La Paz will take your breath away. The world’s highest commercial capital is really three cities in one, spanning a change in altitude of over 1,000m and boasting the clearest blue skies in the Andes thanks to the notoriously thin air. The mountains that shroud the city, meanwhile, are a less than one hour’s drive away and ever present on the horizon.

The city where McDonald's failed, where the Spanish left the living
legacy of their colonial conquest and where ancient cultures still
exist shoulder to shoulder with the trappings of modernity, it’s the
ideal destination for tourists looking for something new: a more
authentic experience of Latin America without the hordes and cash-in
prices.

But it’s the people, ultimately, that makes the city so unique. Over 60% of the country is derived from indigenous stock and they fight hard to maintain their culture with its folkloric traditions and ancient beliefs. The other side of the coin, however, is a country seeking to modernise its infrastructure.

Only in La Paz can you sit in a cafe with executives hunched over their
wif-fi laptops while women in traditional garb hawk lemons on the street outside. It’s this clash of cultures that makes La Paz such a vibrant, organic and evolving destination.