe, at most, the seven warriors—only about 2.5 sights are truly worth it. Without a ticket, though, you can only look from far away at the entrance. But as the four-character Chinese travel mantra goes: “since you’re already here,” just buy it.

If you think that ticket price is already worth complaining about, hold on and keep reading.

03 What’s the deal with the mandatory guide on Easter Island?

This is actually the biggest pain point of traveling to Easter Island. Before the pandemic, visitors only needed one ticket and could roam all over the island freely. After reopening, for fairly obvious reasons, the locals rather abruptly decided that all visitors must be accompanied by a guide in order to enter sightseeing sites. No way around it—the pie was just too tempting.

So that leaves only two options: join a shared guided tour or hire a private guide.

There are many guided tours every day, and prices are fairly standardized. A full-day tour costs 50,000 pesos per person (370 yuan), while a half-day tour or sunrise tour costs 25,000 pesos per person. You can book through your hotel front desk or a travel agency in town.

A full-day tour usually covers the sights along the island’s longest side, while a half-day tour hits the short side. There are also special sunrise/stargazing tours, such as going to see sunrise at the fifteen statues.

There are English and Spanish tours, and the itineraries vary a bit too. Some full-day tours don’t include the crater, while others skip the beach. The ideal tour is one that covers both ends of the route well, so you can do the crater - Orongo Birdman village - stone statue factory - fifteen statues - beach all in one go, then wander the remaining scattered sights on your own later.

That way, you can cover all the major sights. As for a private guide, that basically means hiring a local to accompany you. The itinerary can be more flexible, and you may be able to squeeze in one or two more stops than on a shared tour, but it’s still hard to convince a guide to circle the entire island in a single day. Prices run about $100-$200 per day, and also depend on whether the visitor rents a car themselves.

Guide quality varies a lot, and the popular ones get booked up, so if you plan to hire one, it’s best to search for well-reviewed candidates and reserve ahead of time.

When I arrived on the island, I was fully in my go-with-the-flow mode and had prepared absolutely nothing. On my first evening, I was watching sunset at “Tahai” when I met Jason, a guy from Boston. He asked whether I wanted to split the guide he had already booked, and deal done.

Our guide was a very young mixed-race woman named Xiaomei. Her father was French, and her mother came from one of the island’s big local families. Xiaomei was beautiful and incredibly cute, with just one flaw: she couldn’t really guide!

Even Jason, the American, could barely understand her English explanations. My Spanish was half-baked, and another friend’s French was equally broken, so the four of us just looked at each other in confusion.

They gave up on formal explanations altogether, and we ended up chatting the whole way instead. Listening to Xiaomei talk about Easter Island and her family life turned out to be especially interesting.

So if you want a deeper cultural experience, choosing the right guide is an important part of the prep work.

If you’re traveling solo, there’s also a crafty workaround: wait by the entrance of an attraction for another guide, then ask whether you can pay $5-$10 to tag along. That way, you only pay for the specific sites you actually want to visit.

At a few smaller sites, I ran into locals showing Chilean relatives around and got waved in along with them for free, which was lucky. In the end, if you don’t plan to join a tour or hire a guide at all, you won’t even need to buy the $80 admission ticket. You can just take your time circling the island and enjoy the South Pacific breeze.

04 What experiences are absolutely unmissable?

#1 Watch the sunset at “the sea”

Every evening, streams of people gradually make their way toward Ahu Tahai.

Locals also wrap up their day and start gathering there for meals, drumming, playing guitar and singing, grilling, drinking, and warmly inviting us to join them. Don’t be shy at that point—though if you can pull out a box of osmanthus cake or mooncakes, even better.

Watching the sunset in front of the moai is a magical feeling. Even if you do absolutely nothing and just sit or lie there quietly, the atmosphere feels unbelievably good.

Only after the sun goes down does the day feel properly complete. It’s the kind of moment you replay in your mind again and again.

#2 The stars and sunrise at the “15 stone figures”

Seeing the stars and sunrise at Tongariki is another experience I highly recommend. It’s pretty far away, so in most cases the only practical way to go is with a tour group—and you also need good weather luck.

I had planned to go too. I even got up in the middle of the night, pushed my bike out for 200 meters, then quietly turned around and pushed it back. It was just too dark without any streetlights.

So all I can do is post a photo from a friend who joined a stargazing tour—a photo worth $125 in tour fees.

#3 Bike around the island

Even though I didn’t head out in the middle of the night, I did set off two hours later.

Riding hard along the coast into the slowly rising morning sun was incredible. Over 30 kilometers, with music in my ears and ocean wind in my face, it felt amazing. In that moment, I honestly felt like the ruler of this island at the navel of the South Pacific. Biking is my top recommendation—let your legs feel the strain while your heart feels the joy.

#4 Mail a postcard from Easter Island

Go to the post office in town and buy one of the island’s special stamps. Then head to the visitor center and get it stamped with a moai seal. Write down how you feel in that moment, and mail the postcard to me.

05 What are lodging and dining like on the island?

Accommodation and food depend on your budget—but honestly, there isn’t much of a true “budget” option here. It’s more like expensive versus even more expensive.

Most accommodations are run by locals, and the conditions are quite good: clean and full of character. I recommend staying as close as possible to Ahu Tahai, “the sea,” since it makes sunset visits very convenient.

The best hotel on the island is run by Explora. Explora was actually a great new discovery for me this trip—something like the South American version of Songtsam, with hotels set in spectacular locations and an all-inclusive pricing model.

A perfect South America trip might just be one strung together by staying at different Explora properties. Consider this my early temptation. But it definitely isn’t cheap: the Easter Island Explora 4-night package for two (lodging + meals + activities) costs more than $6,000.

If your budget is tighter, there are also a few hostels on the island offering dorm beds and even tents. I stayed at Tipanie Moana, which was pretty comfortable, just very far away. Every time I walked back after sunset, it felt like I had to trek forever. A whole crowd would start out together, and somehow I’d be the only one left by the end.

Dining on the island wasn’t as expensive as I expected. A restaurant meal runs about $150-$200 per person. Not cheap, but it didn’t feel like a rip-off either, and the food was decent enough.

After each day’s outing, it was a joy to grab something to eat and drink by the water, plus an ice cream. Oheho Surf Cafe and IRA Bar & Resto both get my personal stamp of approval.

Of course, the budget traveler trick passed down through generations is to stock up on food in Santiago first, then cook for yourself on the island. My Korean roommate had three boxes of Shin Ramyun stacked by his bed, clearly ready for a long campaign. Another lovely girl from Taiwan had also brought a hiking backpack stuffed with vegetables, pasta, and canned food. When she left, she gave me a cabbage as a symbol of cross-strait friendship stronger than blood.

06 Other practical tips

Best travel season: The Southern Hemisphere summer (October-March) is best. Early February is especially lively because of the island’s biggest festival, Tapati Festival, though of course prices for everything also rise by several times;

How long to stay: You really should make sure you have at least two full days on the island. Otherwise, the moai honestly aren’t worth traveling all this way for. I met an older couple who arrived one afternoon and left at noon the next day; Easter Island probably left them with nothing but fatigue in all caps;

Departure procedures: Although Easter Island is Chilean territory, the flight is treated as international. You need to register your information on a website in advance and complete departure procedures before boarding (a bit like a special administrative region). On the plane, remember to choose a left-side window seat so you can spot Easter Island before everyone else.

Cash: The exchange rate on the island is poor, so it’s best to exchange cash in Santiago ahead of time. Bringing enough pesos to equal RMB 1,000-1,500 per person should be sufficient.

Internet: Whether you use your home-country roaming plan or a local Chilean SIM card, service on the island is good enough. Honestly, even going without internet for a few days wouldn’t feel too bad. Sit in a little roadside park, soak up the sun, swing for a while, and time passes quickly. It’s a nice place to try a short digital detox.

Getting around the island: You can rent a car, motorcycle, ATV, or bicycle.

Car rentals cost $80/day in low season and over $100 in high season; bicycles cost $25 and $35 respectively. Renting a car for one day can be a good deal if you split it with a few people. Many of the island’s vehicles are older Suzuki Jimnys, which look very cool to drive. The only downside is that the manual transmission can be tricky, though luckily you can get used to it out in the open countryside. Having a car also lets you drive yourself to farther-flung sights.

Other activities on the island: There are water activities like snorkeling, diving, and fishing, but they cost significantly more than in most other places, so you can do them, but you don’t really need to. There’s also a local dance performance called Ballet Kari Kari. Tickets aren’t cheap, and reviews are mixed, so it’s worth watching some videos online first to see whether it’s your thing.

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