Atix Hotel

There was bound to be a boutique hotel in La Paz, Bolivia sooner or later. What’s perhaps surprising is that Atix Hotel is not a tentative first step, but a huge, confident statement — a design-conscious, art-filled luxury hotel that wouldn’t be out of place in Buenos Aires or Mexico City. The name means “one who thrives” in the local Quecha language, and it’s an apt name for a hotel that stands high above a low-rise district in this scenic, mountain-fringed city.

As the city’s first hotel of its kind, Atix requires a certain versatility — it caters equally to the international business set and to tourists using it as a base camp for their Bolivian adventures. It’s well suited to both groups, as the design is stylish yet sober, and there’s no type of traveler that doesn’t appreciate proper luxury-hotel comforts.

The restaurant turns local Bolivian ingredients into a fine-dining experience, and the top-floor bar offers an experience of its own, with panoramic views of the city and its surroundings through towering double-height windows. And the hotel’s art collection centers on a regional specialty as well — the works of Gastón Ugalde, known with some wit as the “Andean Warhol,” decorate the hotel from bottom to top.