Salar de Uyuni Tour: Salt Flat, Train Cemetery & Incahuasi

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Free cancellationExcellent quality

1/8

Duration10h

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN · ES

PickupAt your hotel

Stand on the world's largest salt flat and watch the horizon disappear into white.

A private full-day guided tour of Salar de Uyuni, the vast salt flat in Bolivia's Altiplano, with stops at the Train Cemetery, the salt-mining town of Colchani, the Llama and Salt Museum, and Incahuasi Island. The guide explains the geology and history as you move through the landscape; lunch and all transport are included, and you return to Uyuni by early evening.

10h

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Salar de Uyuni and surroundings

Visit Train Cemetery near city
Visit Colchani salt and handicrafts
Explore Uyuni salt flat sights
Visit Incahuasi Island and giant cacti
Take perspective photos on salt flat
Enjoy picnic lunch on island
Watch sunset on salt flat water
Return to Uyuni city

The Experience

The day starts at the Train Cemetery, a graveyard of rusted locomotives five minutes from the city—a relic of Bolivia's mining era that sets the scale of what you're about to see. From there you head to Colchani, a working salt-mining town where you can watch the process of harvesting and refining salt, and browse local handicrafts. The real landscape opens up once you reach the salt flat itself: piles of harvested salt stacked across the white expanse, the natural salt eyes (small pools), and the Playa Blanca, the first salt hotel built here in 1992, now a museum. You'll see the Dakar Rally monument and flags from different countries planted across the flat.

Incahuasi Island rises out of the salt as a rocky outcrop covered in giant cacti—the only vegetation for miles. You climb to the top and look out across the entire Salar de Uyuni, a perspective that makes the scale real in a way no photograph captures. A picnic lunch happens here. The day ends with the sunset reflected in the water that pools across the salt in certain seasons, turning the flat into a mirror before the drive back to Uyuni around 7 p.m. A specialized guide travels with you the whole time, answering the questions the landscape raises: how vast is it, why so much salt, what lies beneath.

The tour runs 10 hours door to door. You travel in private transportation with a guide who speaks English or Spanish. Soda, water and lunch are included. Incahuasi Island has a separate entrance fee (around 5 USD per person) and is not accessible during the rainy season, when water covers much of the flat—the operator will advise on timing when you book.

What’s included

Private transportation throughout the day.
a live guide in English or Spanish.
bottled water and soda.
a picnic lunch on Incahuasi Island.
hotel pickup in Uyuni.

Good to know

Easy physical levelStroller friendlyPublic transport nearbyNot for heart conditions

Operated by Tours Transandino

Is this one for you?Book this private tour if you want a guide who can answer the questions the landscape raises—the geology, the history, the scale—rather than moving through the salt flat on your own. The 10-hour day and the fixed itinerary mean all the logistics are arranged; you show up and the sequence holds.