Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

The largest salt flat on earth. Flooded into a perfect mirror Jan–Mar; blinding white and hexagonal Jun–Aug.

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Best time to visit

Month	High	Low	Rain	Season
Jan	17°	4°	81 mm	prime
Feb	17°	4°	76 mm	prime
Mar	17°	2°	33 mm	prime
Apr	16°	-1°	5 mm
May	13°	-4°	1 mm
Jun	10°	-6°	1 mm	prime
Jul	11°	-6°	2 mm	prime
Aug	13°	-5°	2 mm	prime
Sep	15°	-4°	2 mm
Oct	17°	-2°	3 mm
Nov	18°	-1°	7 mm
Dec	19°	2°	38 mm

30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.

Serves travellers at Backpacker→Mid-range level. Typically around $70 a day on the ground.

Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.

A 4WD with a driver, on a multi-day loop, arranged before you set off. Self-driving on the salt is not a sensible plan and the routes beyond the flat cross unmarked desert.
getting around · editorial
Fly from La Paz to Uyuni in about an hour, or take the overnight bus, which takes most of the night. Tours leave from Uyuni town itself; some start instead from Tupiza, at the far end of the same circuit.
getting there · editorial
Uyuni sits at around 3,650 metres and the tour climbs well above 4,500 metres before it is done. Acclimatise in La Paz or Sucre first. Nights drop far below freezing year-round and the glare off the salt burns skin and eyes from underneath.
know before · editorial
Cash, in bolivianos. The machines in Uyuni run out and card acceptance is minimal, so bring what you need for the whole circuit from a larger city.
money · editorial
The rains flood the flat early in the year, which produces the mirror but also blocks parts of the circuit and keeps vehicles off the salt. The middle of the year is dry and clear, and the nights are savagely cold.
when not to go · editorial
Uyuni is a base rather than a place, and one night either side of the tour is enough. The salt hotels sit on the edge of the flat at Colchani. On the multi-day circuit you sleep in basic village lodgings with no heating, which is the part people underestimate.
where to stay · editorial

Cementerio de Trenes
English locomotives rusting since 1940 in the middle of nowhere.
The salt flat at Colchani
The white entrance. Sunglasses are not optional.
Isla Incahuasi
Nine-metre cacti on an island of fossil coral, surrounded by salt.
Ojos del Salar
Water rising from underground and bubbling up. Do not drink it.
Árbol de Piedra
A rock carved by the wind, exactly where it has no business being.
Laguna Colorada
Red with algae, white with borax, pink with flamingos.

Eat salteñas in the morning in Uyuni — they run out by 11am
Quinoa soup at altitude
Hot, salty and more necessary than it looks at 3,600 metres.

Go to the salt flat in the wet season, when it turns into a mirror
The mirrored salt flat
Only after rain, between January and March. Without it, it is just white.
A sky full of stars over the salt
No light, no humidity, no horizon. The whole Milky Way.