Peru starts at 3,400 metres.
Which Machu Picchu ticket lets you climb. What a Rainbow Mountain day really costs. Why the Sacred Valley is the smart place to sleep first. Every tour in Peru, reviewed.
The Peru days a whole trip gets planned around.
A citadel above the cloud line, a striped mountain at 5,000 metres, four days on a stone road, a river the size of a sea. Book these first and fit the rest around them.
Machu Picchu: trek in, or take the train.
All 132 Machu Picchu tours →
Everything about a Machu Picchu day is decided months earlier: which route, which entry circuit, which train back down to Ollantaytambo. These three carry the most travellers between them.
Four days on the Inca Trail
Dead Woman’s Pass at 4,215m on day two, cloud-forest ruins on day three, the Sun Gate at first light on day four. Permits are capped daily and the trail closes every February.
Salkantay, under the glacier
The pass sits below a hanging glacier at 4,630m, then the path drops into coffee and passion-fruit country. It is the route that stays open when the Inca Trail permits have gone.
Cusco to the citadel and back
Out on the early Ollantaytambo train, up the switchbacks by bus, two hours inside the ruins with a guide, back in Cusco for dinner. No altitude nights, no camping.
Cusco is the base camp, not the layover.
Inca foundations under Spanish arches, San Pedro market at seven in the morning, and every trailhead in the southern Andes within a day’s drive. Give it two nights before you climb anything.
Peru’s most popular tours.
Every review →The bookings more travellers take than anything else in the country — treks, desert days and the citadel — and what each one is actually like.
1
Classic Inca Trail Trek 4D/3N to Machu Picchu (Group Service)
Review of Alpaca Expeditions’ 4-day Inca Trail trek, with camps, meals, guides, costs, difficulty, Machu Picchu access, and practical booking advice.
From · $795
Read our review →
2
Premium Paracas & Huacachina Day Trip from Lima with Sunset Toast
from $99
3
Rainbow Mountain and Red Valley Day Trip with Meals
from $23
4
Machu Picchu: 4-Day Inca Trail Trek with Panoramic Train Ride
from $756
5
Salkantay Classic Trek 5 Days from Cusco
from $750
6
Full Day Tour From Lima: Paracas and Huacachina Oasis
from $57
7
4-Day Salkantay Trek with Sky Camp Stay
from $695
8
Short Inca Trail to Machu Picchu 2D/1N
from $550
Sleep in the Sacred Valley before you sleep in Cusco.
Urubamba and Ollantaytambo sit some 500 metres lower than Cusco, which is the difference between acclimatising and lying awake with a headache. Salt terraces, circular seed beds and the last living Inca town are all on the same road.
Book these before you fly to Lima.
Most of Peru can be arranged from a hostel desk the night before. These four cannot — they run on capped permits, timed entry tickets and camps with a dozen beds.
- 01Classic Inca Trail Trek 4D/3N to Machu Picchu (Group Service)A fixed number of permits are issued per day and they go months ahead. The trail also closes for the whole of February.
- 02Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu Full Day Private TourThe mountain behind the citadel is a separate timed ticket sold with the entrance, in small daily batches.
- 03Salkantay Trek 5D/4N with Glass Cabins, Domes and Hobbit HouseThe dome and cabin camps on the Salkantay route sleep a handful of people a night, and they fill as soon as Inca Trail permits sell out.
- 04Manu National Park 4-Day Eco Tour from CuscoManu’s reserved zone is entered on a capped list through licensed operators. Nobody arrives and asks at the gate.
What a day in Peru costs.
Three price bands, and what each one buys. The gap between a Rainbow Mountain minibus and a five-day trek is the whole story of planning a Peru trip.
Rainbow Mountain and Humantay Lake day runs, city walks, market mornings, the Sacred Valley loop with lunch.
Paracas and Huacachina from Lima, Colca Canyon overnights, cooking classes, the train day to Machu Picchu.
Multi-day treks with porters, Amazon lodges up the Tambopata, private guides and the premium camps.
Lima is a kitchen with a coastline attached.
Ceviche cured in lime for four minutes, anticuchos over charcoal in Barranco, and a market table of fruit nobody at home has heard of. Add the adobe pyramids sitting between the office blocks and the city earns three days, not the airport night most itineraries give it.
- 1Premium Paracas & Huacachina Day Trip from Lima with Sunset Toastfrom $99
- 2Full Day Tour From Lima: Paracas and Huacachina Oasisfrom $57
- 3Lima Ultimate Peruvian Food Tourfrom $105
Things you can only book in Peru.
Ruins and food markets exist all over South America. A painted mountain at 5,000 metres, a drawing only a plane can read and an oasis inside a sand sea belong to this country alone.
The Painted Mountain
Mineral bands laid down over millions of years, uncovered when the ice cap retreated barely a decade ago. The summit ridge is 5,036m and the last hour hurts however fit you are — most departures leave Cusco around three in the morning, so plan it after two nights of acclimatising, not before. Horses wait at the halfway point for anyone who has had enough.
- 1Rainbow Mountain and Red Valley Day Trip with Meals★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 4,893 reviews
- 2Excursion to Rainbow Mountain Full Day Optional Red Valley★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,996 reviews
- 3#1 Rainbow Mountain & Red Valley Day Trip with Meals★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,342 reviews
The Nazca Lines
A hummingbird 93 metres across, a monkey with a spiral tail, straight lines that run for kilometres over the desert. They were scratched into the crust more than 1,500 years ago and none of it makes sense from ground level. Flights are half an hour in a six-seat Cessna out of Maria Reiche airfield; morning air is calmer, and the turns are tight.
- 12 Day Tour from Lima: Nazca Lines Flight, Paracas, and Huacachina★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 594 reviews
- 235-Minute Flight Over Nazca Lines★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 583 reviews
- 33 Day Tour from Lima: Nazca Lines Flight, Paracas, and Huacachina★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 468 reviews
The Desert Oasis
A lagoon ringed by palms sits in a bowl of 100-metre dunes, five minutes from the wine town of Ica. Buggies run the ridges at sunset and stop at the top so you can sandboard down head-first on a waxed plank. It is the loudest hour anywhere in Peru, and the last light over the dune field is worth the sand in your ears.
- 1Sandboarding Experience Lima Includes Boots, Bindings & Helment★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 379 reviews
- 2Huacachina: Buggy en las Dunas al Atardecer y Sandboarding★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 299 reviews
- 3Paracas & Huacachina Oasis Day Trip with Wine & Dunes★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 266 reviews
When the Andes flood, the coast is at its best.
Rain runs from December to March in the highlands and the Inca Trail shuts every February for repairs. That is exactly when the coast turns hot and clear: Paracas, the Nazca desert, Huacachina and Lima’s kitchens have their best months while Cusco is under cloud.
The Amazon begins an hour’s flight from Cusco.
All Amazon tours →
Tambopata Peruvian Amazon Jungle for Three Days/Two Nights
Read our review →
Lima to Machu Picchu, the overland way.
Nazca
CuscoBy region — coast, sierra and jungle
Cusco860 tours
Lima232 tours
Arequipa182 tours
Puno49 tours
Paracas46 tours
Ica & Huacachina27 tours
Iquitos16 tours- Northern Peru17 tours
- All 13 regions →
The newest Peru tour reviews.
All recent →
San Pedro Market Tour with Peruvian Cooking Class
Read our review →
Sightseeing Bus Tour from Cusco to Puno with Buffet Lunch
Read our review →
Rainbow Mountain Small-Group Full-Day Hike from Cusco with Meals
Read our review →
Full day excursion in the Sacred Valley, Pisac, Ollantaytambo from Cusco City
Read our review →
Full day tour of Sacsayhuaman,Q’enQo, Puka Pukara, and Sacred Valley Tour
Read our review →
Full Day Tour to Palccoyo, Alternative Rainbow Mountain
Read our review →
