Chile
Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
The most remote inhabited island on earth, where a thousand carved stone ancestors still stand with their backs to the Pacific.
Easter Island, Rapa Nui to the people who live on it, is the most remote inhabited island on earth: a small volcanic triangle thousands of kilometres out in the Pacific, closer to Polynesia than to the Chilean mainland it belongs to. Nearly a thousand moai lie or stand where a Polynesian society carved them, hundreds still half-finished in the quarry at Rano Raraku and fifteen lined up on the great ahu at Tongariki. Everyone sleeps in the one town, Hanga Roa; the rest is grass, crater lake and empty coast.
Suggested stay
3–5 days
Language
Spanish
Currency
CLP
Timezone
UTC-6
Why you'll love Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
The moai nearly a thousand of them, some raised on their ahu, hundreds more unfinished or half-buried on the slope of the quarry that made them
Remoteness hours of open ocean from anywhere, with a night sky and a silence that no mainland site can offer
Living culture a Polynesian island with its own language, dance and clear ownership of its heritage, not an archaeological ruin
Small enough to know craters, cliffs, lava caves and one palm-backed beach, all within an hour of the only town
Best time to visit
Aug-Mar
21-28° days
27.148° S, 109.427° W
UTC-6 · Pacific/Easter
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Weather & when to go to Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Aug-Mar
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
No bad season, but rain arrives in squalls in any month, so pack for wet and wind whenever you come. May to July are the wettest and windiest, and flights are fewer. January and February are the hottest and busiest, and the island's big cultural festival fills every bed in February, so book flights and rooms far ahead.
Top things to do in Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
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Rano Raraku - the quarry where every moai began
history 👍 PopularThe volcanic slope that supplied the stone, and the single most extraordinary place on the island: hundreds of moai stand buried to the shoulders or lie unfinished in the rock face, including a giant that was never freed from it.
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Ahu Tongariki - fifteen moai facing the sunrise
history 👍 PopularThe largest ahu ever built, swept inland by a tsunami in 1960 and re-raised decades later. Fifteen figures stand shoulder to shoulder against the sea, and dawn behind them is the island's set-piece morning.
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Orongo and Rano Kau - the birdman village on the crater rim
history 👍 PopularLow stone houses cling to a knife-edge ridge between a vast reed-filled crater lake and a sheer drop to the sea. This is where the birdman contest was decided, competitors swimming to the islets below for the first sooty tern egg of the season.
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Ahu Tahai - sunset behind the moai
scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedThree restored ahu on the grass at the edge of Hanga Roa, one moai wearing its red topknot and a pair of coral eyes. Walkable from town, and where the whole island seems to gather as the sun goes down.
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Anakena - the island's one true beach
nature wildlifePale coral sand and coconut palms on the north coast, with the best-preserved moai on the island standing behind it at Ahu Nau Nau, protected for centuries by the sand that buried them. The water is warm and swimmable.
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Maunga Terevaka - ride to the island's summit
adventure ⭐ Highly recommendedThe highest of the three volcanoes, reached on foot or on horseback across open pasture. From the top you can see the entire coastline at once, which makes the island's smallness and isolation land properly.
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Ahu Akivi - the seven that look out to sea
historyInland and unusual: seven identical moai facing the ocean rather than the village, aligned so they watch the sun set at the equinox. Quiet, tidy and often visited on the way to the caves.
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Puna Pau - the red quarry that made the topknots
historyA small crater of soft red scoria where the pukao, the cylindrical topknots worn by some moai, were cut and rolled out. Several lie abandoned along the track, and the hill above gives a wide view over Hanga Roa.
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Father Sebastian Englert Museum - the island's own account
culture artsA small, well-made museum near Tahai holding rongorongo casts, a rare female moai and the coral-and-obsidian eye found at Anakena. Worth an hour before you see the sites, so the stonework means something.
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Lava tubes and Ana Kai Tangata - caves under the grass
adventureThe island is riddled with lava tubes: Ana Te Pahu has a collapsed roof and banana plants growing in the daylight hole, while the sea cave at Ana Kai Tangata carries birdman paintings on its ceiling. Take a torch and mind your footing.
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Umu rapa nui - fish cooked in an earth oven
foodThe island eats tuna, ceviche and po'e, a sweet pudding of banana or pumpkin, and the traditional way to cook is the umu, an oven of hot stones buried under leaves. Almost everything else is flown or shipped in.
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Diving off the caleta - clear water and lava arches
adventureThere is no river runoff here, so the water is startlingly clear over black lava arches, caverns and hard coral. Fish life is thin compared with the tropics; the visibility and the underwater rock are the reason to go in.
Best areas to stay in Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Hanga Roa centre
First-time visitors $$Walkable main street above the little harbour
Explore hotels in Hanga Roa centre →
Tahai end
Quiet and scenic $$Quiet northern edge beside the ahu
Explore hotels in Tahai end →
Mataveri
Good value $Residential streets by the runway
Explore hotels in Mataveri →
The coast road out of town
Seclusion and comfort $$$Isolated lodges on open coastline
Explore hotels in The coast road out of town →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
Getting to & around Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
Getting there
Fly from Santiago to Mataveri, the only scheduled way in, with the runway running along the edge of Hanga Roa
Flight
Mataveri International Airport (IPC)
The runway sits on the southern edge of town, so nearly every guesthouse is a few minutes away and hosts meet the flight and drive you in, usually with a flower lei. The crossing from Santiago takes about five and a half hours.
Flight
Mataveri
A long-standing route links the island with Papeete in Tahiti, which makes a Polynesia stopover possible rather than a there-and-back trip from Chile. Arrivals need onward tickets, booked accommodation and a completed entry form, and stays are capped.
Cruise
Hanga Roa, by tender
Pacific cruises call here, but there is no deep-water berth: passengers are tendered ashore and swell regularly cancels the landing altogether.
Getting around
Rental car or 4x4
The usual choice. Sealed road runs to Anakena and the east coast; rougher tracks want clearance, and fuel comes from the single station in town.
TBC
Guided tour vans
Most park sites must be visited with a licensed Rapa Nui guide, so half- and full-day tours do the bulk of the sightseeing.
TBC
Scooters, quads and bikes
Fine for the coast road and short hops. Wind and sudden rain are the limits, and there are no lights outside town.
TBC
Walking
Hanga Roa is small enough to cross end to end on foot, and the coastal path north to Tahai and the museum is a pleasure.
Free
Horses
Horses roam the island in numbers and riding is a normal way to reach Terevaka's summit and the northern coast.
TBC
Day trips from Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
The eastern circuit
Full dayMoai heartland
The classic island day: the quarry at Rano Raraku, the fifteen at Tongariki, the fallen giant and magnetic stone at Te Pito Kura, finishing on the sand at Anakena. Most people do it as one guided loop.
Getting there
car | tour
About 40 min drive east from Hanga Roa
Rano Kau and Orongo
Half dayCrater rim village
Up the volcano above the airport to a crater lake the size of a small town and the stone village on its rim. The walk up from Hanga Roa is steady rather than steep and gives the view twice.
Getting there
car | walk | tour
20 min drive uphill, or about 2 hr on foot from town
Anakena beach
Half dayBeach and moai
Warm, swimmable water, coral sand and palms, with two ahu on the grass behind. Traditionally where the first settlers landed, and the easiest afternoon on the island.
Getting there
car | tour
About 30 min drive north on the island's one good road
Poike peninsula
Full dayCliff-top hike
The oldest and emptiest corner of the island, a grassy headland ending in cliffs above the ocean. Open, exposed and barely visited, with a guide required and weather that turns fast.
Getting there
car | walk | tour
Drive to the trailhead, then several hours walking
Motu Nui by boat
Half dayBirdman islets
Out to the islets below Orongo that the birdman competitors swam to, past cliffs and sea caves. Boats snorkel or dive on the way when the swell allows, and cancel when it does not.
Getting there
ferry | tour
Boat from the caleta, sea state permitting
A little history of Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
Polynesian voyagers reached this speck of land around 1200, tradition naming the founding chief Hotu Matu'a and the homeland Hiva. Over the following centuries the clans carved close to a thousand moai from the soft tuff of Rano Raraku and moved them, without metal or draught animals, to ahu around the coast, where they stood facing inland over the villages of the people whose ancestors they represented. Then the carving stopped. Statues came down, the island's palm forest disappeared, and authority shifted to the birdman contest decided each year on the crater rim at Orongo.
Europeans arrived on Easter Sunday 1722 and the following century was catastrophic: Peruvian slave raids in the 1860s and the epidemics that followed cut the population to about a hundred people. Chile annexed the island in 1888 and then leased almost all of it for sheep, confining islanders to Hanga Roa for decades. Citizenship came only in the 1960s. Today Rapa Nui runs its own national park, guides are islanders, and the moai are treated as ancestors rather than ruins.
Polynesian voyagers settle Rapa Nui, the last major island group in the Pacific to be reached
The great moai-carving era: statues cut at Rano Raraku and raised on ahu around the coast
Carving ends, moai are toppled, and the birdman cult centred on Orongo takes hold
Jacob Roggeveen sights the island on Easter Sunday and gives it the name Europe still uses
Peruvian slave raids and the diseases brought back by survivors devastate the population
Chile annexes the island
Most of the island is leased as a sheep ranch and islanders are confined to Hanga Roa
Rapa Nui islanders gain Chilean citizenship and civil administration replaces navy rule
Rapa Nui National Park is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Limited
Wifi
Limited
Power
Type C / L
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+56
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Chile eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about Easter Island (Hanga Roa)
▸ When is the best time to visit Easter Island?
Jan-Mar and Aug-Dec are the pick of the year. February is hot, busy and carries the island's big cultural festival, while May to July are the wettest and windiest months with fewer flights. Rain can blow through in any month, so a light waterproof matters more than the calendar.
▸ How do you get to Easter Island?
One airline flies in, from Santiago, in about five and a half hours, with a long-running connection to Papeete in Tahiti. There is no ferry. Entry rules require a return ticket, a booked place to stay and a completed form, and stays are capped at a month.
▸ How many days do you need on Easter Island?
Three full days covers the east coast circuit, Orongo, Anakena and the sites around town without rushing. Five lets you walk Poike or Terevaka, get out on the water, and go back to Rano Raraku or Tongariki in better light.
▸ Do you need a guide and a park ticket?
Yes. The national park ticket is bought on arrival and checked at the sites, and most of them can only be entered with a licensed Rapa Nui guide. Entry to Orongo and Rano Raraku is limited on that ticket, so save them for clear weather.
▸ Can you touch or climb on the moai?
No. Walking on an ahu or touching a moai is prohibited and penalties are taken seriously; marked paths and rope lines keep you back from the platforms. Drones are restricted over the sites too. Behave as you would in a cemetery, because that is close to what these are.
▸ Is Easter Island expensive?
Yes, by Chilean standards. Nearly everything except fish and some fruit arrives by air or ship, and the flight itself is the big line in the trip. Guesthouses run by island families are the sensible middle ground, and self-catering only helps a little.