The Best Cave Tour Here Is Closed
Rapa Nui adventure tours still get pitched around Ana Kai Tangata, the painted seaside cave everyone used to recommend. Skip that pitch. The cave has been closed to visitors for years because of unstable rock and rockfall risk, and no legitimate operator should still be sending you there. If an itinerary lists it, that itinerary was written a long time ago and never updated.
What actually counts as adventure here is narrower and, honestly, better. The island has one real volcanic summit, two lava tubes worth crawling into, and one genuinely remote coastal hike, and all three require a guide by law.
Terevaka: the summit everyone underrates
Maunga Terevaka tops out at 511 meters, the highest point on the island, and it is reached only on foot, by mountain bike, or on horseback with an operator like Adventure Terevaka. There is no road to the top. What you get for the climb is a 360-degree horizon where the curve of the earth is visible against open Pacific on every side, something almost no other volcano summit in the world offers this cleanly, because there is no other land close enough to interrupt the view.
Two lava tubes, two very different moods
Ana Kakenga, the Cave of the Two Windows, drops you underground through a volcanic tube that opens onto two cliffside windows staring straight down 30 meters at breaking surf. Bring a flashlight or rent one; there is no lighting inside. Ana Te Pahu, the Banana Cave, is the opposite mood entirely: a collapsed lava tube ceiling created a sheltered microclimate where banana, taro, and avocado now grow underground. Both need a guide, and both are short enough to fit into a half-day alongside something else.
Poike: the hike almost nobody does
The Poike Peninsula is the island’s oldest volcano and its least visited corner, a windswept, remote stretch of coastline reachable on a guided hike that takes in Ana O Keke (the Cave of the Virgins) and the solitary Ahu One Makihi. If you want an adventure tour that doesn’t feel like everyone else’s itinerary, this is it. Fewer people book it because it takes longer and delivers no famous statue row, which is exactly the point.
The guide requirement isn’t optional
Since 2022, Chilean law bars unaccompanied visitors from every archaeological site inside Rapa Nui National Park, and that includes the caves and Poike’s Ana O Keke. Adventure-tour listings that promise “self-guided” access to anything inside the park are selling something they cannot legally deliver. Book with a Rapa Nui-accredited guide, and confirm accreditation before you pay, not after you land.
Verdict: the actual adventure on this island is Terevaka, the lava tubes, and Poike, not a checklist of ruins with “adventure” in the name. Book one of those three specifically rather than a generic bundle, and ask the operator by name whether their guide is Ma’u Henua-accredited before you hand over a deposit. For the crater rim and coastal walking routes that pair well with any of this, see walking tours on Easter Island .