How to Get Around Bolivia

Getting in. El Alto above La Paz and Viru Viru in Santa Cruz Department are the main international airports. El Alto is at 4,061 metres — among the highest commercial airports in the world — and arriving there directly from sea level means altitude symptoms within hours.

Buses are how Bolivians travel: cheap, extensive and variable. Overnight services between the main cities are comfortable in the better companies and grim in the cheap ones, and accidents involving interurban buses are frequent, especially overnight. Roads in the highlands are mostly paved now, in the lowlands often not.

Internal flights save days on a country this large and are worth it for Rurrenabaque and for the eastern lowlands.

In La Paz, the Mi Teleférico cable-car network links the city to El Alto on the rim, and is both the practical way to move and the best view in Bolivia.

Driving is demanding: altitude, unpaved sections, and road conditions that are poor throughout the country. Most visitors use buses, tours or a driver.

Roadblocks are the defining travel fact

Strikes happen frequently and often nationwide, and roadblocks are common throughout the country — on the main roads into large cities, on main arteries within them, and on the roads to airports. They restrict the movement of goods and services as well as people.

Do not cross a roadblock, even one that appears unattended — it can provoke exactly the confrontation you are trying to avoid. Take another route or turn back. Once a blockade is up, officials and vendors cannot get in or out to supply stranded travellers, so carry extra food, water, fuel, medication and warm clothing if you are driving. Check with your airline before setting out for the airport, and build real slack into any schedule that depends on one road.

How to pick a taxi

By the roof. Radio taxis are identified by the telephone number and the name of the taxi company on the vehicle's roof, and you call a registered radio company from a landline or from a hotel rather than hailing one. Do not hail on the street, and do not take motorcycle taxis. Note the driver's name from their photo identification card, and the licence number.

Two practical points that change which car you get into: many taxis are poorly maintained and have no functional seatbelts, and cabs to and from El Alto and Viru Viru deserve particular care. A trusted ride-hailing app avoids most of this.

Buses, and which terminals to watch

Road accidents involving local and interurban buses are frequent, and especially so with overnight buses — the causes listed are poor vehicle maintenance, absent safety standards and poor roads. Use only tour buses run by well-known, reputable companies, and if you have any doubt about a bus or its driver, use another company. That single decision matters more here than any other transport choice you make.

Named terminals to be careful in: in La Paz, the main terminal on Peru Avenue in Zona Norte, the terminal near the cemetery, and the Minasa terminal in Zona Villa Fátima; and the bus and train terminal in Santa Cruz Department.

Roads, and when you need four-wheel drive

Road conditions are poor throughout the country, and accidents and fatalities are common. Improved highways connect Cochabamba, La Paz, Sucre and Santa Cruz Department, but many Bolivian roads are unpaved, and the old Yungas Road — “Death Road” — is considered one of the most dangerous in the world. The listed hazards are narrow, winding mountain roads, an absence of guardrails, insufficient lighting, missing traffic signs, poorly marked construction sites, potholes, torrential rain and landslides, and poorly maintained vehicles. A four-wheel drive is often needed, particularly in the rainy season.

Driving habits compound all of it: drivers do not always respect traffic law, can be aggressive and often speed, and drinking and driving is common.

Altitude changes your evacuation options

This belongs on a transport page rather than a health one, because it is about whether an aircraft comes: evacuation by air ambulance can be difficult in Bolivia, because some providers cannot fly into high-altitude locations such as La Paz. The insurance cover can exist and the aircraft still not arrive. On the altiplano, that argues for treating a long road journey to a lower city as the realistic fallback rather than assuming a flight out.

Boats

Before any boat tour, on Titicaca or in the Amazon lowlands: check the boat carries proper safety equipment with life jackets accessible to all passengers at all times, do not board anything that looks overloaded or unsafe, and verify safety standards with the operator. Lifeguard services are limited and most lakes have no warning flags, so ask residents and operators about hazards before swimming.

One region carries an avoid-all-travel advisory, and there is a specific fake-police scam with a specific legal answer. Both are on Stay Safe.