Tour background
This article outlines the "standard" tour. The tour is conducted in 4x4 vehicles usually Toyota Landcruisers with 6 or 7 people, with the driver often times cooking. Most 3- and 4- day tours have the same itinerary for the first 2 1/2 days, a day on the salt plains, then heading south to the southwest corner of Bolivia, and then splitting off from there. The specific sites that are seen can be dependent on the tour, but group input can define which sites are visited and how much time will be spent at each.
Accommodation is usually provided in basic refuges and the weather can be very cold, but it is well worth it for the amazing scenery. Avoid tours that offer a night in one of the salt hotels - they are illegal as, not being part of the water grid, they pollute the environment.
Salar de uyuni background
Salar de Uyuni comprises over 10,000 sq km in the Potosi region. The salt is over 10 meters thick in the center. In the dry season, the salt planes are a completely flat expanse of dry salt, but in the wet season, it is covered with a thin sheet of water that is still drivable.
The standard tour heads south toward the southwest corner of Bolivia, by many fluorescent-colored lakes that are created from a collection of different minerals from runoff from the surrounding mountains.