Magic Bus Atacama | Wild Camping

February 10th, 2024 by naturwunderer_&photografnix

Beautiful spot to stay Overnight.
During the day a lot of Tour Busses arrive but leave normally after 30minutes. For Sunset are also Busses and private cars, but they leave also after few minutes.
Sometimes it was windy but the night was quite.
The Road from San Pedro is tripple.
First tarmac road, then good gravel road and at least washboards with few bumpy parts. But its doable with any kind of car.
We have a european standard motorhome with 2WD and normal clearance and didnt touched the bottom.
Its not steep or deep sand.
There are No Toilets and Trash bins.
So prepared to take your trash and poop with you. Otherwise they maybe forbidden to stay overnight there.
The place is free and so beautiful.

February 9th, 2024 by ricardocensi

lugar lindo e tranquilo. Um pouco de vento, mas nada demais

January 28th, 2024 by michiel

We went here already at night with a 2WD camper from '99 and even though the road is sometimes challenging (rather call it technical) it's doable if you just take it easy. After leaving the B-241 we took around 30-40 mins to reach the bus. Just take your time and find the path of least resistance. We don't have high clearance and only scraped our bottom while entering the lot where the bus is, because I was impatient of finding a better entry. We took the liberty to make the bus even a bit more magical with colourful lights as you see in the pictures. combined without moon and a sky full of stars, truly magical. Disfruten!

January 2nd, 2024 by thevaninalplanet

Cool spot, beautiful stars at night until the moon rose, but definitely not remote/quiet. To be fair, we were here during high season/holidays, but there were tour groups from 4pm-1am (for star gazing) and then from 7:30am onward in the morning. It is a super popular site, so no surprises -- but many other posts said they had the place to themselves, but that was not the case for us, so just keep the season in mind if you are looking for solitude! Still a great stop :)

December 22nd, 2023 by cassiocav

local protegido atras do monte. muito tranquilo. vento a noite diminui. estrada um pouco ruim mas é curta.

September 24th, 2023 by kayleighpluk

We had a great night here! No tours at night or in the morning, we parked the car just around the corner out of sight from the bus and we had no wind at all and super quiet. There was only one other car parked, which we only found out in the morning. Beautiful sunset and stars, we definitely recommend this place!! Doable with a higher 2wd, road is quite bumpy.

September 6th, 2023 by nomadxplorers

Amazing place to spent the night out of san pedro. Around 40min from town. Road doable with any car. Washboard all the way. We were 3 vans sleeping there and the tours start to arrive around 9:30am. At this time of the year i’s hot during the day, and around 10° at night. Amazing after freezing nights in laguna route!

August 10th, 2023 by nathi

It is a nice area and for free.
The night was very quite, lot of stars and after 8 pm and until we left around 9 am we were alone.
Take other tracks to the left or right and it is more secluded and more magical than one more of the 100k instagram picture of the bus you take 🤪
Don’t get me wrong the bus looks fancy in this moon area but instagram kills it

June 26th, 2023 by on.vagabonde

What a gorgeous place ! Free and beautiful to see the stars during “no moon”.
It’s better to arrive from the way to “laguna Baltinache” and to leave from the other way to San Pedro. Like that you do a loop.
It’s better that way because the road from San Pedro is very steep at some point and you prefer to go down than up ;)

No phone signal

June 13th, 2023 by the.redexplorer

After sunset we were alone, all the tour buses were gone. Had a quiet night with a fantastic starry sky. Great location.

May 25th, 2023 by nomadexpedition.es

pasamos una noche aquí, muy tranquilos, había otro Camper y sobre las 12 de la noche llego una camioneta de un tour astronómico pero todo muy tranquilo. pese a las señales de que está prohibido ingresar a esta zona del Vallecito con vehículo aquí llegan al día cientos de furgonetas con tours desde San Pedro. un lugar ideal para acampar en medio del desierto y dormir con miles de estrellas

April 27th, 2023 by sarahhayes

stayed one night here, got our sleeping bags out and slept under the stars! we were by our selves until a tour came around 12:30am but they weren't too loud. Road to get here in 2wd ok if you go slow

April 25th, 2023 by knabbenfisio

Dormimos uma noite aqui super tranquilo. As estrelas são surpreendentes! Vale muito a pena. Nos sentimos seguros. Perto da meia noite veio um tour fazer fotos das estrelas e foram embora. Visual incrível no nascer do sol. @esticaedalee

April 25th, 2023 by robatt90

We went here with our 2wd Motorhome (Fiat Ducato from 1993). Needed to go really slow and gentle with 20km/h average. Totally fine to manage the road if you focus. Rarely sand and mostly hard and drivable surface.
We parked right next to bus and did amazing photos of vehicles and milky way.
At 22.30 am group of English speaking tourists came, had a beer and talk on top of the bus and left after an hour. Fine. Than a Spanish speaking group arrived and did stuff (photos, drinks, whatever) really noisy until 1.30 or later. So even at night it's touristy.
Be smarter than us and park 100m away than you should be fine. There is enough room.
Tourists arrived at 9 in the morning for breakfast and even shared with us. Lots of nice people.

It's and memorable place for one night. I would go there twice at the road is tough. But we managed with three kids in an old caravan so anyone with some skill in driving and physics can do it. Had harder roads on Carretera Austral.

Enjoy and take your trash with you.

April 17th, 2023 by dkphotography.ch

Spent one night here, super cool place close to the Valle de la Luna (outside the protected area). You pass several signs that say "prohibido el ingreso". We asked locals and they confirmed that all the tours and locals drive it anyway (seem to be old signs).

April 15th, 2023 by inge.van.de.ven

This place is im the Valle del Luna!

April 11th, 2023 by infovayaviajecito

Pasamos una noche mágica al lado del Magic Bus. No es tanto el autobús, sino el paisaje que lo envuelve (valle de la Luna). Las estrellas en el desierto son hermosas.

Para llegar el camino es malo, pero asumible para cualquier tipo de vehículos. Nosotros llegamos con la aplicación Maps Me sin ningún problema.

Por ahora es gratis, no sabemos cuánto durará en el país en que se paga por todo.

December 2nd, 2022 by Kombichileiros

We spent one night here, beautiful sunset, quiet at night, the road is bad, but we had no problems despite finding a lot of nails around the Magic bus. We collected as much as we could as they can damage the tires when parking close. Still it was a great experience to spend the night under the stars.

October 20th, 2022 by van.der.lane

chegamos com facilidade com o maps me.
Google maps não tem a estrada. estrada de terra em boas condições.

September 23rd, 2022 by vidadekombi

We loved this place. Very quiet night and perfect to take a night pictures with a milk-way. Enjoy!

June 13th, 2022 by getoutsidebr

Passamos a noite onde fica o magic bus. Noite mega estrelada, lugar lindo. A estrada para chegar estava ruim, mas não precisa de 4x4. Sem facilidades e sem sinal de celular.

Super nice spot at magic bus. We slept here and no problems. Road to get here is kind of hard, but no 4x4 needed. No facilities and no reception.