Editorial Methodology

How tours get onto this site

We start from what is actually bookable from San Pedro de Atacama on the two platforms we work with, GetYourGuide and Viator. From that pool we list a tour when three things hold: the listing is live and taking bookings, the operator states enough about the tour to compare it honestly against others, and it is not a near-duplicate of something we already list.

We do not list every tour that exists. The platforms carry several hundred activities around San Pedro, and most of them are the same handful of routes resold by different agencies. Listing all of them would make the catalog longer and the comparison worse.

The catalog these rules govern is the Atacama Desert tours homepage and the full comparison table.

Where the numbers come from

Prices, durations, ratings, review counts, inclusions, exclusions, cancellation terms, pickup rules, age limits and altitude figures are read off the operator's own live listing. Each tour page prints the date we read it, and the same date appears next to the traveler rating.

Park entrance fees come from the operator's own wording. Where an operator contradicts itself — the El Tatio sunrise tour lists "Ticket" under inclusions while its own notes say the fee is paid at the gate — we print both versions and tell you to confirm at checkout, rather than pick whichever reads better.

Where a value is not stated anywhere we can check, the field says "Not confirmed" or "Check with the operator". We would rather leave a gap than fill it with a plausible number.

How often we re-check

Prices and ratings are re-read across the whole catalog at least every quarter, and sooner for any tour whose page we are otherwise editing. Park fees are re-checked whenever an operator changes its wording or a park announces a new price. The last check date on a tour page is the real date of the last read, not the date the page was rebuilt.

This has a limit worth stating: between two checks, an operator can change a price, an inclusion or a cancellation window without telling anyone. The figure at checkout is the one that binds.

Traveler ratings and our editorial score

These are two different things and we never blend them.

Traveler rating is the operator's own rating on the platform selling the tour, printed with its source, its review count and the date we read it — for example, 4.7/5 from 718 GetYourGuide reviews, checked August 2026. We do not adjust it, weight it or average it across tours, and the site itself has no rating of its own to give.

Editorial score, where we publish one, is ours. It is our view of a tour against the criteria below, and it carries a link back to this page every time it appears. A high traveler rating on three reviews does not become a high editorial score.

What the editorial score weighs

• Value for money — the price against what is actually included, with park fees counted in
• Itinerary quality — how much time you get at each stop rather than how many stops are listed
• Operator transparency — whether inclusions, fees, limits and cancellation terms are stated plainly or left vague
• Cancellation flexibility — the deadline, and what happens when weather cancels
• Group size — stated caps, and whether the operator commits to them
• Included services — meals, entrance fees, equipment, transport, and what is quietly excluded
• Traveler feedback — the pattern across reviews, including the consistent complaints
• Altitude accessibility — how high it goes and how honestly the operator handles that
• Uniqueness — whether it does something the other tours in its category do not

How affiliate relationships affect this

We earn a commission when someone books through our links, and the commission rate is set by the platform, not by the operator. That means we have no financial reason to prefer one tour over another within a platform — but it also means we make nothing if you book direct with the operator, and we still tell you to do that when it is cheaper.

Operators cannot pay to be listed, to be ranked higher, to change a score, or to have a criticism removed. Nobody has ever asked, and if they do the answer is on this page. Our affiliate disclosure covers the commercial side in full.

What we cannot independently confirm

This is the part that matters most, so it is stated plainly.

We have not personally taken every tour on this site. We have not inspected the vehicles, met the guides, or audited the operators' safety equipment. We have not verified Sernatur registrations or guide certifications beyond repeating what the operator states in its own listing — where we do repeat a credential, we say who claims it.

Traveler ratings are the platforms' numbers, and we cannot audit how those platforms collect or filter reviews. Altitude figures come from operator listings; where an operator does not state one, we leave it blank rather than look it up and present it as theirs.

When we describe what a tour feels like, we are drawing on operator descriptions, published traveler reviews and public information about the sites themselves — not on a personal visit — and we write it that way.

Corrections

If something on this site is wrong — a price, a fee, an inclusion, a claim about an operator — tell us and we will check it against the source and fix it. Corrections go in without ceremony and the tour page's check date moves. Use the contact page.