La Paz · Where to stay
Checked 31 August 2026 · 3 official sources
PICK YOUR BASE
The city is a canyon, so your base decides how much climbing you do and how well you sleep — every couple of hundred metres of drop makes the altitude easier.
Sopocachi — walkable, and where people eat
Residential streets around Plaza Avaroa, about fifteen minutes downhill from the old centre. Mid-range guesthouses and apartments, most of the city's sit-down restaurants, and far less market noise than the streets above San Francisco.
📍 Map · $$
Rosario and Sagárnaga — the traveller grid
The blocks climbing away from Plaza San Francisco, where the hostels and the tour agencies sit on top of each other. Cheapest beds and everything on foot, but it is steep, awake from early, and the most touristed ground in the city.
📍 Map · $
Zona Sur — San Miguel and Calacoto
Roughly 400m lower than the centre, which most people notice in how they sleep, and linked to it by cable car. Newer hotels and apartments, but you are half an hour or more from the colonial core and paying for the address.
📍 Map · $$$
Land high, sleep low
The airport is up in El Alto at just over 4,000m and the city drops away beneath it. If you are arriving from sea level, book the first nights as low as the budget allows and write off day one; altitude is the commonest reason people lose their first days here.