elsewhere.
SavedFind your elsewhere

South America / Bolivia

La Paz.

Places to go. A little room to wander.

A local view near La Paz, Bolivia
A local view near La Paz, Bolivia. Photograph by Parallelepiped09 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized and converted to WebP.

THE SHORTLIST

A few places worth your time.

01Culture · DAY 1 IDEA

La Paz

Main cemetery

Very different from cemeteries you'd normally see in Europe. A big place, many aisles with walls and holes (like shelves), where ashes of the dead are bricked up and stored. Fronts decorated, different things (i.e. photos, artificial flowers, electronic ladybugs, mini Coca Cola bottles) left for personal memory of the dead - all very colorful and very diverse. Sometimes fronts covered with glass doors. Part of walls are multi-storey to keep more ashes. Colored ladders, stairs and platforms help people to approach holes up the walls.

Allow about 90 minutes · planning estimate

Map Source
02Food · DAY 1 IDEA

Calle Linares between Sagarnaga and Santa Cruz

The Witches' Market

Vendors sell llama fetuses and dried frogs for Aymara rituals, as well as soapstone figurines and aphrodisiac formulas. This street is also the best place to pick up a charango or other Bolivian musical instrument.

Allow about 60 minutes · planning estimate

Map Source
03Neighborhoods · DAY 1 IDEA

La Paz

Sagarnaga Street

La Paz's main tourist strip. It's mainly a market street with artesano and souvenir stores, but you'll also find budget hostels, tour and travel agencies, cafes, and lots and lots of backpackers. Don't be suckered by the roving sellers of "trilobite-in-a-rock".

Allow about 60 minutes · planning estimate

Map Source
04Culture · DAY 2 IDEA

Calle Linares 906

Coca Museum

A favorite of foreign tourists, this small museum details the history and significance of the coca plant, including the effect of the U.S. War on Drugs. The displays are in Spanish, but booklets of complete translations in other languages are provided. According to the museum, crack cocaine is the greatest epidemic since the Plague in the Middle-Ages. And yes, there are free samples of coca leaf for visitors.

Allow about 90 minutes · planning estimate

Map Source
05Culture · DAY 2 IDEA

La Paz

Valle de La Luna

Surreal, weathered rock. It is a natural attraction of great beauty whose authors are water and air, which through its erosive effects of terrain created whimsical formations of cones and craters that resemble a lunar landscape. If you want to see more eroded formations with glittering diamond like silver and pink sand, try going on a red bus to Alpacoma from Calle Buenos Aires, then take a Bs. 2 trufi to the brick ovens, then walk a few minutes over the pass to the upper Achocalla valley (towards the well-hidden municipal dump).

Allow about 90 minutes · planning estimate

Map Source

A note before you go. Start with Main cemetery, then decide whether The Witches' Market deserves a separate visit rather than rushing both. The suggested days are an editable grouping, not a timed tour. Visit allowances exclude transfers, meals and queues; confirm the exact entrance and current visiting arrangements for Valle de La Luna before setting off.

Reference material retrieved 2026-10-19. Suggested days and time allowances are editorial starting points. Check the linked visitor information for opening hours, access, and reservations.

BEFORE YOU SET OFF

A more practical kind of plan.

Getting your bearings

Public transport in La Paz is largely underdeveloped compared to its counterparts in Europe and East Asia, or even other South American cities. Due to narrow streets driving is not recommended. Most of the time, a taxi is often preferred. You can hail a bus or mini bus anywhere; to get off, just yell out "¡voy a bajar!" Even if you're not trying to get to El Alto, riding a cable car is an experience in itself.

Build a route that makes sense

Main cemetery and The Witches' Market are about 1.3 km apart in a straight line. Use the route link to compare the actual streets or transport connections before putting both in the same morning; the measurement is not a walking distance or a transfer estimate.

A LITTLE STRUCTURE. ROOM FOR DISCOVERY.

Your La Paz plan.

Add a few stops, choose your days, and leave space between them.

My saved trips
Location, map & reference details

Find your bearings.

Country
Bolivia
Area
La Paz Department
Time zone
America/La_Paz
Coordinates
-16.5000, -68.1500

Geographic reference: GeoNames, CC BY 4.0.

La Paz

Loading this map connects to OpenStreetMap.

Visitor information & sources

Reference credits & reuse

This city guide includes selected, abridged material by Wikivoyage contributors, adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. The adapted guide text is available under the same license; photographs and website design retain their separate terms. Selected and abridged reference descriptions; operational prices and timetables omitted. Elsewhere added the shortlist, geographic grouping and planning notes.

Reference material retrieved 2026-10-19. It is community-edited background, not firsthand reporting or a live opening-hours service.

KEEP EXPLORING

More places in Bolivia.

Browse the country

Cochabamba

233 km straight-line distance

Sucre

416 km straight-line distance

Potosí

426 km straight-line distance

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES

Where to next?

Search 600 places across 100 countries.