This volcanic spot in the middle of the Pacific, located 667 km (410 mi) away from the Chilean coast, is one of the few virgin regions left on Earth.

The Juan Fernandez archipelago takes its name from its discoverer, who found it in 1574, while looking for winds to speed his voyage from Callao to Valparaiso. This sailor disembarked on the islands a few goat kids and planted some European vegetables.

The island Santa Cecilia, later baptized Mas a Tierra (the Spanish for "closer to the mainland") (and now called Robinson Crusoe) was visited throughout time by many pirates and explorers but got its fame in 1708 when the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, its first and solitary colonist, was abandoned there by the pirate John Stradling, on whose ship Selkirk was contra-master.

Selkirk's only equipment was a Bible, a knife, a rifle, one pound of gunpowder and some tobacco. Selkirk spent on the island four years and three months of total solitude till he was rescued by another English privateer expedition. This was the real Robinson Crusoe that Daniel Dafoe recreated in his 1719 novel.

The surface of Robinson Crusoe is about 93 square km. This island harbors the only settlement on the archipelago, San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist), with about 500 inhabitants, mostly fishermen. This is one of the few places in the world where there are no cars.

It is said that in the 18th century, the English privateer George Anson hid on this island a treasure that is still hunted. On the other two uninhabited islands forming the archipelago, Santa Clara and Alexander Selkirk (for Mas Afuera, Spanish for "further away"), the magnitude of the impact of the introduced goats, rabbits and horses can be appreciated: a landscape of barren cliffs.

The only local big mammal is the fur seal, a species endemic to this archipelago (Arctocephalus philippi). The island of Alexander Selkirk is declared National Park, but fishermen can catch in the summer spiny lobsters on its waters.

The islands have black peaks of volcanic rocks up to 916 m (3,050 ft) tall (in El Yunque, "The Anvil"). The annual temperatures vary from 3 to 34 °C, with an annual average of 15.4 °C. An endemic hummingbird resides on Juan Fernandez.

101 of the 146 native plant species on Juan Fernandez are endemic. There are over 50 species of giant ferns growing on this archipelago, called palmillos ("little palm trees"). Still, there is a real local palm tree, called chonta (Juania australis) and the star of the local flora is Dendroseris litoralis, a type of endemic giant cabbage used as food and ornament.