The itinerary for 5 days in Bolivia: La Paz and Salar de Uyuni

Planning your trip to Bolivia and only have a few days to spend in this beautiful county? In this post, I’ll share our itinerary for 5 days in Bolivia visiting La Paz and Salar de Uyuni (and, additionally, you can visit one more location of your choice, Lake Titikaka, Cochabamba or even drive the famous Death road). We were planning to visit Cochacabana on lake Titikaka, however, unfortunately, due to the lack of tourists, no tours were going there on the only day we were there. 

The overview of links used in this article:

• Hotels in La Paz: Selina (affordable option) – book here. MET La Paz (a pricier option) – check availability here.
• Teleferico tour of La Paz – book here
• Street food tour of La Paz – book here
• Death road bike day trip from La Paz – book here
• Bus tickets to Uyuni – check availability and price
• The best day tour around Salar de Uyuni – check availability here
• Salt hotel in Uyuni – Hotel de Sal Luna Salada

Things you need to know before travelling to Bolivia 

Bolivia is one of the lesser-visited countries in South America and unlike most countries on the continent, it’s landlocked. Bolivia also doesn’t have great international flight connections – when we went there just after the covid restrictions were lifted, there were only two international flights per day going to and from Bolivia. One was to Lima, another one to Bogotá. On top of that, there were days when there were no flights at all. 

Have your documents ready 

It’s also somewhat difficult to enter Bolivia: those requiring a visa on arrival must spend hours in the queue! Even if your entry was straightforward (e.g. no visa required), you could still spend 10-15 minutes at the passport control counter. Since there is no wi-fi on arrival and most countries don’t have good roaming agreements with Bolivia (unlike in Peru, where we had unlimited data and calls for £6 a day with Vodafone), it’s very difficult to retrieve your documents. The documents you need are insurance, hotel bookings and return tickets. Also, depending on the current requirements, you might need some vaccination certificates and PCR tests – but that might change soon. 

Make sure to save them on your phone (take screenshots or just save them in the files), as passport control officers will check all these documents!

Bring more than one bank card

In Bolivia, cash is king. Of course, you can pay by card in nice restaurants, but most places only accept cash. There are ATMs at the airport (quite a few), but not all of them work with international cards. We had to try two cards until we tried our Monzo card that worked in one of 8 ATMs. Unfortunately, I didn’t remember which bank owned this ATM, but it was towards the end of the room. Make sure to bring more than one travel bank card and don’t get discouraged if most of the ATMs won’t work – there are ATMs there that will work with foreign cards.

Internet and data in Bolivia

Since we needed data to find our way around La Paz, we decided to buy a SIM card in one of the souvenir shops in La Paz airport (the only open place). They only accepted cash as well. We got a SIM card with data and bought two scratch cards for data refills. I must say that the internet is a bit expensive in Bolivia: for 20 Bolivianos you only get about 2GB of data. It doesn’t stretch too far, so you probably end up only using data for navigation and essential things and use Social media at your hotel. 

Safety in Bolivia: how safe is La Paz

Before travelling to Bolivia, I’ve heard some mixed reviews about safety in La Paz and El Alto. Some people felt uneasy there, while others felt very safe. Having spent 3 days in La Paz (and a little bit of El Alto as well), I must say that we always felt very safe there. Not even once have we experienced a situation where we felt uneasy or someone was unusually interested in us. As a person, who grew up in Mexico City, Jose has an eye on people, who might discretely follow you and have too much interest in you for no good reason. That was very different compared to the city centre of Quito (the capital of Ecuador), where it wasn’t very safe at all.

However, it’s worth mentioning that we followed all the normal precautions, e.g. not walking alone late at night, taking only authorised taxis, and paying attention to all our belongings. For travelling South America I bought a very discrete crossbody bag with a lot of pockets, including some inside pockets, which would be very hard to access for pick-pocketers. Moreover, it’s waterproof and fits a lot of stuff! I think it might still be sold online, if you’re interested, you can find it here >> 

Before we start with our suggestions for 5 days in Bolivia and our detailed itinerary, I wanted to share the overview of our itinerary: 

Our itinerary for Bolivia in 5 days:

Day 1: Arriving at La Paz airport (probably late at night / early in the morning), exploring La Paz, night bus to Salar de Uyuni

Day 2: Day tour to Salar de Uyuni, a night at Hotel de Sal, Luna Salada (or a night bus to La Paz)

Day 3: Flight to La Paz with 5 hours to spend in Cochabamba, night at Selina La Paz or MET Hotel La Paz

Day 4: A day tour of your choice: Copacabana (Titikaka Lake) or a tour to the Death road

Day 5: Exploring La Paz, late night flight onwards to Lima or Bogota

Now let’s talk about this itinerary for Bolivia in 5 days in more details!

Day 1 of 5 days in Bolivia: La Paz and night bus to Uyuni

Passport control in La Paz

We landed in La Paz around 3:30am! Since there aren’t too many international flights arriving to La Paz (as of now, you can only fly there from Lima or Bogota, we flew from the latter), you will likely land in La Paz very early, just le we did. On the one hand, it’s excellent, because you have the entire day to spend in La Paz. On the other hand, if you haven’t had a chance to sleep in the airplane (s), you will arrive exhausted. Since passport control takes quite a bit of time (I’ve written about it in a separate paragraph right at the start of this post), you will only get to the city centre of La Paz at 5:30am or even 6:00am. Since we had to buy a SIM card and, surprisingly, the process took a bit long, we arrived just after 6am. 

Where to stay in La Paz

If you’re feeling fine, you can just leave your bags at some hostel for a fee and start exploring La Paz. However, we were super tired, so we actually went straight to our hostel. We booked Selina La Paz for 2 nights (despite only needing it for about 16 hours), but it was only £18 per night for a private room, so we didn’t hesitate much. After arriving at Selina, we went straight to sleep and slept until 11am (for about 5 hours), which gave us enough energy to survive the day!

If you’re just like us and feel like you need a hotel to sleep for at least a couple of hours, I definitely recommend Selina!

Some nicer and posher hotels are located in the South of La Paz, e.g. Achumani station, but it will be very inconvenient to stay there just for a couple of hours since most of the landmarks are located in the city centre, and that’s where the buses to Uyuni depart from as well. You can stay there later when you return from Uyuni. 

Exploring Sopocachi and eating in the best restaurant in Bolivia

Selina, where we stayed for the first day, is located in Sopocachi, one of the best areas to stay in La Paz for young people. There are plenty of nice bars and coffee places all around the area. There are also a few street food markets, restaurants and it’s generally just a very nice and hipster area to walk around. The only downside in Sopocachi is traffic. Even at 12pm, a lot of roads are pretty congested! We ended up arriving 20 minutes later to the restaurant, because we waited for a taxi for about 15 minutes. Then, due to the traffic conditions, it took us about 35 minutes instead of 15-20 to get to the South of La Paz, Calacoto.

Gustu is located in the South of La Paz, that is considered a posh area of the city. Gustu was opened by a co-founder of the famous Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Denmark, one of the world’s best restaurants. We took a 3-course menu, which cost around £22 per person and was worth every penny! You can choose a starter, main and a dessert and all the dishes were unique. We relied on the waiters’ help to explain the menu to us as we couldn’t recognise most of the ingredients. Among the dishes, there were native river fishes from the Bolivian part of the Amazon rainforest, various unique herbs, vegetables and fruits and even alligator carpaccio! 

Walking around the city centre and visiting Mirador Kili-Kili

Later, we took a taxi to get back to the city centre, where we visited Calle Jaen – one of the very few protected streets in La Paz, where it’s not allowed to demolish buildings and do pretty much any visual changes to the streets. Calle Jaen is definitely the prettiest street in La Paz, so head there for some beautiful photos. On Calle Jaen, we found a lovely little tour agency, where we booked some tours for the upcoming days in La Paz (a food tour and a teleferico tour of the city). 

We didn’t spend too much time in the city centre this time, as we knew that we will have more time in La Paz later and even have a proper tour of the city. Before heading back to the hotel, we decided to visit the best place to see La Paz from above – mirador Kili Kili! You only need to walk for about 20-25 minutes to get there from Calle Jaen.

The view from Kili Kili is really stunning – you can see the 360 panorama of La Paz! 

Taking a night bus to Uyuni

After visiting the mirador, we returned to our hotel to shower, pack our bags (we decided to leave our suitcase in Selina and pick it up in a day) and bring just our backpacks with us. We decided to take the bus to Uyuni from a company called Todo Turismo. They had the best reviews and safety record; honestly, it was a great experience.

The bus departs in the evening, at 9pm, however, you need to be at their office at least 15 minutes before that. Todo Turismo office has toilets and other facilities. 

Our bus was amazing – it had two levels – the VIP on the ground level and the normal seats on the first floor. Since I’m pretty bad at sleeping in the buses, we went for the most convenient option, the VIP seats that recline pretty well (probably around 150 degrees or so). Normal tickets cost around $36-38 one way and VIP costs a bit more, around $45 each way. It’s definitely not cheap, but the planes to Uyuni are way more expensive, plus, you’re saving money on the hotel. Alternatively, if that’s not available or you’re looking for a cheaper option, you can find more tickets here.

The tickets also include food – dinner and breakfast and they were good! The only problem we had was the fact that it got extremely hot inside the pretty insulated VIP compartment – I woke up because of that and had to go and ask them to switch on Air-conditioning. 

A day tour around Salar de Uyuni

We arrived at the Todo Turismo office in Uyuni around 7:45 am. Their office also has toilets, tea and some comfy sofas if you want to wait there for a little while until your tour starts. Actually, the tours start around 10:30 am, but you need to get to the tour agency’s office 30 minutes earlier. 

We decided to book this tour – it was the best-rated tour in Uyuni and it exceeded our expectations. It started pretty slowly, the first 3 hours were pretty uneventful (just the train cemetery, some technical stops to pick up the wellies and a stop in the salt museum and souvenir shop), however, later it was only getting better and better!

We had a wonderful buffet lunch in the middle of Salar, 1 hour in Fish island and then we had a photoshoot in the middle of Salar. Our group was pretty large – we were 18 people in total and our guide shot a video with all the tour participants – it was fun! After that, we had some snacks and wine watching sunset in Salar and even one extra activity – stargazing, which was amazing!

It was such a long tour and we got to our hotel around 8:45pm (they brought us all the way to Hotel de Sal Luna Salada, which we booked for one night). 

This tour is trendy and it tends to sell out, so make sure to check the prices and availability here >>

Night at a salt hotel 

We were originally hoping to stay at Palacio del Sal, however, it was fully booked, so instead, we booked another nice salt hotel, Hotel de Sal Luna Salada. It’s located slightly further away from Uyuni, circa 15-20 minutes driving, however, some of the rooms had a view of Salar, which was amazing. Overall, the hotel itself was stunning, but the food and the spa were not great. However, we still enjoyed our experience – it was very unique! And the hotel itself was absolutely stunning, especially the lovely lounge areas with fireplaces with views of Salar.

Day 3 in Bolivia: Flying to La Paz, Cochabamba 

Uyuni to Cochabamba by plane 

Since the first and second days in Bolivia were already pretty tiring, we decided to take a flight from Uyuni to La Paz instead of the night bus. Before the pandemic, there used to be plenty of direct flights to La Paz from Uyuni, however, as of May 2022, there were none. Actually, there were just 3 flights per week and all of them went to Cochabamba and not La Paz. However, it was possible to buy a flight from Cochabamba to La Paz as well. There are multiple flights to La Paz from Cochabamba, so you can take the one with the shortest waiting time if you want to go to La Paz as soon as possible. Alternatively, you can spend a few hours in Cochabamba and discover the city. 

Things to do in Cochabamba in a few hours 

Cochabamba is not a huge city, so it’s definitely possible to see some main highlights in just a couple of hours. The airport is just about 10-15 minutes away from the city centre. You can just grab a taxi and head to the Plaza de Armas. 

Cochabamba is also the food capital of Bolivia. All the people we met in La Paz (locals) recommended us to go to Cochabamba to eat! 

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that Cochabamba is really hot! While both Uyuni and La Paz are located at high altitudes, Cochabamba’s altitude is almost zero – and it’s 30 degrees there! 

Evening in La Paz, moving hotels 

Depending on the time you arrive in El Alto – La Paz, you can either head directly to your hotel or walk around and eat dinner somewhere.

We chose the second option. For dinner, we picked Manq’a, a place specialising in Bolivian dishes. Everything was absolutely delicious there and they had a lot of unusual dishes on the menu (including some unique desserts and drinks). 

After dinner, we had to pick up our luggage from Selina. We didn’t pick Selina for the next few nights in La Paz because there were a lot of comments in the reviews about the noise on the weekends, as there is a nightclub located in the basement of Selina. 

After a very tiring part of our trip to South America, we decided to treat ourselves and stay in one of the best hotels of La Paz, the recently opened MET Hotel located in the leafy neighbourhood called Achumani. 

Day 4: Exploring La Paz or taking a day trip 

On the 4th day in Bolivia, you can either stay in La Paz and continue exploring the city or take one of the day trips and either go to Copacabana (lake Titicaca) or to one of the mountains, or, alternatively, maybe you feel fit to go to the famous death road cycling trip?

Here are some of the best tours you can take on your 4th day in Bolivia:

Private tour to lake Titikaka (requires minimum two people) – you will be able to see one of the most beautiful and biggest lakes in the world – check availability here.

The famous bike tour to the death road (it’s a descent from over 5k over the sea level), but it’s still a very challenging tour, as it requires very good physical condition – book here.

Beautiful Palca Canyon Tour with an optional stop at Valle de las Animas – check here.

Chacaltaya & Valle de Luna Tour (make sure to bring warm clothes, as Chacaltaya used to be a ski resort) – check here.

Condoriri and the lagoons full trekking tour for trekking lovers – check the availability here.

Austria Peak Trek – check availability.

Famous Huayna Potosi mountain trek – all the way up to 5000m above the sea level with stunning views (challenging) – see price.

If you decide to spend a day in La Paz instead…

In our case, the tours for lake Titicaca were not available on that day due to lack of guides and tourists as well and I had some odd issues with my knee, so I couldn’t go on any tours that involved a lot of walking (not even mentioning trekking), so we decided to stay in La Paz instead. 

We spent the morning and early afternoon walking around the “posh” part of La Paz – Achumani. The shopping area was located circa 10 minutes walking from our hotel, which was great. This area is much greater than the centre of La Paz and also, it’s much easier to breathe there, as it’s also lower than the rest of La Paz. There are plenty of shops and cafes as well. 

For lunch, we went to a restaurant called Ancestral for lunch. Ancestral is a steakhouse and it was fabulous. I can definitely recommend it! The prices were probably 3-4 times lower than in London. 

Heading to the city centre and visiting Mercado de las Brujas

After lunch, we decided to take the teleferico to the city centre to visit the famous Witches Market or Mercado de las Brujas, where they sell newborn llamas and llama foetuses that hang outside the stalls (they look surreal and even a bit terrifying). Inside the “Brujas” stalls, they sell various teas, soaps and candy that are produced for different reasons, e.g. to help find a job, find love, getting rich among other things. 

Taking a food tour of La Paz

In the evening, we had our food tour of La Paz., where our guide brought us to the main food market of La Paz, Mercado Lanza, located steps away from the main square. There are so many food stalls and most of them sell various Bolivian dishes. We had a chance to try a couple of them and they were pretty unique and very good! Later on, we went to a restaurant with our guide, where we had a tasting of 5 more popular dishes in Bolivia, such as Fricasé, Sopa de Mani, Chairo and others! If you’re interested in taking a similar tour, you can check the prices and availability here.

Our last day in Bolivia: Teleferico tour of La Paz, one more visit to Mercado Lanza, Ice Cream from Netflix and the flight to the next destination

Teleferico tour of La Paz

The last day of our 5 days in Bolivia we decided to spend in La Paz and this time, see La Paz properly and find our more about the history of the city. We booked a Teleferico tour of La Paz (you can find the availability here). 

I can definitely recommend this tour – it was just $10 per person and even included all the tickets for the Teleferico. Our guide, Maria, told us a lot about the history of La Paz and El Alto and about the Cholitas (women in traditional Bolivian dresses) and Cholets (a word-play for Cholitas + Chalets), which wealthy Aymara (indigenous people) of El Alto and La Paz build for themselves. There is also a fascinating tour of the best Cholets in El Alto including visiting a party – you can find out more here > 

Trying Sopa de Cardan and Helado de Canela

After the tour, we decided to visit Mercado Lanza one last time and try to find the famous bull testicle soup of Bolivia – Sopa de Cardan. This soup is very popular in El Alto in the mornings, but we managed to find it in Mercado Lanza in the afternoon as well. Then, we went to try another exciting dish in La Paz, this time, a dessert! There is a famous Netflix street food documentary and one of the episodes was dedicated to La Paz. So we went to try the famous ice cream place near the cemetery in La Paz. It serves a very unique cinnamon ice cream (it’s not actually an ice cream, more like a sorbet) – and it’s red! 

In the afternoon, we walked around the city centre and tried the last of the dishes recommended to us by the locals – the traditional pasties – Salteñas. There are plenty of spots serving salteñas in the heart of La Paz, however, we found a cafe called Paceña la Salteña, which specialises in them. I picked a vegetarian one and Jose got a meaty one – both of them were very liquid inside and tasted like a soup, which was pretty unique. When eating a salteña, it’s very easy to make a mess, so make sure to be careful when eating it! 

We also went to a shopping mall called Las Torres and spent some time in Juan Valdez cafe there. It was also very interesting to see how a Bolivian shopping mall looks like. 

After that, we went back to our hotel MET to start packing and try to get some sleep before our flight at 3am. As I mentioned previously, the two international flights depart from La Paz both depart at night. One departs at 3:30am, another one a bit later. It’s hard to decide whether to go to bed early and try to sleep 3-5 hours before the flight or not sleep at all. Taking a taxi to El Alto airport at night also means there won’t be any traffic, so you can get there in just 20-30 minutes depending on your location! In our case, it took around 28 minutes to go there from the Southern part of La Paz

Summary of 5 days in Bolivia: Uyuni and La Paz

I hope you found this itinerary for Bolivia in 5 days useful and got some ideas for your future trip to beautiful Bolivia. Naturally, 5 days are not enough to see a lot of Bolivia, but it’s enough to see Uyuni and get to know La Paz (and also one of the locations like Copacapaba or the Death Road)! We loved our Bolivia experience and hope to return there one day! 

Some other posts you might find useful:

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Is it possible to visit Machu Picchu in 2 days?

3 days in La Paz: the best things to do

Instagram guide to Bogota, Colombia

Coyoacan – the best area to visit in Mexico City