A beach city between the Pacific and the world’s driest desert

Iquique: Paragliding Experience with GoPro Video

The thing Iquique is famous for among pilots worldwide. You launch from the edge of the coastal cliff at Alto Hospicio strapped to a certified tandem pilot, glide out over the great dune and the city’s towers, and come in to land near the beach. The listing includes a GoPro video of the flight.

• Tandem flight with a certified pilot — no experience needed
• Views of the city, the Cerro Dragón dune and the Pacific
• GoPro video of your flight included

Experience Sandboarding in the Iquique Dunes

Two hours of sandboarding on the dunes above Iquique with a local instructor. It is the cheapest bookable activity in town and, at the time of writing, the one with the most reviews — every one of them five stars. Expect sand everywhere and a sunset-coloured view of the city.

• Ride down the dunes that rise behind the city
• Equipment and instruction provided
• The best-reviewed Iquique activity on GetYourGuide

Iquique: Guided City Tour with Boat Trip to Esmeralda Buoy

A half-day introduction to the city with a guide: the nitrate-era square with its clock tower and theatre, then out by boat to the buoy that marks where the corvette Esmeralda sank on 21 May 1879. The most efficient way to understand why this date matters so much in Chile.

• Plaza Prat, the 1877 Clock Tower and the Municipal Theatre
• Boat trip across the bay to the Esmeralda buoy
• The story of the Battle of Iquique where it happened

Iquique: Learn Sandboarding on Legendary Dunes Overlooking the Pacific Ocean

A sandboarding lesson pitched at complete beginners. You are collected from your hotel, driven about twenty minutes to the dune, kitted out with board, boots and helmet and coached for two hours on slopes chosen for your level. A newer listing with no reviews yet.

• Hotel pickup and drop-off
• Board, boots and helmet included
• Slopes for all abilities, no experience required

Arica: Sightseeing Tour of Lauca National Park and Lake Chungará

The classic altiplano day trip of the far north, and the easiest organised way to see high-Andean lakes and volcanoes if you are travelling between Iquique and Arica. Departs from Arica and reaches well over 4,000 m, so give yourself time at altitude first if you can.

• Lake Chungará beneath the Parinacota volcano
• The altiplano village of Parinacota
• Vicuñas, flamingos and other Andean wildlife

San Pedro de Atacama: Valle de la Luna Shared Sightseeing Tour

Most travellers who come to Iquique by bus are also going to San Pedro de Atacama, a long day’s journey south-east via Calama. This is the essential first tour there: an inexpensive, very well-reviewed afternoon in the Valley of the Moon, ending at sunset.

• The Amphitheatre and the Great Dune
• The Tres Marías rock formation
• Sunset over the salt range

Tatio Geysers at Sunrise | Breakfast & Incredible Landscapes

The most-reviewed Atacama tour on GetYourGuide by a wide margin. A pre-dawn start takes you up to the El Tatio geyser field, above 4,000 m, for sunrise among the steam, with breakfast in the cold. Departs from San Pedro de Atacama, not from Iquique.

• One of the highest geothermal fields in the world
• Steam columns at their best at dawn
• Breakfast included

Piedras Rojas, Altiplanic Lagoons & Salar Full-Day Tour

A full day among high lagoons, volcanoes and salt flats south of San Pedro de Atacama, with meals included. If the altiplano behind Iquique is out of reach without your own vehicle, this is the easiest organised way to see the same kind of landscape.

• Miscanti and Miñiques lagoons
• The red rocks of the Salar de Talar
• The village of Socaire; meals included

Playa Cavancha

The city beach with a desert behind it

A long curve of sand in the middle of the city, sheltered by the Cavancha peninsula and backed by palms, a landscaped promenade and a wall of apartment towers. It is the calmest swimming beach in Iquique and the centre of local life from morning joggers to sunset.

Paseo Baquedano & Plaza Prat

A timber boulevard from the nitrate boom

Iquique’s historic core: a pedestrian street of balconied wooden mansions built with nitrate money between about 1880 and 1920, ending at a square with a white clock tower, a 19th-century theatre and a Moorish-style social club. It is a protected heritage zone and the best walk in the city.

Humberstone & Santa Laura

UNESCO ghost towns of the saltpeter age

Two abandoned nitrate works in the desert 47 km east of Iquique, preserved by the dry air since they closed around 1960. Humberstone is a complete company town with a theatre, market and iron swimming pool; Santa Laura keeps its towering leaching plant. Together they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Cerro Dragón

A giant dune inside the city

A ridge of sand about four kilometres long that rises between Iquique and the coastal cliff, protected as a nature sanctuary. Paragliders launched from Alto Hospicio drift over it almost every day of the year, and its slopes are where the city goes sandboarding.

Pica & Matilla

A green oasis of lemons and warm springs

An oasis town about 115 km south-east of Iquique where warm spring water turns the desert into orchards of mango, guava and the small, fragrant limón de Pica. People come to swim in the Cocha Resbaladero rock pool, drink fresh juice and see the churches of Pica and neighbouring Matilla.

Atacama Giant & Pintados

Messages drawn on the desert

Two of the great geoglyph sites of the Americas. On Cerro Unita, east of Huara, the Atacama Giant is among the largest prehistoric human figures in the world; at Pintados, to the south, hundreds of figures of people, llamas and geometric signs cover the hillsides beside an old caravan route.