Uyuni

December to April floods the flat for the mirror effect; May to November gives dry white hexagons and full access. Pick one.

Sunrise or sunset trips run from town in 4x4s, taking in Colchani, the salt hotel and perspective photography.

The big one: Laguna Colorada, the Sol de Mañana geysers and flamingos, ending at the Chilean border. Nights are brutally cold.

Ask about seatbelts, driver shifts and alcohol policy, and read recent reviews. Crashes on this route are not hypothetical.

Rusting 19th-century locomotives abandoned on the edge of town. Free, strange, and usually the first stop on any tour.

Roughly an hour from La Paz and the fastest way in. Flights are limited and fill up in high season, so book well ahead.

Around 10 hours. Pay for a cama seat and a reputable company; the road is long, cold and high the whole way.

The Expreso del Sur and Wara Wara services cross the altiplano to Uyuni. Slow, comfortable and far more scenic than the bus.

Depends what you want: mirror or horizon. There is no single best month.

February to April, wet and quiet outside the mirror-chasing peak weeks.

January and February for reflections, July and August for dry-season sun.

Pre-dawn pickup for sunrise on the flat. Layer up: it is well below freezing before the sun clears the horizon.

Colchani salt-processing village, the salt-block hotel and the flag monument, then out onto open white.

Tours lay lunch out on the salt itself, usually near Incahuasi. In deep wet season that island is often unreachable.

Perspective photos on the salt hexagons, then Incahuasi's giant cacti and viscachas if water levels allow.

Back in town for pizza and a beer, or stay out for a stargazing tour once the sky goes properly black.

On the salt flat's northern shore, with mummies in a cave and a hard climb to the crater rim. A long day from Uyuni.

An abandoned silver-mining town 20km away, with Butch Cassidy connections and a rusting industrial ghost-town feel.