Once part of Peru, the former Atacama Desert nitrate port of Iquique, Chile, 1,150 mi/1,850 km north of Santiago, now relies primarily on fishing, tourism and a duty-free shopping complex.
In town, see the renovated Plaza Prat and its clock tower, nearby Paseo Baquedano and its historic Victorian buildings, the beautiful, still-functioning Teatro Iquique, and a museum that commemorates the naval heroes of the War of the Pacific.
Paragliders from around the world flock to Iquique for the flying conditions—the area gets less than a millimeter of rain each year and enjoys steady westerlies that help keep them aloft—but now it seems ordinary tourists are following suit. And one of the first things they encounter is Iquique's bustling culinary scene. The region's vast coastline yields some of the freshest seafood in Latin America, and the area's Asian immigrant and indigenous roots—it was forcibly annexed from Peru in the late 1800s—yields some variations on traditional Chilean cuisine.
Although cuisine is Iquique's hidden treasure, the region's topography is its most obvious calling card. The city, which displays 19th-century Georgian and Victorian architecture and 20th-century industrial influences, gives way to vast deserts, windswept dunes and magnificent salt flats such as the stunning Salar del Huasco, plus the wildlife and volcanic peaks of Isluga National Park.
Pre-Columbian geoglyphs—outsized, ancient figures marked with stones—dot craggy hillsides. Its more recent past, on the other hand, is on full display in Humberstone, an eerily well-preserved ghost town that was once home to thousands of laborers in the sprawling nitrate mines. Along with nearby Santa Laura, Humberstone is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Humberstone is only an hour or so away, by either guided tour, rental car or public transportation. There you will be able to see rusting machinery rail relics left over from the nitrate-mining days, and surprising amenities such as a handsome theater and a cast-iron swimming pool (now waterless). Combined with the geoglyphs of Pintados (more difficult to reach by public transport), Humberstone makes an ideal excursion.
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