Machu Picchu is the reason you came. It is not the best day.
Which Sacred Valley run actually stops at the salt pans. What the Rainbow Mountain morning does to you at 5,000 metres. Whether Titicaca is worth the night bus. Reviews of every tour you can book in Peru.
A lake at dawn, the citadel, the dunes, and dinner in Lima.
Four bookings a first Peru trip tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The lake morningHumantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet LunchUp before four, a hard hour uphill, then meltwater the colour of antifreeze under Salkantay. Do it after you have acclimatised, never on day one.
02The one you came forFull-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuTrain down the valley, timed circuit through the citadel, back to Cusco the same night. The long day that costs the most and disappoints the fewest.
03The dune dayParacas and Huacachina Oasis Full Day Guided TourSea lions off Paracas in the morning, a buggy over the dunes at Huacachina by sunset. The best-value long day out of Lima.
04The Lima dinnerUltimate Peruvian Food TourMarkets, ceviche cut to order and a pisco sour that ruins every other one. Book it for the night you land, before the altitude starts.
Six towns between the Pacific and the Amazon, and the best day out of each.
A stone capital at 3,400 metres, a coastal city that eats better than anywhere on the continent, a white-walled town under a volcano, an oasis in a sand sea, a lake town on the Bolivian border and a river port with no road in.
Almost every good day in Peru starts on a Cusco pavement at dawn.
The city is the base and the departure board. Five kinds of day leave it, they cost wildly different money, and the order you take them in matters more than which you pick.
Out of Cusco
The valley runMoray, Maras and a market, all lower than Cusco.
The citadel dayTrain, bus, timed circuit, home after dark.
The 5,000-metre oneVinicunca and the Red Valley, above every pass.
The afternoon above townSacsayhuamán, Qorikancha and the stone streets.
The four-day walkPorters, passes and the Sun Gate at first light.
All 593 days out of Cusco →
Cusco is higher than anywhere most people have slept.
The airport sits at 3,399 metres and the mountain days start above 4,000. Give the first day and a half to things that stay low and slow: a class with a kitchen door open, a market, the stone streets, the valley floor at Urubamba, which is a full 600 metres kinder than the city you flew into.
The days out more travellers take than any other in Peru.
Every Peru tour we have reviewed →Booked more than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Humantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet Lunch
Hike to Peru’s brilliant Humantay Lake from Cusco with mountain views, local meals, bilingual guides, and an optional horse ride.
From · $22
Read our review →
2
Sacred Valley & Maras Salt Mines Tour with Lunch
from $28
3
Moray, Maras Salt Mines & Chinchero Weavers Tour
from $15
4
Paracas and Huacachina Oasis Full Day Guided Tour
from $59
5
Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchu
from $321
6
Machu Picchu Day Trip from Cusco
from $336
7
Half-Day City Tour with Sacsayhuaman and Q’enco
from $13
8
Vinicunca Rainbow Mountain ATV Tour with Meals
from $76
You do not turn up at Machu Picchu. You book it, months out.
Entry runs on timed circuits with a daily cap, and the only way in is the train to Aguas Calientes or a four-day walk. The circuit you hold decides what you actually see, so read that line on the ticket before you read anything else.
Every way in →
What a day in Peru actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Peru is the rare place where the cheapest band holds some of the best days.
City walks, the ruins above Cusco, market mornings, the Uros boats and half the valley.
The full-day standards: Colca, Rainbow Mountain, Ballestas and the desert run from Lima.
Machu Picchu with the train, the four-day treks and the jungle lodges upriver.
- 1Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchufrom $321
- 2Machu Picchu Day Trip from Cuscofrom $336
- 3Full-Day Tour from Cusco with Optional Lunchfrom $283
Lima is not a stopover. It is the best eating on the continent.
Most itineraries give it a night either side of the mountains, which is how people end up eating airport food in the ceviche capital. Give it a full day: a market, a kitchen, the catacombs under the church and the cliff walk at dusk.
Three things that happen in Peru and nowhere else.
Mountains and old stones are everywhere. Drawings you can only read from a plane, a town built on floating reeds, and a hillside striped like a paint chart are not.
The Nazca Lines
A hummingbird two hundred feet across, a monkey with a spiral tail, a spider, a pair of hands. They were scraped into the desert crust two thousand years ago by lifting the dark stones off the pale ground underneath, and the climate has been dry enough since to leave them alone. From the ground they are a scatter of rubble. The flights last about thirty-five minutes and every seat gets both sides.
- 135-Minute Flight Over Nazca Lines★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 583 reviews
- 2Ballestas & Huacachina Day Trip w/ Nazca Lines Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 117 reviews
- 3Private Tour to the Astonished Nazca Lines and Huacachina Oasis★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 84 reviews
The Uros Islands
Forty-odd islands on the bay outside Puno float on layered totora reed, rebuilt from the top as the underside rots away. The Uros moved out onto the water centuries ago to keep clear of the Inca and stayed. Boats, houses and the ground itself are the same plant, and the families anchor the whole thing to the lakebed so the wind cannot take it to Bolivia.
- 1Uros, Amantaní & Taquile Islands 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 452 reviews
- 2Floating Islands of the Uros Half-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 394 reviews
- 3Lake Titicaca 2-Day Tour to Uros, Amantani and Taquile★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 199 reviews
Vinicunca
The stripes are real and they are minerals: red from iron, green from copper, yellow from sulphur, laid down in sediment and then tilted on end when the Andes went up. The ice only came off it in the last decade or so. The walk is short and brutally high at 5,036 metres, and the colours read strongest under cloud, not sun.
- 1Vinicunca Rainbow Mountain ATV Tour with Meals★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,060 reviews
- 2Rainbow Mountain Tour and Red Valley Hike (Optional)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 149 reviews
- 3Private Rainbow Mountain Full Day Tour from Cusco★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 129 reviews
Four Peruvian bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted from a hostel desk the night before. These four run on permit caps, timed circuits and a maintenance calendar that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 014-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with AccommodationFive hundred permits a day, porters and guides included, and they are gone months ahead. The whole trail closes every February for maintenance.
- 02Full-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuEntry is a timed slot on a numbered circuit with a daily cap. The circuit decides what you see, and the good morning slots go first.
- 0335-Minute Flight Over Nazca LinesThe flights are small aircraft on a fixed daily rota out of a desert strip. Wind grounds them and the queue rolls to tomorrow.
- 04Lake Titicaca 2-Day Tour to Uros, Amantani and TaquileThe overnight island stays are family homes with a handful of beds between them, not a hotel with spare rooms.
Coast, sierra and jungle
Lima, the desert, Arequipa, the lake, Cusco: the run almost everybody does.
The latest Peru reviews to land.
The rest of them →
Tacama Winery and Pisco Tasting Tour with Hotel Pickup
Read our review →
Excursion Cusco – Puno – Titicaca Observatory Train
Read our review →
Excursion 2 days/1 nights in the jungle: Tambopata
Read our review →
Enjoy Lima Walking Historic Center, Plaza San Martin and Plaza de Armas
Read our review →
