Introduction
Potosí department holds two of Bolivia's most famous sights, linked by geography rather than theme: the vast white expanse of the Salar de Uyuni, and the colonial mining city of Potosí itself, built on the silver of the Cerro Rico.
Discover Potosí
A thin sheet of standing water during the rainy season turns the Salar de Uyuni's surface into a near-perfect mirror, doubling the sky in a way few other landscapes on Earth can match — a phenomenon of the flat's sheer size and flatness rather than any special mineral property. Isla Incahuasi, a rocky outcrop rising from the middle of the flat, is covered in cacti that grow just one centimetre a year and reach up to twelve metres tall, with a short walking trail to a panoramic viewpoint over the white expanse in every direction. Near Uyuni town, the Train Cemetery gathers the rusting locomotives of a nineteenth-century railway built to export minerals to the Pacific coast and abandoned before it was ever finished — an oddly photogenic dead end that most tours visit on the way out to the flat.
Ways to Experience This Destination
The mirror-flat effect, Isla Incahuasi's giant cacti and the rusting locomotives of the Train Cemetery near Uyuni town.
UNESCO colonial heritage, the Casa de la Moneda's royal mint museum, and guided tours of the still-active silver mines.
Overnight bus or flight from La Paz, one-day versus three-day tours, and the option to exit into Chile at the border.
Frequently asked questions
Treat this Visaja page as your starting point: verify the current rules directly with the official source before you submit an application.