Practical Information for visiting Bolivia

The currency is the boliviano (BOB). Bolivia is very much a cash economy — cards are accepted in better hotels and restaurants in La Paz and Santa Cruz Department and almost nowhere else.

ATMs are available in the cities and larger towns and can be unreliable; withdraw more than you need before heading to Uyuni, the Amazon or rural areas. Carry small notes, since change for a 200-boliviano note is genuinely hard to find.

US dollars can be changed easily and are sometimes accepted for tours and lodges. Bring clean, unmarked notes — damaged ones are refused.

Bargaining is normal in markets and for taxis, which are unmetered; agree the fare first.

Tipping is modest: rounding up in restaurants, and a proper tip for guides and drivers on multi-day tours, which is a significant part of their income.

Coverage for mobile networks reaches the cities, the altiplano towns and the main roads, with 4G in urban areas from Entel, Tigo and Viva. It thins fast in the Amazon, the Chaco Boreal and the high cordilleras, and on a Uyuni tour there is no signal for most of three days.

Local SIMs are cheap and sold everywhere with a passport. Data prices are low.

Wi-Fi is common in hotels and cafes in the cities and slow to nonexistent in the countryside. Amazon lodges and salt hotels generally have none, and say so.

Power cuts occur, and at altitude cold drains batteries faster than people expect. Download maps and carry a power bank.

Bolivia is reasonably safe for visitors, with crime mostly opportunistic. The genuine hazards here are altitude, roads and protest.

• Altitude is the most likely thing to affect you, and it affects almost everyone to some degree. See the health section — it is the single most important preparation for this country.
• 
  
• Road accidents are the leading cause of visitor deaths. Bus crashes on mountain roads are not rare; choose better companies, avoid the cheapest overnight services, and do not take a tour vehicle whose driver has been drinking.
• 
  
• Blockades are a normal form of political expression here. Roads, including the route to the airport, can be closed for days with little warning, stranding travellers. Build slack into your schedule and check before long journeys.
• 
  
• Fake police and unlicensed taxis in La Paz: never get into an unmarked taxi, and never go anywhere with someone claiming to be a plain-clothes officer.
• 
  
• Mine tours at Potosí involve real danger — dust, heat, unstable workings and explosives.
• 
  
• Drug offences carry long sentences in poor conditions.

Altitude is the defining health issue. La Paz is at 3,600 metres and El Alto airport at 4,061. Arriving directly from sea level, most people feel it: headache, breathlessness, poor sleep, nausea. Ascend slowly if you can, rest on the first day, avoid alcohol, drink water, and consider acetazolamide. Coca tea helps mildly. Severe symptoms — confusion, breathlessness at rest, a persistent cough — require immediate descent, and that is not negotiable.

Medical facilities are limited outside La Paz and Santa Cruz Department, where private clinics are adequate. Serious cases are evacuated abroad, so insurance with evacuation cover is essential, and check it covers altitude above 4,000 metres, which some policies exclude.

Vaccinations: routine cover plus hepatitis A and typhoid. Yellow fever is required for the lowlands and is checked at some borders. Rabies for longer rural stays.

Malaria and dengue are present in the Amazon and the lowlands, not on the altiplano.

Do not drink tap water. The sun at altitude burns extremely fast — high-factor sunscreen, hat and sunglasses are essential even when it is cold.

Greet before anything else. Buenos días on entering a shop or approaching someone, and a handshake. Skipping it is read as rude.

Photography. Always ask before photographing people, particularly Indigenous women in traditional dress, and expect to be refused or asked for payment. There is a long history here of being photographed as a curiosity, and the reluctance is entirely reasonable.

Coca leaf is legal in Bolivia, chewed and drunk widely, and offering or accepting it is a normal courtesy. It is illegal to take it out of the country, including in tea bags, and border officials do check.

Pachamama. If you are offered a drink, a small amount is poured on the ground first as an offering before anyone drinks. Follow your host’s lead.

Dress modestly in the highlands, where conservative norms hold and where it is cold anyway.

Do not discuss the loss of the coastline lightly — it is a genuine national grievance and not a joke.

Emergency numbers: 110 for police, 118 for ambulance, 119 for fire. English is unlikely; your hotel or guide will usually be faster and more effective.

Medical. Private clinics in La Paz and Santa Cruz Department are the realistic option — Clinica Alemana and Clinica del Sur in La Paz among them. Payment is required up front, in cash. Anything serious means evacuation, usually to Santa Cruz Department first and then abroad.

Altitude emergencies. Descent is the treatment. La Paz’s lower Zona Sur is several hundred metres below the centre and is where people are taken first; from El Alto, going down to La Paz itself is a meaningful drop.

Blockades and disruption. Check road status before intercity travel; tour operators and hotels track it closely and are the best source.

Keep offline copies of your passport, insurance, yellow fever certificate and enough cash in dollars to change at short notice. Most embassies are in La Paz’s Sopocachi and Calacoto districts.