Machu Picchu is one morning. Peru is the three weeks around it.
The citadelFull-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchu★★★★★★★★★★4.7Which Sacred Valley day is worth the four a.m. start. What the walk up Vinicunca actually asks of your lungs. Whether the Nazca flight earns the detour. Reviews of every tour you can book in Peru.
The colourFull-Day Rainbow Mountain & Red Valley Trekking Tour★★★★★★★★★★4.5
The desertParacas & Huacachina Oasis Day Trip with Wine & Dunes★★★★★★★★★★4.7Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley, and the trail that joins them.
Three ways to spend the days everybody comes to Cusco for. What each costs, how long it takes, and which one has to be booked before anything else.
In Peru the problem is not distance. It is altitude.
Cusco sits at 3,399 metres and the flight from Lima puts you there in ninety minutes. Book the low days first, give the city two nights before you walk anywhere, and leave the passes until the end.
- 0 mLimaSea level, sea fog, nothing to adjust to. Eat here first.from $23
- 2,335 mArequipaThe gentle step up. You notice the stairs and little else.from $10
- 3,399 mCuscoThe one that catches people out. Two nights before anything strenuous.from $12
- 3,812 mLake TiticacaHigher than Cusco. Come here after the valley, never before it.from $7
- 5,036 mVinicunca (Rainbow Mountain)The walk starts at 4,300 m and climbs. Save it for the end of the trip.from $29
Cusco earns a week before you go anywhere near the train.
Inca foundations carrying colonial arcades, a market that still feeds the city at six in the morning, and every valley day out starting from a doorway on the Plaza de Armas.
South of Lima the map turns to sand for six hundred kilometres.
Sea lions and Humboldt penguins off the Ballestas, a buggy over the dunes behind Huacachina, and figures scratched into the desert at Nazca that only resolve from a few hundred metres up. Almost all of it leaves the capital before dawn.
- 1Paracas and Huacachina Oasis Full Day Guided Tourfrom $59
- 2Full Day Paracas Ica and Huacachina from Lima All Includedfrom $85
- 335-Minute Flight Over Nazca Linesfrom $125
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Peru.
Every tour in Peru →The tours that carry more people than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Humantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet Lunch
Review of Cusco’s Humantay Lake day tour, with steep hiking, Salkantay views, local meals, practical tips, and honest advice on value.
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
Three Peruvian things that exist nowhere else on earth.
High mountains and old stone are common enough across South America. Drawings the size of a town, islands woven out of reed, and farm terraces cut as a circle are not.
The Nazca Lines
Somebody cleared a hummingbird three hundred feet across off the desert floor two thousand years ago, along with a monkey, a spider, and lines that run dead straight for kilometres over the hills. It survives because this is one of the driest places on the planet and almost nothing has fallen on it since. The shapes only resolve from the air, which is why the flights are small, short and famously bumpy.
- 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
The Uros live on ground they make themselves, cutting totora reed from the shallows of Titicaca and layering it until the mat floats. It rots from underneath and gets topped up from above, so the island underfoot is only ever a few months old. The boats, the houses and the earth are all the same plant, and the whole arrangement is anchored so it does not drift into 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
Moray and the salt pans
At Moray the Inca sank concentric terraces into a natural bowl, and the air at the bottom ring sits several degrees warmer than the top — close enough to a controlled experiment that most archaeologists read it as one. Twenty minutes down the road at Maras, a few thousand shallow pans have been fed by the same warm salt spring since long before either the Inca or the Spanish turned up.
- 1Sacred Valley & Maras Salt Mines Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,227 reviews
- 2Moray, Maras Salt Mines & Chinchero Weavers Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,925 reviews
- 3Sacred Valley, Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Salt Mines Moray★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,058 reviews
What a day out in Peru actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between a Cusco morning and four days on the trail is wider here than almost anywhere.
City mornings, market walks, the Ballestas boat and an hour on the dunes.
The full-day standards: Sacred Valley circuits, Colca, the Nazca flight, the cheaper ways into Machu Picchu.
Permits, porters and four days of walking; the jungle lodges; the private valley days.
Lima is the meal you fly in for.
The city keeps its best behind unmarked doors in Barranco and Miraflores: ceviche cut to order at a market counter, a pisco sour poured by somebody who cares, and a pre-Inca pyramid sitting in the middle of a residential block.
- 1Ultimate Peruvian Food Tourfrom $105
- 2Historic Center Street Food, Market, and Eateries Tourfrom $69
- 3Lima Street Food Tour Beyond Netflixfrom $50
Four Peruvian bookings that run on somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over a pisco sour. These four run on permit quotas, timed circuits and small aircraft, and they close months out.
- 014-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with AccommodationPermits are capped per day and sold months ahead, and the whole trail shuts for February.
- 02Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu from Cusco Full dayThe peak behind the ruins takes its own ticket, a few hundred a day, on fixed entry windows.
- 03Full-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuEntry runs on timed circuits with a daily cap. The early slots go first, and they are the quiet ones.
- 0435-Minute Flight Over Nazca LinesThe aircraft are small and fly in the morning before the wind gets up. A full one leaves without you.
By place — coast, sierra and jungle
By kind of day — ruin, trail, dune or table
Lima to Cusco the long way, which is the way worth taking.
Nazca
Lake TiticacaThe newest Peru tour reviews.
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Rainbow Mountain and viewpoint red valley ( optional)
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Montaña de Colores: tour en cuatrimotos día completo
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Excursion Cusco – Puno – Titicaca Observatory Train
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Enjoy Lima Walking Historic Center, Plaza San Martin and Plaza de Armas
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Palcoyo Mountain Day Trip with Breakfast and Lunch
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Tour to Laguna Humantay with breakfast and lunch from Cusco
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Chinchero, Moray, Maras, Ollantaytambo with lunch
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Machu Picchu: Private Tour Guide Service for up to 15 people
Read our review →