Madrid to Santa Cruz, Bolivia from €710

This deal vs. typical deal price for this route — verified 27 May 2026 at 18:35 UTC

Bag Type	Dimensions / Weight	Included
👜 Personal Item	Small bag / laptop	✅ Yes
🎒 Cabin Bag	10 kg	✅ Yes
🧳 Checked Bag	1 × 23 kg	✅ Yes

🌍 About Santa Cruz de la Sierra

Santa Cruz de la Sierra is the warm-blooded counterpoint to highland Bolivia — the country's largest city (1.7 million people) sits at just 416 metres on the eastern tropical lowlands, so the heavy poncho-and-coca-leaf image of La Paz dissolves into shorts, mango trees, and Caribbean-tempo Camba culture the moment you land at Viru Viru (VVI). The colonial heart spirals out from Plaza 24 de Septiembre, ringed by the ochre Cathedral Basílica de San Lorenzo and arcaded white-and-yellow houses with deep verandahs designed for the equatorial heat. Eat salteñas for breakfast (the juicier, spicier Bolivian cousin of empanadas — Salteñas Boliviana on Calle Junín is the local benchmark), majadito (rice cooked with sun-dried beef and plantains) for lunch, and grilled surubí river-fish from the nearby Río Grande for dinner. The city is the gateway to three exceptional UNESCO-tier trips: the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos, six baroque mission churches (San Javier, Concepción, San Ignacio, etc.) built by Jesuit fathers and Chiquitano craftsmen between 1696 and 1760, still living parishes today; Amboró National Park, a 4,400 km² biodiversity hotspot at the meeting point of Andes, Amazon, and Chaco ecosystems — howler monkeys, spectacled bears, jaguars, and 627 bird species; and Samaipata, a 2-hour drive into the foothills, where the pre-Inca rock carving site El Fuerte de Samaipata (UNESCO) crowns a quiet town with European-Bolivian wine bars and farm-to-table cooking. Bolivia introduced 90-day visa-free entry for most EU passport holders in 2024 — including Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, France — and Santa Cruz is by far the easiest entry point: low altitude (no soroche sickness like La Paz at 3,640 m), tropical climate year-round, and domestic connections via BoA to La Paz, Sucre, and Uyuni Salt Flats if you want the highland leg afterward. The Viru Viru airport sits 13 km north of the centre; a city taxi runs about 60 BOB (€8) on a meter or you can book the airport shuttle for half that. Avoid late January–February (rainy season floods some Amboró trails), come anytime June–October for the dry-season Chiquitos missions trip.