TAPATI:  Be part of the biggest cultural festival in the Eastern Pacific

CNH Tours’ yearly trip to Chile’s Easter Island (known locally as Rapa Nui) has you spend more time on Easter Island that most other travel companies offer. 

Why? 

Because we time our trips to coincide with the annual Tapati festival – the largest cultural event in the eastern Pacific.  Doing so allows our guests to enjoy an enriching mix of  archaeological wonders that speak to the island’s mysterious past with the lively and colourful manifestations of island life that illustrate the present day vigour of Easter Island native culture.

We’ve all heard about the famous Moai statues that dot the island – and these sentinels are what draws over 100,000 visitors to this remote island every year.  But few have heard about the Tapati festival.

What is the Tapati festival?

The Tapati Rapa Nui festival is an annual cultural celebration held each February on Easter Island. Rather than a spectacle designed primarily for visitors, Tapati functions first and foremost as a community event—one in which islanders actively reaffirm their language, customs, and shared history. For travelers considering a visit, the festival offers a concentrated window into contemporary Rapa Nui life, rooted firmly in tradition rather than performance for its own sake.

At its core, Tapati is about cultural continuity. Events revolve around ancestral practices such as traditional dance, chanting, body painting, stone lifting, and canoeing, many of which draw directly from pre-contact Polynesian traditions. These activities are not reconstructed abstractions; they are taught within families and community groups, often with elders guiding younger generations. In this sense, the festival reflects an ongoing, lived effort by Rapa Nui people to preserve and transmit their heritage in the face of globalization and historical disruption.

One of the most striking aspects of Tapati is the scale of local participation. Large segments of the island’s population take part, often organized into teams supporting competing candidates for festival queen—though the title itself is secondary to the collective effort involved. Preparation can span weeks or months, with families contributing time, skills, and resources. For visitors, this means encountering a community deeply engaged with itself, rather than observing a small group performing on behalf of the rest.

For travelers who value cultural context and authenticity, visiting Easter Island during Tapati can be rewarding, provided expectations are calibrated appropriately. Accommodations book early, daily life adjusts to the festival rhythm, and not every event is staged with tourists in mind. That said, Tapati offers a rare opportunity to witness how cultural preservation operates at a community scale—less as a museum piece, and more as an active, participatory process shaping island identity today.

Do you want to experience it for yourself?

CNH Tours organizes an annual trip to Easter Island, having you spend 5 days there in early February.  Our trips include a few days in and around the country’s capital, Santiago, taking in cultural highlights (including some wine tasting of course).  Our trips also offer fascinating extension options to those keen on getting a bigger taste of this diverse country.  These include a few days in the Atacama (the world’s driest desert – in the northern extremes of the country) and a few days in Patagonia – in Chile’s southern extremes.

Our 2026 trip sold out a long time ago… but we will soon be publishing the details of our February 2027 trip.  Sign up below and be among the first to be informed of the trip once the details have been published and we open it up for bookings. 

KEEP ME POSTED ON YOUR FUTURE EASTER ISLAND TRIPS

 

 

 

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