Guided tours in Rapa Nui: how it works
If you’re visiting Rapa Nui, or Easter Island as it’s known in English, there are many areas of the island that can’t be accessed without a guide. The good news is, there are a lot of guides and tour agencies on Rapa Nui. In fact there are so many that it can feel a little overwhelming trying to choose one!
In this blog I’ll explain how to find a guide and what happens on a guided tour in Easter Island.
Why do I need a guide in Rapa Nui?
The historic sites and ruins of Rapa Nui hold deep cultural significance for the island. So you can’t enter the national park without a registered guide. You can get a guide through a tour agency, or you can find your own here.
Our tour guide, Ata Cristino, was amazing and very knowledgeable. His parents were archaeologists and anthropologists who were involved with restoring many of the island’s landmarks and as a born-and-raised islander he has a deep connection with and understanding of its history.
You can contact Ata to arrange your own private tour with him on WhatsApp here +56 9 6667 7563 or email atarikicristino.ats@gmail.com. Ata also runs his own guesthouse and glamping which you can book here.
Guided tour itinerary in Rapa Nui
We did a half-day tour the day we arrived in Rapa Nui, and then a full-day tour the following day. I’m not going to go into the deeper details about each site that you visit on a tour in Rapa Nui, because you’ll learn the history and importance from your guide when you visit. But to give you an idea of the timings and structure, this is our itinerary over two days.
Day 1: Half day tour
3pm: collection from Airbnb
3:30pm: Ahu Akivi / Ahu a Tiu - the seven moai facing the ocean. Explanation of the history of the name and its meanings and why these heads face the opposite direction to others.
4pm: Puna Pau - the site where the moai’s ‘topknots’ were made with view over west of island
4:30pm: Ahu Huri - a stand-alone head by the road
5pm: drop off at Airbnb
7pm: Ahu Tahai - sunset spot that you can access without a guide
8pm: dinner in Hanga Roa
Day 2: Full day tour
9:30am: collection from our Airbnb
10am: arrive at Ahu Nau Nau - a row of heads at the back of Anakena beach, learning why this area was inhabited by kings
11am: arrive at Ahu Tongariki - the famous row of 15 well-preserved moai by the sea. Explanation of how these moai were destroyed and then restored, and why some are so much larger than others.
11:30am: arrive atRano a Raraku - the quarry where moais were made and hundreds were abandoned. An explanation of all we know about how and why moais were carved and why the chapter ended
1:15pm: arrive at Orongo - the village from the Birdman chapter where annual competitions to crown the new king were performed
1:45pm: arrive at Rano Kao - the crater of the volcano that formed the south west corner of the island. Learn about the lake in the crater and take in the views from across the island.
2:30pm: arrive back in Hanga Roa. If you stop for lunch at any of the sites you will finish later than this but we went back into town for lunch.
Things we didn’t cover on our tour
There are many, many sites on Rapa Nui and it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to visit them all. We asked our guide to select the most important historical sites to keep our tours fairly short, while still getting an understanding of the island’s history. Many guided tours (especially if you do two full days) also include these sites:
Te Pito Kura - the site of a magnetic stone said to have mystic powers
Vaihu - an area where people would have lived and kept livestock
Akahanga - the tomb of the island’s first king, and an old settlement
Ana Vai Teka - a cave with a small lagoon
Which sites on Rapa a Nui can only be accessed once?
There are some areas of Rapa Nui that tourists are only allowed to visit once. The two main sites you can only enter once per Rapa Nui National Park ticket are Rano Raraku and Orongo. The current ticket conditions say the pass is valid for 10 consecutive days, but it allows only a single entry to those two sites.
Why those two? Because they are two of the island’s most important and sensitive archaeological areas. Rano Raraku is the main moai quarry, with hundreds of statues in different stages of carving, and Orongo is the ceremonial village linked to the Tangata Manu, or Birdman, cult.
Where can you go without a guide in Rapa Nui?
There are a number of sites you can access without a guide including:
Anakena beach
Rano Kao volcano
Hanga Roa town
Ahu Tahai moais
Find out more about how we spent three days in Rapa Nui here.