Machu Picchu, and everything around it.
Rainbow Mountain at first light, the Sacred Valley’s salt pans, pisco sours off the Plaza de Armas, and the dawn train to the lost city. Which ones are worth it, what they cost, and where to book.
Seven you’ll be glad you booked.
The tours that carry a first trip to Cusco: the salt terraces stepping down the hillside at Maras, a morning learning the dyes with the Chinchero weavers, the climb to the painted ridge at Vinicunca, and the train that threads the gorge to Machu Picchu.
From Cusco: Moray, Maras Salt Mines & Chinchero Weavers Tour
Cusco Sacred Valley half-day: Chinchero weavers, Moray terraces, Maras village, and the Salt Mines. Hotel pickup included.
From $15 per person
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The mountain the Andes painted.
Vinicunca hides under snow most of the year; the day it melts clear, the ridge runs in bands of rust, mint and gold. Leave Cusco around 4am, climb slow to the 5,036-metre pass, and drop into the blood-red canyon of the Red Valley next door. Altitude is the whole challenge, so pick the tour that gives you time.
Which way to Machu Picchu?
Everyone leaves Cusco for the citadel; how you get there shapes the whole trip. Three ways up the mountain: the easy train, the famous trail, the wild alternative, each one priced, timed and reviewed so you can pick before the permits run out.
There and back in a day
The train day trip
2 days · from $582 · 260 reviews
The easiest way in: a vista-dome carriage from Ollantaytambo down the Urubamba gorge, a bus up the switchbacks, two or three hours in the citadel, and back to Cusco by night. No camping, no altitude passes to cross. The whole of Machu Picchu without giving up your hotel bed.
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The classic four days
The Inca Trail
4 days · from $470 · 432 reviews
The original stone road to the Sun Gate, walked over four days past Wiñay Wayna and Dead Woman’s Pass. Permits are capped and sell out months ahead, so book early. You arrive on foot at dawn, the way the Inca meant you to, and nothing else on this list compares.
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The wild alternative
The Salkantay trek
3 days (approx.) · from $680 · 101 reviews
No permit, more mountain. Five days over the 4,600-metre Salkantay pass under a hanging glacier, down through cloud forest to Aguas Calientes and up to the citadel on the last morning. Harder, cheaper and emptier: for walkers who want the wilderness, not the queue.
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The Plaza only gets better at night.
The cathedral floodlit, the fountain running, and half of San Blas out for a walk. Learn to build a pisco sour from egg white and lime, follow a crawl through the balcón cantinas above the square, or trade the altitude headache for a folklore show and a warm quinoa soup.
Start where the locals shop.
San Pedro market is the loudest, cheapest lesson in Peru: juice stalls, frog soup for the brave, sacks of a hundred potatoes. Walk it with a cook, then turn it into lomo saltado and a pisco sour back in the kitchen. This is the tastiest afternoon in Cusco.
The colour comes from the mountains.
In Chinchero the red is crushed cochineal beetle, the gold is a flower, and the loom is tied to a Chinchero woman’s waist. Sit down to learn the dyes, roast cacao into bean-to-bar chocolate, or meet the alpacas the wool comes from. These are the crafts that made this valley long before the tourists did.
The Inca built their pantry here.
A thousand feet lower than Cusco and far kinder on the lungs, the Sacred Valley runs from Pisac’s cliff-top ruins to Ollantaytambo’s fortress steps. In between: the salt pans of Maras stepping down the mountain since Inca times, and Moray’s ringed terraces where they tested crops by altitude. Do it on day two, before you climb higher.
Every trip out of Cusco, mapped.
Cusco is base camp, and each direction is a different day. The Sacred Valley for ruins and markets. Vinicunca for the colour. Humantay for the glacier lake. The old capital itself for the Inca walls holding up the Spanish one.
Pick your kind of Cusco day.
Trek high to a glacier lake, ride a quad through the salt flats, weave with a Chinchero master, or just take the panoramic train. Twelve ways to spend a day out of Cusco, each already priced and reviewed.
Gone by dawn, back by dark.
The classic single-day runs out of Cusco: a cold van pickup before sunrise, a high pass by mid-morning, and your hotel by nightfall. Layer up, chew the coca leaves, and let the altitude do the rest.
Three days, in the right order.
Cusco sits at 3,400 metres and altitude punishes anyone who rushes. Go gentle first, drop into the valley next, and save the mountain for last. By the time it counts, your lungs have caught up.
Day 1
Ease in above the Plaza
Keep it slow while your body adjusts: the Plaza de Armas, the Inca stonework of Coricancha, and the huge zigzag walls of Sacsayhuaman looking down on the red rooftops. Coca tea, an early night.
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Day 2
Down to the Sacred Valley
Lower ground and easier breathing: Pisac’s ruins and craft market, the salt pans of Maras, Moray’s ringed terraces, and Ollantaytambo, where you catch tomorrow’s train.
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Day 3
Finally, the lost city
The first train down the gorge, the bus up the switchbacks, and Machu Picchu before the day crowds arrive. Book the earliest entry circuit you can and add Huayna Picchu if your knees agree.
Plan the Machu Picchu day →
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