What to see on Rapa Nui: the places, one by one

How the island is laid out

The island is a 163 km² triangle with a single town. Everything else is roads that leave Hanga Roa and come back. Understanding these four zones saves you half a day of pointless driving:

• Hanga Roa and around. The town, Tahai, the museum, the harbour. Walkable, no vehicle needed.
• South-east circuit. Vinapu, Vaihu, Akahanga, Rano Raraku, Tongariki, Te Pito Kura, Papa Vaka and Anakena. This is the big full day.
• North and interior. Puna Pau, Ahu Akivi, the caves and Terevaka. Half a day.
• Rano Kau and Orongo. To the south-west, climbing out of Hanga Roa. A separate half day.

Rano Raraku, the quarry

The volcano where 95% of the island's moai were carved. It is a factory that stopped mid-shift: some 400 statues remain at every stage of production, some standing, some buried to the neck, some still attached to the bedrock and never cut free.

Here stands "El Gigante", around 21 m, never finished — had it been raised it would have doubled any other. And Tukuturi, the only kneeling, bearded moai, unlike anything else on the island. This is the one place where you can read the whole process of carving.

Ahu Tongariki, the fifteen

The largest ahu in all of Polynesia: fifteen moai lined up facing inland with Rano Raraku behind them. It is the image the world associates with Rapa Nui.

Its history tells the island's story well. The moai were toppled during the huri moai period, and in 1960 a tsunami generated by the Valdivia earthquake dragged the entire platform inland. It was restored between 1992 and 1996 in a Chilean-Japanese project. One of its moai weighs some 86 tonnes, the heaviest ever raised on the island.

Sunrise is the visit. Between mid-December and mid-March the sun comes up directly behind the row of statues. There is access before regular hours and dedicated tours. Bring a windbreaker: at that hour it is cold and blowing.

Orongo and Rano Kau

The ceremonial village of the Tangata Manu — birdman — cult: 53 stone-slab houses on a crater rim, between the volcano and a 300 m cliff above the Pacific. It also holds one of the densest concentrations of petroglyphs on the island.

The Rano Kau crater is 1.6 km across and holds a lake covered in totora reeds. From the rim you can see the islets Motu Nui, Motu Iti and Motu Kao Kao, which were the goal of the competition: the hopu climbed down the cliff, swam across and returned with the season's first egg.

This is where Hoa Hakananai'a came from, a basalt moai with birdman petroglyphs carved into its back, taken by a British crew in 1868. It is in the British Museum and the Rapa Nui community has formally requested its return.

Anakena, the founding beach

White coral sand, palms and turquoise water — and, by tradition, the place where Hotu Matu'a came ashore. It is the island's best swimming beach and has toilets, parking and food stalls.

Behind the sand stands Ahu Nau Nau, seven moai restored by Rapa Nui archaeologist Sergio Rapu in the late 1970s. They are the best preserved on the island: buried in sand for centuries, they still show tattoos, back detail and clothing that erosion has erased elsewhere. The only surviving original coral eye was found here in 1978.

Next to it, Ahu Ature Huki holds the first moai ever put back on its feet, in 1955.

Ahu Akivi and Tahai

Ahu Akivi is seven moai inland and the only ones facing the sea. It is not a whim: they still face where their village stood, and that village happened to look out over the ocean. They are linked to the seven explorers Hotu Matu'a sent ahead of the migration, and they align precisely with the equinox sunset.

Tahai is a short walk from Hanga Roa and makes the best first contact with the island: three ahu together — Tahai, Vai Uri and Ko Te Riku — plus hare paenga (boat-house) foundations, stone chicken houses and a boat ramp. Ko Te Riku is the only moai with its eyes restored and its pukao in place, so it is the closest thing to how they looked in their day.

The south coast and the interior

These sites appear less on postcards and explain more than many of the restored ones.

Caves, volcanoes and beaches

The island is riddled with lava tubes. The ana (caves) served as shelter, hiding place, dwelling and garden, and some can be visited.

• Ana Te Pahu — the "banana cave": a lava tube with sunken gardens where bananas and taro still grow.
• Ana Kakenga — the "cave of the two windows". You enter through a narrow hole in total darkness and the tunnel opens onto two windows above the cliff. A torch is essential.
• Ana Kai Tangata — a sea cave by Mataveri with manutara rock paintings on its ceiling. Check whether it is open: it has been closed for rockfall.
• Maunga Terevaka (510 m) — the highest point. From the summit there is a 360° view and nothing but ocean around: the only place where the isolation becomes physical.
• Poike (377 m) — the oldest volcano, facing east. A good sunrise option, open and windy ground.
• Ovahe — a small pink-sand beach between cliffs, more sheltered than Anakena. It only gets sun until mid-afternoon.

Hanga Roa

The island's only town, and where the part of Rapa Nui that is not archaeology actually lives. Worth real time rather than using it as a dormitory.

• Father Sebastián Englert Anthropological Museum — some 20,000 objects, the original coral eye and a rongorongo tablet. Go before touring the sites: it changes everything you understand afterwards.
• Holy Cross Church — pure syncretism, with Rapa Nui carvings of saints where Make Make blends into Christian iconography. The Sunday mass sung in Rapa Nui is open to visitors and is among the most genuine things on offer.
• Umanga Rapa Nui craft market and the municipal market — buying direct from the carver is what keeps alive a craft with only a handful of masters left.
• Hanga Roa harbour — a fishing cove with moai and a surf break, a good place to watch the evening come in.