If you want to hit a mix of landscapes across three countries in South America then read on. This is a loop from Salta in northern Argentina, into the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, then through the wild landscapes of Bolivia to its famous Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats), then back to Salta, all in two weeks.
This itinerary involves signing up for guided tours in some places as this is by far the easiest way to see the sights I mention. Guided tours are not my favourite format but I am happy to do them if, like parts of this itinerary, it’s going to be a pain to plan everything myself. If you’re someone who avoids tours at all costs then close this tab now!
I should also mention that this itinerary is quite an intense two weeks. But it’s worth it, in my opinion. You’ll travel a lot of miles and experience heat and dust in the desert, near-freezing temperatures in the mountains and Salt Flats, high altitude, an old-fashioned single-carriage train, incredible landscapes… sound good? Read on.
Day 1: travel to Salta
Assuming you are flying into Buenos Aires, your task for day 1 is to travel to Salta.
You can get to Salta from Buenos Aires either by plane or by bus. The flight is two hours. The bus is long at 21 hours but you can consider breaking up the journey with a night in Córdoba if you have time. I use Busbud to book buses in South America.
Day 2-3: Salta
I suggest spending two days in Salta.
Salta’s Plaza 9 Julio is a hub for hotels, cafes, restaurants, museums and a couple of churches. It’s a refreshing green space and I recommend treating it as your starting point for Salta.
As well as visiting Salta’s sights, you could also hire a car or sign up for a tour to visit some of the highlights of the Jujuy Province in which Salta is located. These include:
Humahuaca and/or Purmamarca
Here you can find curiously-striped mountains in all shades between rusty-red and sandy-beige (I’ll come back to these later).
Salinas Grandes
These are Salta’s salt flats (you can probably skip these as the Bolivian ones are bigger and better!).
Parque Nacional los Cardones
Translation: Cactus National Park! Get up close to the giant cacti that grow in this area.
Your two days in Salta will also give you a chance to begin acclimatising to the altitude. Salta is at 1,152m. Although this is not especially high, it’s high enough that you can detect a change in the air and start adapting to the high altitudes you’ll encounter in Bolivia.
Day 4: travel from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama by bus
Although a hefty ten hours, the bus journey from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama is one of the most scenic I have ever taken.
First you’ll go about three hours north to Purmamarc. Then you go left down a thin, winding road which continues for another seven hours directly to San Pedro. The variety of landscapes within the journey is astonishing: the striped mountains at Purmamarca, the Salinas Grandes, gigantic cactuses growing improbably out of the solid rock at the edge of the road, rust-coloured sand as you head into Chile, and lagoons where if you’re lucky you can spy flamingos.
It’s a long journey but the landscapes will keep you entertained.
Day 5-8: San Pedro de Atacama
San Pedro de Atacama is a desert town which serves as a base for tours. How you spend your four days here, and what tours you join, is up to you. It’s worth ensuring that you have enough time in San Pedro de Atacama not only to experience all it has to offer but also to continue to acclimatise to the altitude. It is higher than Salta so it’s another helpful step towards Bolivia’s high altitudes.
When deciding which tours to join, be aware that some of the experiences are similar to what you will experience on your tour through Bolivia. If you’re happy to see the same kinds of thing twice then go for it. But if you’re looking to save the surprise for Bolivia (and/or save some money) then you can decline the hawkers’ approaches for those particular tours.
The most popular tours from San Pedro de Atacama are:
Valle de la Luna
I advise signing up for this one as it’s a unique landscape and is not similar to anything on the Bolivia tour.
El Tatio Geysers
A geysers tour is probably worthwhile as well if you’re interested in them. There are some on the Bolivia tour but they are comparatively underwhelming.
Puritama hot springs
The Bolivia tour includes a trip to some hot springs which are equally scenic but cheaper than the Puritama hot springs outside San Pedro de Atacama.
Stargazing
Sign up for stargazing if you’re interested in the night sky. However, you’re likely to see a better night sky in Bolivia as there’s less ambient light overall. It’s also worth checking the phase of the moon before you decide whether to sign up for stargazing. I went when there was a new moon and we could see the Milky Way pretty clearly.
The tours in San Pedro de Atacama are cheaper if you book them directly in the tour offices with cash rather than online or with card. Read my guide to booking Atacama tours here.
Day 9-11: tour from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni
Whilst you’re in San Pedro, you’ll need to book yourself onto a tour to the Salar de Uyuni. You can book these tours either one way (3 days, 2 nights) or return (4 days, 3 nights). For this itinerary, you’ll need to book a one-way tour.
We booked our tour in person with Desertour Atacama. They recommend that you exchange 300 bolivianos before you depart, which covers park entry fees, toilets, snacks etc. As a benchmark, for us the total cost of the tour and the Bolivian money was about £187 per person in October 2024 (200,000 Chilean pesos plus 300 bolivianos).
My trip from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni was a highlight of my entire ten-week South America trip. The tour is more than just the Salar de Uyuni, despite that being the pinnacle of the tour. The landscapes along the way are out of this world. The route is so rural that we hardly came across a single person throughout the whole journey. Lakes of vivid turquoise, deep red and bright white; snow-capped mountains; steaming hot springs; gambolling llamas; thousands of flamingos balancing one-legged in high-altitude lakes; train cemeteries, let alone the Salar de Uyuni itself…
Our tour took us to Salar de Uyuni at both sunset and sunrise. Both were stunning. It’s difficult to get your head around the scale of the Salar de Uyuni and no pictures can live up to the astonishing sight of it in real life.
You can believe me when I say it was some of the most incredible and varied scenery I have ever seen on my travels.
One thing to be aware of on this tour is that parts of it may be uncomfortable. You’ll spend a lot of time in a 4×4 going over bumpy tracks (not roads). You’ll be at high altitude so you might experience symptoms of altitude sickness, which is why it’s important to acclimatise to the altitude before you get to Bolivia. The facilities you’ll experience in Bolivia are also pretty basic. You might have intermittent electricity in the hostels, little or no heating and questionable toilets. It’s all part of the experience but I thought I’d just give you a heads up!
Day 12: Uyuni
At the end of your tour (day 11), you’ll be dropped off in Uyuni whilst other members of your tour head back to San Pedro de Atacama.
Uyuni is generally overlooked as a boring place. Most of the recommendations for what to do in Uyuni involve things you will already have done (principally the Salar de Uyuni and the train cemetery on Uyuni’s outskirts).
However, I think Uyuni is too easily dismissed. I think it’s worth spending a day there if you can, depending on the train timetable to get you back into Argentina. Despite the Salar de Uyuni being world-famous, the town itself still doesn’t feel touristy. My favourite aspect of Uyuni was its markets, where the town’s residents do their shopping, buy snacks, and hang out to chat and catch up. Without wishing to be patronising, it felt unexpectedly authentic.
Day 13: travel from Uyuni to Villazón by train
The train from Uyuni to Villazón on the Bolivian/Argentinian border is a pretty unusual experience. It leaves at 6am for a start. It’s a ten-hour, single-carriage train which trundles through the Bolivian countryside all the way to the Argentinian border.
I booked the train online for around USD10 per person. You shouldn’t expect to receive up-to-the-minute information about the status of the train – or in fact any information at all. But it’s a quirky alternative to the buses which are the most common form of transport in South America, and it takes you through more remarkable Bolivian landscapes.
The train does not run every day so you might need to adjust the number of days you spend in Uyuni or San Pedro de Atacama to work around the train timetable.
The train terminates at Villazón in Bolivia. You will then need to get over the border to La Quiaca in Argentina. You can either cross the border the same day your train arrives (which I did) or stay in Villazón and cross the border before catching your bus the next day. Make sure you get stamped out of Bolivia before getting stamped into Argentina. The Bolivian border office is the scruffy-looking one on the left.
Day 14: travel from La Quiaca to Salta (and optional stop in Humahuaca)
Catch a bus from La Quiaca to Salta through the colourful mountains in the Jujuy Province. You’ll pass through Humahuaca, then Purmamarca and then back to Salta. The bus takes about seven and a half hours.
If you have a couple of extra days, and you didn’t do a tour there from Salta before, you can consider stopping in Humahuaca to see the colourful mountains. They are about 25km outside Humahuaca and you have to take a tour there. There are plenty of hawkers in the main square so it’s easy to join one.
If you are stopping in Humahuaca, make sure you have enough cash left over from the beginning of your trip. It’s a relatively small town which means you run into a paradox: it’s more cash-only than usual but the town is small enough to run out of cash. I got caught short in Humahuaca as I had only a very small amount of Argentinian pesos when I re-entered Argentina and, due to circumstances outside my control, I had no way to obtain any more so I was unable to pay for the tour to the mountains.
Once you reach Salta, that’s the end of your loop!