• What to know if you go

Easter Island, just two flight segments from Atlanta, has some of the world's greatest wonders. It should be among the top 10 on every serious traveler's list of places to visit.

WILLIAM RAWLINGS/Special (ENLARGE)
The mile-wide volcanic crater of Rano Kau forms the southwest corner of Easter Island. Perched in the distance on the rim overlooking the sea is the ceremonial village of Orongo.
WILLIAM RAWLINGS/Special (ENLARGE)
This is one of the seven restored moai at Ahu Nau Nau. The now-empty eye sockets had been filled with white coral and an obsidian iris, giving the statue an eternally vigilant look. The red ÒtopknotÓ of volcanic stone is thought to represent the hairstyle of the ancestors.
WILLIAM RAWLINGS/Special (ENLARGE)
The most spectacular of the restored altars on Easter Island is Ahu Tongariki, with its 15 standing moai. The altar is some 600 feet long, with statues weighing up to 30 tons each.
WILLIAM RAWLINGS/Special (ENLARGE)
Partially finished statues at the Rano Raraku quarry on Easter Island await transport to their seaside altars. The building of statues stopped abruptly a few hundred years ago.
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Known to its inhabitants by the Polynesian name of Rapa Nui, this tiny volcanic island is in the South Pacific some 2,300 miles west-northwest of Santiago, Chile.

It is one of the most remote scraps of land permanently inhabited by humans — almost completely devoid of regular contact with the rest of the world until the latter half of the 20th century.

Unusual civilization flourished

Equally important, however, is the amazing civilization that developed there over more than a thousand years of virtual isolation from outside human influence.

The island is small. Roughly triangular in shape with a dormant volcano at each of the three apexes, Rapa Nui measures only about 7 by 15 miles. Its land area is less than a third of that of Fulton County.

Standing on the top of its tallest volcano, Terevaka, one can see only an endless ocean horizon all around. It's easy to understand why the original inhabitants referred to their home as Te Pito o te Henua, "the Navel of the World."

The name Easter Island (Isla de Pascua in Spanish) was bestowed by a Dutch explorer who "discovered" it on Easter Day 1722. Without a written history, the date of its original settlement is unknown. Most archaeologists agree that the first inhabitants were part of an eastward Polynesian migration that reached Hawaii in the north and Rapa Nui in the south sometime in the fifth century.

Early Western visitors in the 18th and 19th centuries described amazing stone statues set on seaside altars, apparently venerated as representing images of dead ancestors.

Wild ideas about statues

In the mid-20th century, European writers advanced wildly disparate theories about their origin, ranging from Thor Heyerdahl's hypothesis of Inca influence to Erich von Däniken's assertion that they were created under the guidance of visitors from outer space.

The truth, while more mundane, is no less fascinating.

The history of Easter Island's civilization is one that was shaped by its location. The first settlers must have arrived to find a thickly forested, lush island paradise. The altars (ahus) that they erected and the statues of the ancestors (moai) that topped them show similarities to other Polynesian cultures.

As time progressed and the population grew, the forests were cut down, and increasing amounts of land were used for cultivation and living space. Without trees, the inhabitants lacked the necessary material to make canoes for long sea voyages, assuring their isolation.

Dense population

At the island's peak, more than 10,000 people inhabited it, with some estimates running as high as 20,000. Even at the lowest figure, this was a population density nearly 40 percent greater that the current figure for Georgia today.

The production and erection of statues reached an astounding rate. With an average six ahus for each mile of coastline, about 400 statues were erected, some weighting tens of tons and as tall as a three-story building.

At its peak in the 15th century, the production and erection of moai must have involved thousands of workers. At some point, perhaps in the late 17th or early 18th century, the quarries were suddenly abandoned.

Partially carved statues lie half-revealed in stone, the workers' tools dropped by their sides. More than 300 more remain as they did hundreds of years ago, awaiting transport to their seafront altars.

Society collapsed, statue-building stopped

What happened? As elegantly outlined by Jared Diamond in his recent book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" (Viking, $29.95), a combination of environmental exhaustion and internecine struggle brought the civilization of the statue builders to its knees. In the years that followed, warfare and hunger led to destruction, death and cannibalism.

At the time of the arrival of the first Europeans, most of the moai that had stood as silent guardians of their people were still standing. But by the mid-19th century, scarcely more than 100 years later, every one had been toppled during warfare between the descendants of those who erected them.

Declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995, a number of the ahus have been restored and their moai re-erected. Most of the island's coast and all of the major archaeological sites are part of the Parque Nacional Rapa Nui, an incredible open-air museum.

When I first visited Easter Island more than 20 years ago, there were few paved roads with minimal preservation and restoration of the remains of altars and villages.

I explored the island on a caballo arriendo (rental horse). Today, the major roads are paved, and there is a wide selection of guesthouses and hotels to fit most budgets. Seeing the sites is now easy by guided tour or coche arriendo (rental car), but no less fascinating.

— William Rawlings is a physician and author from Sandersville. His latest book is "The Tate Revenge." He returned to Easter Island for his second visit in November 2005.

IF YOU GO

Getting there

Delta Air Lines flies nonstop from Atlanta to Santiago, Chile. Easter Island is served by LAN Chile with multiple weekly Boeing 767 flights from Santiago to Easter Island's 11,000-foot runway, built in 1986 as an alternative emergency landing site for NASA's space shuttle program. The least expensive airfare option would be to book through LAN Chile and its domestic airline partner American Airlines.

When to go

Easter Island lies at 27 degrees south latitude, about the same distance from the equator as West Palm Beach, Fla. There are more tourists during our winter months, but any time of year is fine to visit.

The climate is described as "oceanic subtropical" and is a bit cooler than one might expect because of the influence of the cold currents from Antarctica to the south. The average annual temperature is about 69 degrees Fahrenheit, ranging from a low of 64 degrees in July to a high of 73 degrees in January. (Remember that below the equator, seasons are reversed.) May and June are the rainiest months. The wind blows nearly constantly, and rapid changes in weather from rain to sun are not unusual. Light clothing with a windbreaker and rain gear are usually all that's needed.

About the island

According to the Chamber of Tourism, Easter Island has seven hotels and about 40 other lodging facilities, mainly small guesthouses.

There are a number of travel and car rental agencies, and about 20 restaurants offer a wide range of local and international cuisine. The approximate cost for a four-wheel-drive vehicle is $50 per day, including insurance and taxes.

The island has one service station, one post office, one bank and one hospital. Internet service via satellite uplink is widely available.

Tours

A number of reputable and experienced tour operators offer package deals that include Easter Island either as a primary destination or add-on to other South American travel. Tara Tours (www.taratours.com), in business since 1980, has packages including airfare that start at less than $2,500 per person, double occupancy, from Miami or New York. A good option is to spend a few days before or after in Santiago, perhaps skiing in the winter in nearby Portillo, or taking a tour of the Chilean wine country to the south in the spring, summer or fall. Several well-established tour operators offer packages that include Santiago and Easter Island from about $2,500 per person for a seven-night stay.

Information

Easter Island Foundation, islandheritage.org. Has everything you need to know before you go and a great selection of links to other sites, including lodging and tourist agencies.

Easter Island Chamber of Tourism, www.visitrapanui.cl. A moderately comprehensive listing of hotels and "residencials" (guesthouses) is available. A good resource for experienced travelers who want to book reservations directly.

Other resources

"The Rough Guide to Chile" (Rough Guides, second edition, $20.95) and "Lonely Planet Chile & Easter Island" (Lonely Planet Guides, sixth edition, $21.99) are among the best in terms of combining a brief history with well-outlined tour suggestions. As with all such travel guides, seek updated information on lodging and restaurants as conditions change rapidly.

"Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" (Viking, $29.95) by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond has a section on Easter Island that makes for great background reading.

The best selection of guides and other books of interest can be found in bookstores in Chile and on Easter Island. Wait till you get there to buy them.