Easter Island – Custom Made Journeys

Lakani Custom Made Journeys just for you.

Travel at your own pace, on your own time on an itinerary custom designed just for you, your family, or your group. Whether you are celebrating an anniversary trip for two, planning a vacation for the family, or looking for a travel experience for your special interest group, Lakani’s experts will create a tour that exceeds your expectations. With Lakani you have the advantage of working with a team that has first-hand travel knowledge of virtually every part of the world with a network of contacts to help you plan your trip, and the experience to make it happen.

Choose to go on your own or be accompanied by a Lakani Tour Manager. Use commercial aircraft or your own private aircraft. The choice is yours with a Lakani Custom Made Journey.

Overview
Itinerary
Accommodations

Easter Island is a magical mysterious place located in a remote area in the southeastern Pacific Ocean some 2,300 miles west of South America. A Chilean territory, Easter Island is a volcanic island known for its intriguing archaeological sites. There are approximately 900 monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui inhabitants during the 10th-16th centuries. In 1995 UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. The moai are carved figures with oversized heads, often resting on massive rock altars.

Polynesian people most likely settled on Easter Island sometime between 700 to 1100 AD, and created a thriving and industrious culture as evidenced by the island’s numerous enormous stone moai and other artifacts. By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island’s population had dropped to 2,000–3,000 from an estimated high of approximately 15,000 just a century earlier. European diseases and Peruvian slave raiding in the 1860s further reduced the Rapa Nui population, to a very low number of inhabitants in 1877.

Easter Island Highlights

Maoi statues – puzzling expressions and mysterious originations
Rano Kao – an extinct volcanic crater with over 100 small lakes
Rano Raraku – Moai quarry, many statues only half carved
Orongo – a viewpoint with such a wide ocean expanse you can see the curvature of the earth

Pricing:

Customized pricing based on itinerary.

• Easter Island, CHILE

Begin your exploration with a stop at Rano Kao, one of three extinct volcanoes on the island whose crater is pocked with over 100 small lakes. Rano Kao was the second of the three volcanoes to erupt about 2.5 million years ago. Growing inside the crater are grapes, bananas, and totora, a reed used extensively for houses, boats and other uses.

• Easter Island, CHILE

Visit Rano Raraku, one of the most interesting archaeological sites not only on Easter Island but also in the entire world. Here you can find 396 moai in the quarry, which is an extinct volcano that has an amazing fresh water crater. Some of the statues are still encrusted in the rock of the quarry, never to be moved. Others are in a process of getting their backs finalized and highlighted and some are in the “staging area” waiting for the moving crew to bring the moai to its destined ahu. You will also see the largest moai ever carved, Te Tokanga or El Gigante, which measures a staggering 66 feet and weighs an estimated 220 tons.

• Easter Island, CHILE

Continue your drive to Ahu Tongariki, one of the most visually stunning sites on the island. Not only is Tongariki the largest reconstructed site on the island; it is also the largest reconstructed temple in all of Polynesia. The site’s 15 moai were restored in the 1980’s after a huge tsunami came ashore in 1960 and tossed 80-ton moai as far as 1500 feet inland.

• Easter Island, CHILE

From the vantage point at Orongo, the curvature of the earth can be seen with an unending vista of the ocean. Orongo was restored in 1974 by William Mulloy, who reconstructed 47 houses, many of which had collapsed or had been torn down by treasure hunters. He also established the first set of trails through the site.