Now this is a fascinating place..
It is part of Chile and can be reached from Santiago or Tahiti. Only takes a few days to see everything.
The number one recommendation is DO NOT DO A TOUR. I thought I would to get around and learn about the sights. However.. as the tour was multilingual and most tourists are Chilean the lady would explain something for 10 minutes in Spanish then look dismissively at me and an American guy and say ‘umm yeah thats a house’ or something.
Also we went in reverse direction for photography so the whole day was shooting into the light at every place when we could have gone the opposite direction and had great photos. 
Renting a car for one person is the same cost. The guy at the car rental place will give you a map and a route for optimal photography. There is ubiquitous book recently written for $20 that gives the summary of everything.
What impressed me was that the largest line of Moai (heads) had been destroyed in a tsunami and the Japanese Govt paid to get them back in place and basically created the tourist market for the island.
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