There are few places on earth that make you wonder if you’ve somehow been abducted by aliens and transported to a far off planet.
The Salar de Uyuni is one of these otherworldly places.
At one point in history, this region was a massive saltwater lake. The water eventually evaporated, leaving a thick layer of salt that stretches as far as the eye can see. Commonly known as the “Salt Flats”, this area is one of the most visited places in Bolivia.
And for good reason: It is spectacular.
One of my favorite fun facts about Bolivia is that the Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat. Cool, huh?
Wet vs. Dry Season in Salar de Uyuni
There are two seasons in the Salar de Uyuni – wet and dry – both of which are incredible and have their ow unique draw.
Each year during the wet season, water covers the earth, turning the land into an all-encompassing, dreamlike mirror.
We were there during dry season, when you are able to venture into the middle of this strange, salty land.
City of Uyuni
Our journey to the Salt Flats started with a night bus that brought us to the sleepy little town of Uyuni.
Situated on the corner of nothingness and oblivion, there really isn’t anything to do in this town… well, besides drinking wine, of course.
After getting situated in our hostel, we made a trip to the market to get some snacks. We ended up with a bag of oranges, cookies, four bottles of wine, and a plastic Godzilla figurine.
You will understand why in a moment.
After drinking two of our four bottles of wine, we ventured to town where we ran into some friends from earlier in our travels. We went to dinner at one of the thousand pizzerias in Uyuni. The pizza was actually shockingly good for Bolivia, and the specialty quinoa beer was quite tasty too!
After demolishing our food, we stuck around to play cards until we were encouraged to leave because the owners wanted to close.
Salar de Uyuni Tour
The next morning, we embarked on our three-day, two-night tour.
There are somewhere around 80 companies in Uyuni that provide tours of the Salt Flats. Some of the companies are legit, and others… well, not so much.
We did our research and talked to other travelers, and the company name we kept hearing was Red Planet. At just $20 more than the cheapest of the companies, it was an easy choice.
And again, we were not disappointed with our decision to go with one of the “nicer” companies. While some of the other tour guides we saw along the way didn’t talk to their groups at all, our guide was incredible. He shared a lot of history and gave us insight on what it is like to live in this region.
Train Graveyard
Our first stop was at the famous train graveyard.
Years ago, Britain sent trains to Bolivia so they could export all the silver they were mining. What they didn’t realize though, was that the altitude of Bolivia is much, much higher than that of England, and eventually the trains all died – leaving them useless.
It was a surprisingly cool place to take photos and climb around on the trains.
Salt Flats
Next, was what we were all waiting for: We made several stops in the Salt Flats, and took more pictures than I would like to admit. Our guides pulled out the floor mats from the Jeeps so we could lay on our bellies to get the obligatory perspective photos – which, as we found out is kind of an art.
This is where Godzilla comes in.
Because the salty earth stretches to the horizon in all directions, you can take photographs with a distorted perspective. We were able to take pictures with this tiny toy figurine towering over us, which made for a fun little photo shoot!
We shared him with the rest of our group so everyone could get a picture running from the “giant” beast!
Insider Tip: Be sure to pick up some props to bring because they make the photos so much more fun. And share with your fellow tour mates to make quick friends!
Learning about salt mining
Just before lunchtime, we visited a salt processing factory – which ironically, is made entirely of salt. Our guide explained how the salt comes to the workshop in bricks that have been extracted from the earth, and is processed into what we use in our kitchens.
Though the process is long and strenuous, they make just two US dollars for an amount of salt so large, no human being could consume it in a lifetime.
Fish Island
Fish Island is covered in cacti and has some of the most stunning views of the Salt Flats.
When this area was a lake, you can almost imagine what it would be like to be on this island and look out into the water surrounding it.
Exploring Fish Island is pretty spectacular, but watch out for all the cacti. We got pricked one too many times!
Salt Hotel
That night we stayed in nothing other than a salt hotel. Everything – from the bricks to the beds – was made of salt. The only things that weren’t salt were salt were the toilet and sink (for obvious reasons!) and mattress, thank goodness.
In the Salar, these hotels are not uncommon. We learned that they have to be rebuilt every 15 years, as the rainwater erodes the bricks over time.
While it wasn’t the most comfortable hotel we’ve ever stayed in (umm, what are you to expect when it’s made of salt?!), it was a pretty unique experience!
Atacama Desert
The next day we made our way through the Atacama Desert, the highest desert in the world.
Related reading: If you love deserts, check out this list of the most beautiful deserts in the world and find out how to visit them!
Colored Lagoons
We made several stops along the way at unique rock formations and different colored lagoons – red, blue and green – where flamingos gathered.
I don’t know about you, but I always picture flamingos in the tropics, so seeing them in this cold climate was a bit strange.
In all our travels, we haven’t see another landscape quite like this one, with its colorful lagoons, odd rock formations and salt flats that stretch on as far as the eye can see.
Rock Formations
Throughout the desert, there are some incredible rock formations. The most famous of them all is a precariously delicate formation known as the “Tree” rock.
Just take one look at it and you’ll understand how it got its name!
While we were there, we saw a park ranger yell at a tourist who was attempting to climb the “tree” despite signs warning people not to even touch the formation.
Responsible travel tip: Please respect signs that say no climbing or touching. They are often in place to preserve vulnerable and delicate places so they can be enjoyed for years to come.
And if you like climbing, don’t worry. There are plenty of places to explore and climb and get lost amongst the boulders!
Geysers
Okay, now that we’ve seen colored lagoons, crazy rock formations and salt flats, we’ve seen it all, right?!
Wrong!
The other bizarre feature of this landscape is the prevalence of geysers and hot springs along the way.
Don’t let the chilly temperatures tempt you into jumping in. The geysers are far too hot for that. But don’t worry, there is a way to warm up in this surprisingly cold desert…
Hot Springs in the moonlight
Our hotel for the second night was dorm style, with 6 beds in each room. Five women and Ben.
Lucky guy!
The biggest perk of this hotel (other than the communal sleeping arrangement!) was that it was situated just meters from a beautiful natural hot spring.
Red Planet is the only company that stays near the springs, so we were able to spend the night soaking, sharing stories, and passing around bottles of wine with our group.
As we were leaving the next morning, we saw all the other tour companies arriving and crowding the springs. We felt lucky to have it all to ourselves the night before. It was definitely a highlight of our time in the Salt Flats.
You might also like…
- Death Road in Bolivia
- Amazon Jungle In Bolivia
- La Paz – Home Base for Traveling Bolivia
- Border Crossing: Peru to Bolivia (and the joys of being American)
Planning a trip to the Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats? Save this post to Pinterest for later!
We want to hear from you!
Have you been to Salar de Uyuni? What was your favorite part?
Hi Katie & Ben! How much did the tour with Red Planet cost?
Hey Kate, that’s a great question! Just looked up our records and we paid $175USD each for the 3day/2night tour. That was back in 2014 so they may have raised the prices a bit. I know there were cheaper tour companies as well, but we heard that some of the cheap ones weren’t great quality. You kind of get what you pay for I guess!
Hope that helps! Happy travels 🙂
Hi Katie!
My group of friends are going to Bolivia in May and are deciding whether we should camp on the salt flats or go to a salt hotel. The one that is pretty well-known seems to be the Luna Salada Hotel however, very expensive.
Do you remember the name of the hotel you stayed at? the hot spring option also seemed very cool!
I was also looking at Red Planet’s revamped website for their 2-day tour and indicates that they stay at the village of ATULCHA. My goal at the salt flat is to watch the sunrise and the sunset, so I was hoping you could let me know if the hotel you stayed at was at a location that could be done so.
All your help would be much appreciated! Thank you! 🙂
Hi JuYoung, great question. When we did the tour with Salar de Uyuni tour with Red Planet, we booked their two-night tour, were able to see sunrise and sunset and stayed in a salt hotel. I would highly recommend the tour if you are able. Camping might get really cold at night, but the salt hotels were warm enough. I can’t remember the name of the hotel, because it was all arranged through the jeep tour. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions.
I was never heard of Salar de Uyuni 2 years ago until I saw an image online and was shocked, since then I added this place in my must-go list. I like your post and your picture are really beautiful and amazing. Since you have been there, so I would like to ask two questions. 🙂
Is the place safe to travel? I travelled a lot, and safety is always my biggest concern when planning the trip, so what do you think of travel alone to Salar de Uyuni? I may or may not travel with my friend or just by myself.
Another thing is I have seen people were talking about the train cemetery. I have found several posts talked about this place(for example, https://www.43km.co/published_trips/2139151d-9abb-4266-8498-9bddf1f52b9e), have you been to this place? is it worth going?
Thanks!
Hi Kala. Yes, Salar de Uyuni is a perfectly safe place to travel to. There are many other travelers going to Uyuni too so you’ll be among friends.
The train cemetery is typically included in the Salar de Uyuni trip. If you look above on this post you can see our pictures from it. Pretty cool place to see!
It must have been real fun to visit this beautiful place. I hope that I am also able to visit it some day.
My name is Ana Merka and I am a content writer with Travel Tourist Information Guide website. I manage the pages for Latin America. Link to the referenced pages is: <a href="http://travel-tourist-information-guide.com/latin-america"></a>.
I have worked on most of the pages for Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru and would be working on other locations in Latin America as we go along. I would like to request your valuable inputs on any of these locations that you have visited during the course of your travel as it would be very helpful to improve the quality of information that we can provide on the website for travelers (especially for backpackers).
Best wishes,
Ana
Hello traveling friens,
first of all thanks for the detailed report! We are also planning to go to Uyuni and of course the salt flats as well as the hot springs. Unfortunately the Red Planet website is, frankly spoken, a pain in the a**, as it is almost not working at all. Therefore, I was wondering if you could kindly provide an email address of them? Cheers and all the best, sincerely, Tim
Hey Tim, Great question. As we read your comment we remembered that we had some issues with booking as well. Come to think of it, many of the things we booked in Bolivia were a little tricky to book haha!
It’s been a couple years so logistics are a little fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, we took the overnight bus to Uyuni and when we got there tried to book our trip at the office for that day. They were full, so we had to make the booking for the next day instead. If your timing is flexible, I would think it would be okay to book when you get there. You probably wouldn’t be able to leave until the next day though since the night bus arrives in the AM.
You could try one of these 2 email addresses, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll get back to you any time soon! haha
info@redplanetexpedition.com
redplanet_expedition@hotmail.com
Best of luck!
Hi! I am going to be in Bolivia in a couple of months and wanted to know: did you booked the tour with Red Planet in advance or when you arrived in Uyuni? I read a lot of great reviews about that company and it seems like I can book Red Planet through Kanoo Tours in advance, so I’m just wondering which you think is better! Thank you!
Hi Victoria! We were very happy with Red Planet, and we did book them in advance just to be sure they’d have a spot for us. Also, that way when we arrived in the morning via night bus, we didn’t have to scramble around to find just any company who would take us (we heard some bad things about a few companies and didn’t want to get stuck!). I believe we just booked on the Red Planet website, but that was 2 year ago, so maybe they’ve changed the process. Have a blast in Salar de Uyuni! It’s such a unique place 🙂