Santa Cruz & Gran Chiquitania

The Bolivian Oriente is not what you generally see in Bolivian tourist brochures. This tropical region, the country’s most prosperous, has a palpable desire to differentiate itself from Bolivia’s traditional highland image. The region’s agriculture boom has brought about a rise in income and a standard of living unequaled by any other Bolivian province.

Santa Cruz is Bolivia’s most populous city, with a cosmopolitan population, yet it retains a small-town atmosphere. From here you can visit Jesuit mission towns, tour pre-Inca ruins near the village of Samaipata or embark on a revolutionary pilgrimage to where Che Guevara met his maker around Vallegrande. Prefer nature? There are miles of hikes and tons of wildlife at Parque Nacional & Área de Uso Múltiple Amboró, the so-called 'elbow of the Andes' where the ecosystems of the Chaco, the Amazon Basin and the Andes meet.