When I traveled to Peru in 2025, I hired a few packages for Viator and I really liked it. But in January 2026, on my trip to San Pedro do Atacama (Chile) and the Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia), my experience with Viator was very bad. First, the tour I booked on Booking.com was cancelled 2 days before, with no option to resume it. I ended up hiring the tour for a competitor.
But the biggest problem was the change of the trip to Salar de Uyuni, scheduled for 12/01. Two days before the partner operator
Howlanders sent the message: “...the reason for our contact is because due to the inconveniences that are happening in Bolivia it is very difficult to load fuel so that the reservation is subject that this can be carried out. In case of no power, you can modify the reservation on the 13th day. We remain available for any consultation.”
Indeed, the Bolivian government cut off fuel subsidies and that problem was happening. However, I had a whole trip planning and delaying one day would change my whole schedule. As a journalist, I went to listen to other people and agencies who were selling packages to Salar de Uyuni. I interviewed 15 people from different agencies in San Pedro do Atacama. There was, yes, the difficulty of fuel supply. But they all had the dates kept. However, Estrella del Sur, which would transport 4x4 to Bolivia, had not continued to supply its cars. I mean, there was a lack of planning on their part, since the others were honouring the agenda.
After talking a few times with the staff of Estrella del Sul, at his agency in San Pedro do Atacama, the possibility of making the trip to Salar de Uyuni changed to 14/01, which would compromise my flight back to Brazil.
I had to argue a lot with them and asked my money back to try to hire a quick tour to Salar de Uyuni. The push-push game started. Estrella del Sur said that the refund would be made by Howlanders, who transferred this responsibility to Viator, should make the refund by credit card. But without a fixed date. I had bought this package with Viator in August/25. Someone had received my money and I had to try to buy on 11/01 a package to travel on 12/01, as planned.
I started complaining with the manager of Estrella del Sul and asked him for an urgent solution. It was 11/01 and I needed to follow the planning of the trip. After a lot of irritation and protesting against the attitudes of the agencies involved, he called a partner agency, Aventura Travel, who managed to put me in a group that would follow the trip on 12/01. The Estrella de Sur transferred my package to them and solved the payment issue.
The trip with the Aventura Travel was excellent. The only problem I had was that I paid to have a private room and ended up staying in a shared environment.
If I depended on Viator and the Howlanders I would not have traveled to Salar de Uyuni. I think Viator needs to better select its partners and not leave the traveler in hand. My score for the Viator this time is zero.
Overall, amazing sight seeing but the rest of the tour was pretty miserable. I paid $400 dollars, which got me bologna and cheese sandwiches for lunch and soup and plain pasta for dinner. All of the hostels were in pretty bad shape. I don’t know what they’re using all the money they get per person on, because everything was low quality.
There is also efficiency issues, they want you to wake up super early all the time, but then we get to our destinations, and then have to wait for multiple hours. For example, waking up at 3:30am to get back to San Atacama, but then once at the border, they open late so we had to wait 2 hours.
The sight seeing was amazing, but I just wish they used the profits from this tour to improve the conditions of the overall tour.
Absolutely incredible experience overall, can’t recommend any higher.
Some logistical notes:
- You will not have cell service for basically the whole trip. Occasionally the hotels will have wifi, but it is not good
- You need to get ~300 Bolivianos before you arrive, as there are mandatory tickets you must purchase in Bolivanos. I did not see any currency exchange places. You will need to purchase water (outside of meals), wifi, and bathroom access as well.
- The tour company on the Chilean side is different (but related?) to the company on the Bolivian side - you will have different drivers. They make an effort to group passengers by similar nationalities, so you have others in your group that speak the same language. Our drivers spoke very limited English, but luckily we had multiple bilingual passengers in our car
- The accommodations are very basic
The first two days are primarily driving with many scenic stops. Each driver will have a slightly different itinerary (some own their cars and can make their own stops, others use a company car with a mandatory itinerary)
The final day is all at the Uyuni salt flat. It was great, but honestly, the first two days of the trip were the highlight for me.
overall incredible and I highly recommend.