If you are lucky enough there will be local guides there who will jump in. Park here, jump out, go for a look around the views will blow your mind. You will arrive at an entrance where you will see a bunch of little buildings and structures made out of slat. You can see the entire operation of extracting salt right before you and go out and explore it yourself. Salinas Grandes is still an active slat mine operation so you get the best of both worlds. Once you have reached the peak, you will work your way down the other side where you will be able to see the vast Salinas Grandes in the distance which will continue to blow your mind the closer you get. The roads are windy and steep, so be careful! Take your time and take in the epic scenes. The drive to Salinas Grandes will take you up and over a huge mountain range where you will be reaching altitudes of 4000m plus.

Leaving Tilcara you will pass through a couple of little towns, which I would recommend to first drive-through and stop on your way back so you can beat the crowds explore with a more relaxed vibe. Leaving early in the morning is key to maximizing the day, beating the crowds and making the most of the 24hours we had with our car.

The drive takes a couple of hours from Tilcara, but it will be one of the most memorable drives of your life. We choose the latter, it wasn’t that much more expensive, especially divided between a couple of people and gave us complete freedom for the day. First, there is the option to catch multiple buses and shuttles, which is ALOT of unnecessary admin or to simply hire a car. There are a couple of options to get to Salinas Grandes. We based ourselves in the epic little town of Tilcara for a few days, one of which we would spend going to Salinas Grandes. It turned out to be one of the funniest days of our time spent in Argentina. We were travelling north from Argentina into Bolivia so we were yet to do the infamous Uyuni salt flats and just thought why not? Good enough excuse right.

Salt flat argentina