A SELF-DRIVE EXPEDITION FROM THE LOWLANDS OF BOLIVIA TO THE LARGEST SALT FLAT ON EARTH
Bolivia is the country of superlatives, and this crossing takes them from the bottom up. It begins in the heat and green of the lowlands and climbs into the Andes through country that changes almost every day: winding mountain dirt, the village where a revolutionary’s road ended, a white colonial city, the town at the edge of the salt, and then the high desert, with lagoons the colour of rust and flamingos standing in them. It ends on the salt itself, the largest salt flat on earth, which in April, right after the rains, lies under a sheet of water and becomes the largest mirror on earth: sky above, sky below, and the convoy driving across the middle of it. Nine days, from four hundred metres to four and a half thousand, in the window your calendar allows.
What This Journey Holds
Max 22°C l Min −5°C
Nissan Patrol MT or similar
Salt flats, mountain dirt roads and tarmac
EXPEDITION DIFFICULTY
Two kinds of expedition. The terrain, the weather and the altitude decide which.
Tough & Challenging: The country sets the pace and the plan bends to it.
– Long driving days, with journey times the road decides
– Trails that ask something of you
– Weather that can turn, and altitude that slows everything down
– Breakdowns, fixed on the road
– Basic stays, with little around them, and shared facilities at camp
Moderate & Comfortable: The same country, an easier line through it.
– Steadier days, journey times that hold
– More road under the wheels
– Beds with walls and doors
– Amenities within reach
Neither is the soft version. The difference is how much the country is allowed to decide.
MAX GROUP SIZE
Small groups, always. Twelve at most on a Signature expedition, fourteen on a Classic.
– Small enough to move as one convoy
– A camp that fits around one fire
– No one becomes a passenger in their own expedition
– Many join solo. No one finishes that way.
Choose Your Edition
Prices are per person, in US dollars, and exclude your international flights. Dates and prices are
set in good faith, and two things beyond our control can move them: a domestic flight schedule
that changes can shift the dates by a day, and a sharp move in fuel prices can change the price. If
either happens after you book, we tell you first, and why.
This ground, your dates, your circle? That’s Privé →
Nothing Discovered Later
Where You’re Headed
Your Journey, Day by Day
Santa Cruz
Samaipata
La Higuera
Sucre
Uyuni Town
Siloli
San Pedro de Quemes
Salar de Uyuni
Departure
The Drive
A Nissan Patrol with manual transmission, or similar, on the Dakar’s old roads: winding mountain dirt, altiplano tarmac, a desert at 4,500 m, and salt you drive across with the sky reflected under your wheels. In convoy, from the lowlands to the Salar.
The Landscape
The green lowlands, then the Andes. A white city in a bowl of hills. Lagoons the colour of rust with flamingos standing in them, rocks the wind has carved, and a salt flat under a skin of water, so flat and so still that the sky runs all the way to your feet.
The Nights
Hotels in the towns and the white city. An old telegraph house in a mountain village. A lodge in the high desert, the highest night of the crossing. A hotel built of salt at the edge of the Salar to finish.
The Table
Local and international cooking in the hotels, quinoa and llama on the Altiplano, coca tea for the altitude, and lunches set up in the middle of nowhere by our own hospitality team.
The Culture
Quechua and Aymara country, where the bowler hats and the languages survived the empire. A city the Spanish built white. The last road a revolutionary walked. Salt gatherers who work the Salar as their grandparents did.
WHO THE ROAD BELONGS TO
Every expedition here runs on hands you’ll mostly never see. The field chefs cooking before you wake. The mechanics working behind the convoy to keep the machines running. The hospitality and camping crew who raise your night’s shelter, and the cultural specialists, local guides, and staff who open the ground itself. All of them live here. That’s why the road opens for us, and it’s where what you spend on this expedition stays.
