Chile’s Atacama desert is unlike anywhere else on the planet. It’s simultaneously eerie and seemingly void — as many deserts are — but also vibrant and full of life, as flamingos, foxes, llamas, and more call it home. If the sight of volcanoes, lagoons, valleys, and dunes don’t take your breath away, the elevation certainly will — much of the region sits between 8,000 and 14,000 feet. It does feel like stepping onto another planet, which makes it entirely worth the trek to get there.
At first glance this looks like it could be a sweeping aerial shot, like Mars from above, but I actually snapped this zoomed in with a long lens. Though tourists are permitted to wander all over sand dunes in many other parts of the world, most of the dunes here were roped off, to preserve the landscape - and rightly so.