After making negative headlines, including Fodor’s 2024 No List, I traveled to the Atacama Desert to see if there’s any reason we should reconsider this part of the world. As it turns out, there are many.
Destinations can make the annual Fodor’s No List for myriad reasons, from overtourism to trash production to poor water quality. The No List is not meant to deter travel, but rather to raise awareness and encourage all of us to consider our collective impact and recognize when certain destinations could use a break from tourism.
In 2024, Chile made Fodor’s No List for the conflicting ways in which it manages one of the world’s finest natural resources: the Atacama Desert. Nestled between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, the Atacama Desert stretches over 40,000 square miles and offers a diverse landscape that varies from mirror-like salt flats to bubbling geysers to lush valleys and Mars-like desert terrain but when images of mountains—literal mountains—of fast fashion started to permeate global headlines, suddenly Chile’s “most romantic destination” became a poster child for gross consumerism, waste, and the massive environmental impact humans have on vulnerable and treasured ecoregions.
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Why the Atacama Desert Made Fodor’s No List
“Chile is South America’s largest importer of used clothing, accepting 60,000 tons of unwanted garments per year, mostly from the U.S., Europe, and Asia,” Fodor’s reported back in 2024. “In the port city of Iquique, about 1,100 miles from Santiago, clothing merchants purchase garments by the shipping containerful for pennies on the dollar. Because the Chilean government doesn’t allow the dumping of textiles in landfills, merchants sort out the pieces they can resell. Everything else—as much as 85%—is tossed in a dump in the Atacama Desert, one so large that satellites have spotted it from space.”
Despite its fast fashion problem, Chile’s government does seem to be moving in the right direction, albeit very slowly.
According to reporting from Wired, Chile’s government recently adopted recycling measures to make certain producers responsible for the waste they create. Known as the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law (or REP using the Spanish acronym), this legislation was passed in 2016 and took effect in January 2023, holding Chilean companies that produce tires and packaging (such as bags, plastic, cans, glass, and paper) accountable.
“Eventually, according to the Ministry of the Environment, Chile intends to incorporate clothing and textiles as a priority product into the REP law,” writes Wired. This inclusion would have a direct impact on the Atacama Desert and its growing clothing problem by holding those who contribute to the fast fashion mountains accountable, but even with this promising news, the desert faces a larger foe: lithium mining.
The Atacama Desert is plagued by lithium mining (used in everything from batteries to pharmaceuticals) that proves a direct threat to the desert’s ecosystem. Lithium mining is a water-intensive process that causes extreme environmental damage to beloved attractions, such as the Salar de Atacama, a natural salt flat that is home to all three species of the South American flamingo. In speaking with a local guide, I learned that the lithium companies often pay and employ the nearby Indigenous communities, ensuring their primary source of income comes not from tourism but from the extraction of lithium. With the lithium industry generating an estimated $3.5 billion for Chile, it’s no surprise that the government is less concerned about protecting its desert environment and, in fact, has plans to expand its lithium plans.
Between fast fashion and lithium mining, I had my doubts about visiting the Atacama Desert. Upon landing, I even half expected to be driving past rolling hills of last year’s H&M collections. I wondered if what Chile touts as its “most romantic destination” can hold two opposing truths: that a destination can be both worth a visit and in dire need of repair. What’s more, I wondered if perhaps the solution to the Atacama Desert’s problems could be saved by tourism and if the Atacama Desert needs to be on Fodor’s Go List instead. I boarded a plane to the dusty town of San Pedro de Atacama to find out.
A Desert Oasis
San Pedro de Atacama is like a base camp for the larger Atacama Desert; a small town comprised of boutique hotels, hostels, local artisan shops, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and independent tour operators lining a dirt-packed road. The buildings in San Pedro de Atacama are low and historic, offering views of the desert and surrounding mountains rising in the distance. Being in my late thirties and well past the point of shared bathrooms and hostel bunkbeds, I set my sights on staying at the newly renovated Tierra Atacama, a true desert oasis.
Following a $20 million refurbishment, Tierra Atacama (which is part of the Aussie-based Baillie Lodges’ luxury portfolio) unveiled new suites, an updated spa, and gorgeous guest areas outfitted with travertine marble sourced from nearby Calama. Seamlessly blending traditional decor and craftsmanship, over 40 local artisans and designers have contributed to the creation of the unique pieces that celebrate the Atacama Desert’s rich cultural heritage. No matter where I stood in the hotel—be it my suite, the spa’s outdoor pool, or the main dining room—I was afforded an enviable view of the desert, the towering Licancabur Volcano, and the distant Andes Mountains rising through the mist.
Like most remote and wild destinations on earth, exploring the Atacama Desert requires guides. This is not the sort of destination to explore solo in a rental car, as the terrain can be rough and certain natural attractions—like the surreal Guatin Gatchi Valley, home to a gorge of towering cacti and flowing rivers—can require a precarious hike that is best led by a knowledgeable guide. Upon arriving at Tierra Atacama, I was met with a team of deeply knowledgeable guides familiar with the surrounding desert and its terrain. I sat down with one of them as he pointed to a map, explaining the various daily excursions I could choose from and what I should expect from each. A veritable menu of adventure unfolded before me, touting everything from rainbow sunsets to half-day hikes amongst the cacti to searches for ancient petroglyphs tucked amidst the sunbaked rocks.
I opted for a mix of hiking, cycling, and half-day trips to the famed salt flats and rainbow mountains, striking a balance between adventure and relaxing afternoons spent at the spa. I quickly learned that a typical day at Tierra Atacama is structured a bit like an adult summer camp. During my stay, I woke up early, enjoyed a healthy breakfast before embarking on my first excursion of the day, which typically lasted a few hours before bringing me back just in time for lunch at the on-site restaurant, where a menu promised dishes tailored to the high altitude with ingredients pulling from the local region. Post-lunch brought on my next excursion (or an afternoon spa session; a worthy alternative), before returning me to Tierra Atacama for dinner and drinks, followed by a post-dinner star-gazing session (a must at one of the best star-gazing places on earth, due to minimal-to-no light pollution).
Whether venturing to the town of Hierbas Buenas to gaze upon pre-Columbian petroglyphs depicting people and desert fauna or catching the perfect sunset at the Salar de Atacama, watching as flamingoes danced in the salt flat lakes—what surprised me most was the desert’s wealth of diverse landscapes that, as far as I could see, was devoid of any discarded clothing. Those fast fashion mountains were more than six hours away, near the port city of Iquique, creating a tale of two deserts: the Atacama for travelers, and the Atacama plagued by environmental concerns.
Can Tourism Save the Atacama?
One day, I ventured to the Domeyko Mountains to visit its Rainbow Valley, where over 250 minerals color the rock formations in hues of deep purple, green, and maroon. My guide explained that Rainbow Valley is one of the Atacama’s newer attractions, despite its history spanning generations. By “newer,” she meant that only recently had Rainbow Valley become a place for tourists to visit. For nearly every attraction that I visited during my stay—from the Rainbow Valley to the Salar de Atacama—I had noticed how our tour passed through a checkpoint (typically manned by a local Indigenous resident collecting entry fees). Each attraction had been clean, well-maintained, with tidy bathrooms, ample parking spaces, and curiously, free of other visitors.
I thought back to the many places I’ve traveled throughout my career as a travel writer and how destinations often rely on tourism as a main revenue source. While tourism comes with its own slew of problems (hence the need for Fodor’s No List), once seen as a money generator, I’ve seen tourism inspire destination after destination to fight to protect the very things that draw tourists to their corner of the world. One example is Rewa, Guyana, where scarce job opportunities led locals to partake in the illegal wildlife trade. As a result, reports Sustainable Travel International, species such as the giant otter and river turtle began to disappear in droves. It wasn’t until the Rewa community opened a locally run ecolodge with a mission to protect the wildlife that things began to improve.
“By employing community members as sport fishing guides and boat captains, the lodge allows villagers to maintain rainforest-based livelihoods without causing damage to the ecosystem,” writes Sustainable Travel International. “Thanks to tourism, arapaimas, turtles, and otters are now common in the Rewa River. Not to mention, visitors contribute far more money to the local economy than wildlife exploitation did. In fact, research shows that globally, wildlife tourism is 5x more lucrative than illegal wildlife trade.”
I wondered, then, if tourism could perhaps similarly help the Atacama. If Chile’s emphasis on imported clothing and lithium mining’s billion-dollar industry were to shift focus to tourism, would it encourage both locals and the government to prioritize the protection of one of its greatest attractions? If the surrounding Indigenous communities could generate income from community-run tours that proudly share their heritage and land with travelers, rather than pocketing money from the lithium companies, could that help mitigate the environmental damage to the desert?
As complicated as these questions are, the answers are even more convoluted. Throughout my stay in the Atacama and in my various discussions with local guides, I came to learn that there is no easy way to save the desert, at least not from the outside. The Atacama’s fate rests solely in the hands of Chileans and their government, but the good news is that there is hope. Locals are fighting to protect the desert geoglyphs from off-roaders, a nationwide lighting standard has been set in place to protect stargazing from light pollution, environmental programs are being implemented to protect the flamingos of Salar de Atacama, and hotels like Tierra Atacama are helping travelers explore the desert’s wonders in mindful ways.
On my last night in the Atacama Desert, I stood at the Salar de Atacama alongside my guide, watching in silent wonder as the sunset slowly painted the otherwise muted landscape in hues of pink, purple, blue, and red like Jackson Pollock tossing paint on a canvas. Far in the distance, I could just barely spot the marks of lithium mining, and I realized then that the Atacama Desert is less a place of duality and more an active battleground between consumerism and tourism, and that perhaps to tip the scales in the desert’s favor, we do need more tourism to this part of the world so that Chile can see the value in preserving its natural beauty instead of destroying it.