Bolivian Highlands Tour: La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Uyuni & Eduardo Avaroa

Arrive at El Alto Airport and transfer into La Paz, settling into the high-altitude rhythm of the city. Over a cup of coca tea, a traditional Andean welcome, your representative outlines the days ahead, answers questions and shares practical tips about Bolivia in a relaxed, informal conversation rather than a formal briefing. The evening is intentionally free so you can rest well on your first night at altitude. Overnight is planned in La Paz or Copacabana, confirmed locally.

Ride Mi Teleférico from La Paz up to El Alto, then walk downhill through the Hanging Neighborhoods back into the city, roughly four hours of streets, markets, plazas and alleyways. A rainbow-painted micro bus carries you onward to the market quarter, where you browse working stalls and the famous Witch’s Market, its ritual items set among everyday trade. The day closes with a hotel stay in La Paz or Copacabana.

Travel from La Paz to Copacabana, then pause for a lunch in a local market before a gentle town stroll down to the lakeside beach, where the water and hills shape an easy half hour on foot. Continue with a transfer from Copacabana to Isla del Sol, crossing Lake Titicaca toward the island. Overnight is on Isla del Sol or back in Copacabana, still to be determined, closing a day of lake views, market food and slow lakeside wandering.

Trek the southern part of Isla del Sol to the Inca Stairs and the Fountain of Youth, learning about the island’s role in Inca cosmogony as the legendary birthplace of the Inca, with wide views over Lake Titicaca. A ferry crossing then returns you from the island’s small port to Copacabana, closing the lake chapter. From Copacabana, a road transfer retraces the altiplano crossing back to La Paz, a quieter re-entry into city life with the night spent in La Paz.

Transfer from your La Paz hotel to El Alto International Airport for the flight to Uyuni, where a 4×4 awaits and the southern altiplano circuit begins. Visit the Uyuni Train Cemetery, then stop in Colchani to see salt harvesting. Cross the Salar de Uyuni toward Incahuasi Island, exploring its enormous cacti and wide white horizons. The day closes with sunset out on the salt flat before returning to Colchani and Hotel de Sal Luna Salada.

Travel south through lunar landscapes into the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve, Bolivia’s most visited protected area, where volcanoes, deserts and multi-colored lagoons follow one another. Andean wildlife such as pink flamingos and llamas appear along the way. Stop at the Stone Tree in the Siloli Desert, a rock formation shaped by wind erosion, then finish at Laguna Colorada, the red lagoon at the heart of the reserve’s palette. A long, absorbing day of open-country travel at full altiplano scale, ending with rest in the Siloli Desert area.

After an included breakfast, an optional morning soak in the local thermal waters offers a warm reward at altitude. The route then turns northeast through the Siloli Desert, also called the Dali Desert for its surreal rock forms, passing the Green Lagoon (Laguna Verde). It is a long driving day through colored, otherworldly terrain, reaching Uyuni by mid-afternoon for the evening flight to La Paz, followed by a transfer from El Alto Airport to a hotel in La Paz or Copacabana.

Enjoy a free morning in La Paz to revisit a market, relax in a plaza, or take one last look at the city after the urban trek, Lake Titicaca, and the salt flats. Breakfast is included before your departure transfer, when a driver collects you from your La Paz hotel and takes you to the airport for your flight home. The journey ends where it began, at the highest administrative capital in the world.