Salar de Uyuni | Warning

March 10th, 2024 by expedition.cosmos

We entered the salar with our 2WD van and faced no issue at this time of the year. The day before, we went until the entrance to see how much water there was and to take some info with the locals. One local advised us to not enter the salar without a 4x4WD, but we felt that he was omitting some information and that he wanted us to buy a tour with him. The next day we decided to give it a try ourselves and it turned out to be a great decision. Yes, there was quite a lot of water at the entrance, but shortly after it was MOSTLY dry. We went to the Dakar monument (dry), isla Incahuasi (mostly dry), the mirrors (wet but with thinn water layer), and the stairways (mostly dry). There were some sections with water, but it wasn't steep at all and most sections were dry. We also slept in the salar, close to the mirror reflections. All in all, no issues and great experience!! Please keep in mind that you should oil your car before entering the salar and wash it thoroughly afterwards.

October 19th, 2023 by ioverlander

After the salt lake you will probably wash your car. Be careful with the extremely powerful high-pressure cleaners. A car wash destroyed both of our wheel bearings because the grease was flushed out. We then had to go to Fiat and wait over a week because the parts weren't available here, which resulted in damage of over 600 euros.

December 1st, 2019 by ryrotv

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October 25th, 2019 by javier

WARNING: You need sunglasses to go into the salt flats.

DO NOT ATTEMPT to go cycling through the Salar without very good sunglasses or you will burn your eyes and might go blind for a few days.

I made this mistake and was blind for two days and required a week of recovery to get my eyesight back to normal.

April 9th, 2019 by charlietewson

APRIL- People around town, including local tour guide advised us beforehand that it was too wet to reach the island in the middle- HOWEVER, this advice turned out to be incorrect. It was perfectly fine to drive, and I suspect we could have crossed without any issues (but we didn’t).

There was a fair amount of water at the entrance here in places, but only for 50m or so. It then dried up. We decided to keep driving until the water got too deep...and never found any water.

On the dry Salar we were able to drive about 40-60kmph comfortably without too much SOAT spray, so it took about two hours to drive to the island in the middle. The trip there and back took less than half of our fuel tank.

Camping on the Salar was the highlight of our trip. Despite the risks to the car, I would strongly recommend it!

were surprised that we could drive all the way to the island in the middle (and on to Ford Island)

February 17th, 2019 by vivendomundoafora

at this time of the year the salar is just open for 4x4, there was police blocking private cars with no 4x4 to continuos in the salar... too much water.

October 21st, 2017 by Tony LEE

A request from the moderator.

Please don't add any more wild camping spots on the Salar unless there is something fantastically spectacular about your chosen 20 square metres of salt chosen at random from the other 10,582 square km of identical salt.

Thanks