Travel guide
Peru Travel Guide
Peru delivers one of the richest travel experiences on Earth — three utterly different worlds in one country, from Andean citadels in the clouds to a world-class food capital to Amazon rainforest lodges. The classic route runs Lima to Cusco to the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu, with side extensions south to Arequipa, Colca Canyon and Lake Titicaca, or east into the Amazon around Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado. Careful timing and advance booking matter almost everywhere — trekking permits, train tickets and citadel entries all sell out in high season — and because the coast, highlands and rainforest don't share one weather calendar, itineraries work best planned region by region rather than as a single uniform trip.
Updated 2026-08-15
Ways to Experience This Destination
Machu Picchu is a bucket-list destination for a reason — the 15th-century citadel perched at 2,430 m above the Sacred Valley, shrouded in cloud and ringed by green peaks, is genuinely breathtaking. Timed-entry tickets must be booked online in advance and sell out weeks ahead in peak season. The Classic Inca Trail (4 days, 43 km, crossing Dead Woman's Pass at 4,215 m) is limited to 500 permits a day including guides and porters, released annually and claimed within hours — book many months ahead for the May-September window. Alternatives: the Salkantay Trek (5 days, high mountain scenery), the Lares Trek (cultural focus through Andean villages), or simply the train to Aguas Calientes for those who prefer not to trek. Acclimatise in Cusco (3,400 m) before any high-altitude activity.
Lima has emerged as one of the world's great food cities, and the reason is structural rather than fashionable: three separate larders — a coastal desert fed by one of the planet's richest fisheries, an Andean range farmed across many altitudes, and a third of the Amazon basin — meeting two immigrant cuisines that developed their own names here, Chinese-influenced chifa and Japanese-influenced Nikkei. The real magic is democratic: ceviche (raw fish cured in lime juice, the national dish, at any cevichería), lomo saltado (stir-fried beef with both chips and rice, chifa's greatest export), anticuchos (grilled beef heart skewers from street carts), causa (layered potato terrine), and the pisco sour. The Miraflores and Barranco districts concentrate the destination dining; the markets do the same flavours for a fraction of it.
Cusco — the former Inca capital at 3,400 m — is a living museum of Inca walls topped by Spanish colonial buildings: the Plaza de Armas, the San Blas artisan quarter of ceramic and textile workshops, and Sacsayhuamán, whose blocks weigh over 100 tonnes and are fitted without mortar. The Sacred Valley between Cusco and Machu Picchu unfolds with Pisac (market and Inca terraces), Ollantaytambo (Inca fortress and train departure point), the Moray circular agricultural terraces (an Inca crop laboratory exploiting the temperature differential between rim and basin), and the Maras salt terraces (thousands of evaporation pools cascading down a hillside, worked since Inca times). Budget a minimum of five to seven days for Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu combined.
Peru's Amazon (La Selva) covers 60% of national territory. Two main gateways: Iquitos in the northeast, reachable only by air or river and opening onto the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, and Puerto Maldonado in the southeast, gateway to Tambopata National Reserve and Manu National Park — among the most biodiverse places on Earth. Jungle lodges offer guided forest walks, canopy towers for birdwatching, night caiman spotting, piranha fishing, visits to indigenous communities, and clay-lick observation where macaws and parrots gather. Packages typically run three to five days and vary widely by remoteness and comfort. Yellow fever vaccination is standard preparation. Best months are April to November. Over 1,800 bird species, plus jaguars, giant otters, pink river dolphins and anacondas.
The Nazca Lines — giant geoglyphs of hummingbird, spider, monkey and condor etched into the desert over two thousand years ago, stretching up to 300 m and legible only from the air — remain one of archaeology's great open questions. Overflights in small aircraft depart Nazca and Pisco. Arequipa, the “White City” built from pale volcanic sillar stone and UNESCO-listed, sits beneath the El Misti volcano with the Colca Canyon a day trip away — twice the depth of the Grand Canyon, with Andean condors riding the morning thermals. Lake Titicaca at 3,812 m on the Bolivian border adds the floating Uros reed islands, homestays on Taquile and Amantaní, and the crossing toward Bolivia via Copacabana.
Beyond the Inca Trail: the Salkantay Trek (5 days, crossing a 4,630 m pass beneath glaciers), the Choquequirao Trek (4-5 days to a remote “sister city” of Machu Picchu with a fraction of the visitors), the Ausangate Trek (5-7 days circling a sacred 6,384 m peak and taking in Rainbow Mountain), and the Huayhuash Circuit (8-12 days through the Cordillera Huayhuash, regarded by many as the finest alpine trek anywhere). Rainbow Mountain (Vinicunca, 5,200 m) is striped red, yellow, green and turquoise by mineral deposits and is reachable as a strenuous day hike from Cusco — though it sits far higher than the city, so it belongs late in a stay rather than early. White-water rafting on the Apurímac and Urubamba rivers; sandboarding on the dunes at Huacachina.
Deep dives
City guides
Frequently asked questions
Yes — timed-entry tickets and the train up from the Sacred Valley routinely sell out weeks ahead in the June-August peak, and the Classic Inca Trail's daily permits, capped at 500 including guides and porters, go many months in advance. This is the one part of a Peru trip that cannot be planned last-minute, and the order matters: book the entry ticket before the train, since a train that does not match your entry slot is worth nothing.
Ten days to two weeks covers the core Lima-Cusco-Sacred Valley-Machu Picchu route comfortably with acclimatisation built in. Five days is the bare minimum for the Cusco region alone. Add three or four days for an Amazon lodge or the Arequipa-Colca-Titicaca extension if either is a priority — but pick one rather than both on a two-week trip.
Most visitors feel some effect at Cusco's 3,400 m, largely because the flight from sea-level Lima takes only ninety minutes — a rate of ascent no walker could manage. Two or three easier days before any strenuous hike is the standard fix and works for the great majority regardless of fitness. Worth knowing: Machu Picchu itself is a thousand metres lower than Cusco, so the citadel is not where altitude bites.
Entry rules, visa types and practical notes live on the Peru overview.
This overview comes from Visaja's worldwide missions database (visaja.com), checked against official government sources; for binding answers, the mission itself always has the final word.