Itinerary
Bolivia's Altitude Isn't Optional, Even for Sightseeing
A lot of high-altitude travel advice assumes you've chosen it — signed up for a trek, booked a climb. Bolivia's standard sightseeing circuit gets you there anyway: La Paz sits above 3,640 metres before you've done anything, and the classic Uyuni jeep tour pushes past 4,800 at its highest point within a few days of arrival. The planning question isn't whether to accept the altitude; it's how to pace the first week so your body has caught up before you're at the highest points.
Updated 2026-08-15
Why This Isn't a Trekking Problem
Most altitude advice is written for people who chose a specific high route and can plan around it. Bolivia is different: arriving in La Paz alone puts you higher than most trekkers ever go on purpose, and the standard three-day Uyuni tour — a jeep circuit, not a hike — reaches nearly 4,800 metres at the Sol de Mañana geysers without requiring any fitness or trekking decision at all. That means the ordinary sightseeing visitor faces a genuine altitude adjustment that a similar first-time visitor to, say, Peru's Cusco-Machu Picchu circuit or Colombia's Bogotá largely doesn't reach.
The First 48 Hours Set the Tone
Give La Paz at least a full day, ideally two, before anything physically demanding — a bike descent, a big walking day, or heading straight on to the Uyuni tour. Drink more water than feels necessary, eat lightly, go easy on alcohol, and treat the first day as recovery rather than sightseeing time, even though the city has plenty worth seeing once you're ready for it. This is entirely behavioural; the general symptom picture, and the point at which mild discomfort becomes something to act on, belong to altitude health and safety rather than to pacing.
Sequencing What Comes After La Paz
Once you've settled into La Paz's altitude, the Uyuni circuit is the natural next step — but remember it climbs meaningfully higher than La Paz itself, so treat those first days in the city as genuine preparation rather than a formality to get through. Anything more extreme still — climbing Huayna Potosí, at 6,088 metres one of the most accessible six-thousanders in the world but still a serious undertaking — belongs later in the trip, after several cumulative days at altitude, not stacked into the first week alongside everything else. The order that works: La Paz first and given real time, the Uyuni circuit next, any summit attempt last.
Should the Lowlands Be Part of the Trip?
Unlike some Andean countries, Bolivia's classic highlight circuit — La Paz, Uyuni, Potosí, Sucre — can be done entirely at high altitude without ever touching the lowlands, so a trip to Santa Cruz or the Amazon isn't a built-in relief valve the way it structurally is elsewhere; it's a genuine, separate decision. It's a worthwhile one if you have the time, and flying between the highlands and the lowlands saves an enormous amount of both distance and altitude change at once. Just plan for the fact that returning to the highlands afterward means a second round of acclimatisation, not a continuation of the first.