World's Most Driest Places - Driest Place on Earth: Make sure you bring some water with you.
If your holiday travel plans this year take you to Arica, Chile, you can definitely leave behind your umbrella. That’s because Arica is considered to be the driest city on the planet, with an average rainfall of just 0.03 inches. To give that number some perspective, consider that the driest place in North America, Death Valley, California, gets just under 2 inches of rain per year – or about 65 times more rain than Arica.
Arica lies on the outskirts of the Atacama Desert, a place so dry that it gets about 4 inches of rain every thousand years.
And scientists think some uninhabited places in this desert haven’t seen any rainfall in over 4 centuries, largely due to the fact that it's surrounded by the Andes and the Chilean Coast mountains, which form natural barriers from allowing moisture to enter.
But, amazingly, there is a region of Antarctica that is even drier. Known as dry valleys, these desolate areas are filled with low humidity and wind that frequently reach 200 miles per hour, which keeps the rainfall away. As a result, it’s believed that some sections of the dry valleys haven’t had rain in 2 million years.
And if talking about all these dry places is making your lips chapped, then maybe you should spend your holiday in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Not only is it the wettest major U.S. city, with over 62 inches of rain per year, but its nightlife is also a little more fun than that of the Atacama Desert.