Why rent a car in La Paz
La Paz is not a place you simply arrive at — you descend into it. El Alto airport sits above 4,000 metres, one of the highest in the world, and the city itself is packed into a canyon a few hundred metres lower, ringed by the Andes. That geography is also the reason to rent a car here: some of Bolivia's best trips start right at the edge of the city. The old road to Coroico, nicknamed the “Death Road” after decades as the world's most dangerous route, drops from around 4,600 metres to under 1,500 in a single afternoon of driving, swapping bare altiplano for Yungas jungle in a few hours. Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana are a half-day away across the Tiquina Strait, where your car gets floated over on a wooden barge while you cross separately by passenger boat.
Public transport covers the basics — inter-city buses to Copacabana, Coroico and beyond run daily — but they go where the timetable says, not where you want to stop. With your own car you can pull over at a viewpoint on the way down to the Yungas, stay in Copacabana past the last bus back, or detour to the eroded canyons of Valle de la Luna on the edge of the city without booking a separate tour. Uyuni's salt flats are the one trip worth leaving to a specialist: at 550-650 km of rough altiplano track, it is not a realistic self-drive day trip from here.
