Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert

by Mark Johanson

An utterly unique travel memoir about a gay expat searching an otherworldly place for a deeper understanding of his partner and his adoptive homeland.




Embark on an extraordinary odyssey through the heart of the world's driest nonpolar desert – the Atacama. In Mars on Earth, intrepid journalist Mark Johanson navigates this otherworldly terrain, a sliver of camel-coloured hills, windswept dunes, and desolate salt flats nestled between the Pacific's tumultuous waves and the towering Andes. Unfolding against the backdrop of Chile's 2019–2020 protests, Mark's journey begins in Santiago, unravelling a rich tapestry of human resilience and passion that fuels a nation's desire for change.



As he traverses 1,200 miles of alien landscapes, Mark climbs to the Andean altiplano's dizzying heights, explores the Pacific's kelp forests, and ventures onto a lithium-rich salt flat threatened by progress. The narrative reaches new heights as Mark delves into the heart of the Atacama, meeting captivating characters – a guardian of ancient mummies, a guru in a glass box, and a copper miner who defied nature's grasp for 69 days. At its core, Mars on Earth weaves a rich tapestry of voices, highlighting the stories of Chile's marginalized communities, including the working class, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and immigrant communities from Venezuela and Haiti. Each narrative contributes to the social movement that could redefine the nation's future. This vibrant and adventurous work of narrative nonfiction is a captivating exploration of a land both barren and brimming with life.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Memoir, LGBT

304 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2024

About the author

Mark Johanson is an American author and journalist based in Santiago, Chile. His stories about travel, food, design and the environment have appeared in numerous global publications, including National Geographic, Travel + Leisure, The Economist, The Financial Times, Condé Nast Traveler, Newsweek, AFAR, Food & Wine, Dwell, CNN, Bloomberg and the BBC, among others. He is the coauthor of a dozen Lonely Planet guidebooks to destinations across the Americas and Asia, and has contributed to a dozen more coffee table books for the iconic travel brand. His first literary work, Mars on Earth, is out this October from Rocky Mountain Books.

Reviews

[Jessica - How Jessica Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Johanson, a gay American in a long-term relationship with a Chilean man, finds himself restless in the wake of 2019's Chilean political turmoil and the Covid-19 lockdown.

He decides on a solo journey through the Atacama -- the driest desert on earth -- as his escape from his doldrums.

Slow and introspective, mixing hundreds of years of Atacaman history with Johanson's own life experiences, Mars on Earth is lovely, gentle travel writing.

[Hina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe I'm rating this book too low, I don't know, but it's certainly not more than two stars for me. Perhaps one star is fair given that I tried to get through this book quickly just to be done with it. This book is the author Mark Johanson's story of his trip through the Atacama desert. It had potential, but, to me, it was just a little too dry (no pun intended, haha!).

The book starts with Johanson describing the social upheaval in Chile and the citizens' desire for a new constitution. As I'm reading this chapter, I'm wondering what any of this has to do with his desert adventure, but I find out that's setting the stage for his Atacama desert trip- his quest to find himself. It seemed like a lot of background information- too much, actually- and I was eager to get to the good stuff.

But even once Johanson has set out into the desert, it was difficult for me to really be interested in the story, and I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps because it doesn't feel so much like a single cohesive story than a lot of thoughts, sometimes disjointed. Towards the end of the book, there is A LOT of waxing philosophical, primarily about his relationship with his partner Felipe, but also Johanson's own relationship with his adopted country of Chile.

I'm sure I learned a few things from this book, but I'm not sure that I'll retain any of that information. A few things I want to point out that irked me:

1) He writes "it's" instead of "it is". And other contractions as well. While there is nothing wrong with writing this way, it felt jarring and just too informal.
2) I actually had to write this one down when I saw it because it's (yes, I'm using "it's"!) a terrible editing error- on page 74- Mark Johanson writes about "the most false profit". Umm, shouldn't this be prophet??? A few pages later, I was relieved to see that he used the correct homonym.
3) This one I also wrote down because it is an error either of Johanson's recounting of the quote, or an egregious misspeak of the one being quoted. On page 85, Johanson quotes an astrophysicist as saying "may light-years in the past". Excuse me? Please tell me that the astrophysicist did not conflate "light-years" with a unit of time. You don't need an astrophysics degree (though I do have one), to know that a light-year is a measure of distance.

Anyways, I'm sure some will find Mars on Earth: Wanderings in the World’s Driest Desert more captivating than I did, but I can't recommend anyone give this book a try.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Atacama Desert of northern Chile is the driest place on Earth. It is so arid it is used by NASA to simulate conditions on Mars. It is also “one of the most seismically active countries on earth. ” Mark Johanson is a travel writer and world wanderer who decided to explore the Atacama because, he admits,“I nihilistically seek out uncomfortable places because they’re so often the most complicated and fascinating on earth.”
About half way through the book, though, Johanson has to admit: “I’m fast realizing something that should have been obvious from the outset: the Atacama is no place for humans.” No one would care much about the wasteland of Atacama, except for two facts: 1) two- thirds of the global supply of lithium is in the Atacama, and 2) its clear skies are the best place in the world to observe outer space. So the kind of people who one would expect to find in a desert - poets, musicians, screwballs, cult gurus, indigenous peoples- are joined by miners, prospectors, geologists, and world renowned astronomers. And one can only imagine “what this landscape does
to their minds.”
Only a risk-taker could even consider such an undertaking, and only a well seasoned vagabond traveler could have pulled it off. The travel, the characters, the natural surroundings, the history of Chile were all fascinating, as were the physical and emotional challenges of the trip. But his personal journey was a little too personal, his reflections and memories somewhat beside the point. This journey of self discovery wasn’t near as interesting as the journey through time and space in the Atacama.

[Lynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good storytelling about traveling through the Atacama Desert. It begins in Santiago and explains some cultural and recent political history. Wish I had happened upon the book before my February 2025 trip as we saw some of the places he discusses in terms of protests. I appreciated his approach to the different regions within the Atacama, a place I would like to see. The author does a nice job connecting the physical geography, plant life, people, and food.

[Thomas Hilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always wanted to learn more about the Atacama Desert. This book is a marvelous read, recounting the author's trip from the south to the north of the desert. While traveling, his personal life is revealed, keeping the narrative very interesting.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The author heads out to the desert to find himself. In this case, the desert is Chile’s Atacama, one of the driest places on Earth. Interesting and well written, but I would have preferred more desert and less soul searching.