Bolivia is a place of beauty and quiet with magnificent salt flats for travellers to explore

With travel more ubiquitousthan ever before in history, the very idea of it has changed forever. Today, travel is a click of a button. Travellers book journeys online, they watch videos of where they're going to have a preview and they read endless reviews and assessments by a giant growing community of people stretching themselves to the edges of the planet and potentially off the edges of this world and into space.

However, this need to see the world, to see all of it, is about the deep desire to find something beyond ourselves. Sophisticated and in-the-know travellers are now, more than ever, seeking out places that are not on these lists, are more inaccessible and have some sustainability aspect to it - and therefore wondrous and special. Andreas Keller, a Cape Town-based sustainability professional, calls these almost untouched wilderness areas "teachers". He believes that nature, in her precious unspoiled beauty, speaks loudest. "Wildernesses are places where people can and should go to heal from the separation most of us feel from nature, often without knowing it."

Enter Bolivia and its absolute privilege of access. Although the landlocked country, the poorest in South America, has averaged a 4.8 per cent growth in the past few years according to the World Bank, much of the country is largely undiscovered.

The administrative capital, La Paz, peaks at roughly 3,650 metres above sea level and has three metro areas that make up its 2.3 million residents. A city, in the sky, on the western side of Bolivia may seem like just another location on the world globe but its street food and public transport - in the form of cable car gondolas - have the connoisseurs of must-see cities agog.

"With 60 per cent of Bolivians living below the poverty line, tourism has an important role for Bolivia, generating additional revenues and creating much needed jobs in the country," says David Banitt, CEO/founder, NewCO2Fuels.

He believes that ecotourism largely contributes to the environmental, cultural and economic well-being of local communities and thus "provides an incentive to empowerment while maintaining original values". Keller sees a bigger picture. "The gold standard of eco-tourism looks at the ecological footprint of the tourist, not just at the destination, but from the origin as well: from home to hammock." And one of the main attractions for the Bolivia visitor is the privilege of the natural salt flats.

It is about two hours' flight from La Paz where the adventure begins - the Uyuni Salt Flats (Salar de Tunupa). Located in the southwest of the country near the crest of the Andes Mountains, the Salar is the world's largest salt flat and is at an elevation of 3,656 metres above mean sea level.

Since the government has started to protect this area by limiting and controlling the extraction of lithium, the flats are kept unspoiled. "It's truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience" says Scott Wiseman, president, Cox & Kings, The Americas. "The salt flat is a natural wonder and the only place on earth where the sky and ground merge, making it one of the best places on earth for unique picture opportunities".

For most of the time on the salt flats, the point is to enough the ultimate in luxury, doing nothing. A black 4x4s comes to pick you up at the airport in the middle of real nowhere. Driving around the whiteness brings a certain quiet and beauty with it.