Peru runs on tickets bought early.
Which Machu Picchu day is worth the 4am train. Whether Vinicunca can wait until you have slept twice in Cusco. What a condor morning at Colca actually involves. Every tour in Peru, reviewed.
Machu Picchu, Vinicunca, and the days in between.
The citadel, the striped mountain, the trek that walks in, the salt pans, the sea lions and the food. Six things a Peru itinerary is usually built around, and the best way to book each.
Machu Picchu: the train leaves Cusco before dawn.
All 462 Machu Picchu tours →
Nothing about the citadel is spontaneous. Entry runs on timed circuits, the train seats are sold by class and hour, and the town below fills months out. There are three honest ways to arrive, and the one you pick decides the whole week.
Cusco to the citadel and back before midnight
A car to Ollantaytambo in the dark, the valley train to Aguas Calientes, the switchback bus up, ninety minutes on a circuit, and the whole thing again backwards. It works, and it is relentless.
Sacred Valley first, citadel at opening
Maras, Moray and Ollantaytambo on day one at valley altitude, sleep below the ruins, then walk in on the first circuit while the coach groups are still on the train.
Four days over the pass to the Sun Gate
Dead Woman’s Pass at 4,215m on day two, cloud forest on day three, and the gate at first light on day four. The trail closes every February for maintenance.
Almost everything in the Andes leaves Cusco at four in the morning.
Vinicunca, Humantay, the Sacred Valley, the citadel: none of them happen in Cusco, and all of them start there. The old capital is a base first and a city second, which is exactly why it is worth two unhurried days of its own.
The Peru bookings that fill up first.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else on the site, and each one earns the day it costs you.
1
Classic Inca Trail Trek 4D/3N to Machu Picchu (Group Service)
Review of Alpaca Expeditions’ 4-day Inca Trail trek, with practical advice on fitness, camps, meals, guides, price, and Machu Picchu.
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
Salkantay Classic Trek 5 Days from Cusco
from $750
5
Full Day Tour From Lima: Paracas and Huacachina Oasis
from $57
6
4-Day Salkantay Trek with Sky Camp Stay
from $695
7
Short Inca Trail to Machu Picchu 2D/1N
from $550
8
Excursion to Rainbow Mountain Full Day Optional Red Valley
from $25
Lima eats better than anywhere else on this coast.
Ceviche is a lunchtime dish here and the counters close by three. Between the Miraflores cliffs, the Barranco bridges and a market in Surquillo, the capital is worth the two days most itineraries give it as an arrivals lounge.
Sea lions, dunes and a desert oasis four hours south of Lima.
The Panamericana runs down a coastline with no rain in it. Boats out to the Ballestas at eight, buggies over the Huacachina dunes at five, and somewhere past Ica a small plane that banks hard over a hummingbird scratched into the desert.
- 1Premium Paracas & Huacachina Day Trip from Lima with Sunset Toastfrom $99
- 2Full Day Tour From Lima: Paracas and Huacachina Oasisfrom $57
- 3From Lima: Paracas and Huacachina Oasis Full Day Guided Tourfrom $59
What Peru charges, from a market walk to a four-day trek.
Every tour on the site, bucketed by what it actually costs. The gap between the cheapest good day and the most expensive one is wider here than almost anywhere.
City walks, market mornings, catacombs, cooking classes and the short Cusco half-days.
The full-day classics: Vinicunca, Humantay, the Sacred Valley loop, Colca, the Ballestas boat.
Machu Picchu with train and entry, the multi-day treks, private guides and the Amazon lodges.
A striped mountain, a desert drawing board and a village built from reed.
Terraces and colonial squares turn up across the Andes. These three do not exist anywhere else, and each one needs a different kind of day.
Vinicunca
The stripes are mineral bands in the rock, uncovered as the snow cap retreated, and nobody was selling tours here a decade ago. The summit stands at 5,036m, three hours by road from Cusco and then an hour uphill on thin air. Go on day three or later, not day one, and take the horse if the last rise beats you.
- 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
- 3Humantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,976 reviews
The Nazca Lines
Hundreds of figures and dead-straight lines scraped into the desert crust between roughly 500 BC and 500 AD, and legible only from above. Cessnas seat six and bank hard over each figure so both sides get a look, which is why the morning flights, before the thermals build, are the ones to book.
- 12 Day Tour from Lima: Nazca Lines Flight, Paracas, and Huacachina★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 594 reviews
- 2From Nazca: 35-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 Uros Islands
Families live on platforms of layered totora reed on the lake at 3,812m, adding a fresh layer every few weeks as the underside rots away. Boats, houses and the ground itself come from the same plant. Visits are short, the lake is cold, and the light off the water at that altitude is fierce.
- 1From Puno: Uros, Amantaní & Taquile Islands 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 452 reviews
- 2Tour to Uros and Taquile Islands in a Fast Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 419 reviews
- 3From Puno: Floating Islands of the Uros Half-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 394 reviews
Peru is more Amazon than it is Andes.
All jungle tours →
The four Peru bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of Peru can be arranged from a Cusco doorway the night before. These cannot. They run on daily caps, annual permit releases and an altitude clock that fixes their date before you have picked a hotel.
- 01Classic Inca Trail Trek 4D/3N to Machu Picchu (Group Service)Trail permits are capped per day, trekkers and crew together, and released in one annual batch. The dry-season dates go within days of opening.
- 02Salkantay Classic Trek 5 Days from CuscoNo permit, but the good operators cap their groups and fill peak-season departures months out. Late bookings get the leftover dates, not the leftover price.
- 03Rainbow Mountain and Red Valley Day Trip with MealsVinicunca only works once you have slept two nights high, so its date is fixed by the rest of the trip rather than the other way round.
Cusco sits at 3,400m. Spend the first two days low and slow.
The mistake is booking the big mountain for the morning after the flight. Coca tea, a short walk around San Blas, a market and a cooking class will do more for the rest of the week than any pill. The Sacred Valley helps too: it sits six hundred metres lower than the city.
By base — where you sleep between days out
Cusco1,201 tours
Lima222 tours
Sacred Valley318 tours
Arequipa181 tours
Paracas69 tours
Puno42 tours
The Amazon37 tours
Nazca16 tours
Huaraz14 tours
Trujillo13 tours- Every review, all regions →
By day out — what are you actually doing?
Lima to Machu Picchu, the way most first trips run.
Machu PicchuLatest from Cusco, Lima and the coast.
Straight off the review pile →
Best Cusco walking tour: dinner street food tasting
Read our review →
Machu Picchu Day Trip With Panoramic Train from Cusco
Read our review →
Private Tour Sacred Valley Vip Chinchero Ollantaytambo+lunch
Read our review →
Palcoyo Rainbow Mountain Day Trip from Cusco – Easy Hike
Read our review →
Palcoyo Colored Mountain Tour, Ribbon with Alpacas
Read our review →
Private Tour Cusco with Machu Picchu 03 Days / 02 Nights
Read our review →
6-Day Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley and Humantay Lake Tour
Read our review →
