Feedback on Peru Itinerary

I am glad we went up to MP twice, once to visit the urban areas and learn about it. Our second visit was just to marvel at the grandeur and the view.

I'd also want that second visit as insurance for a clear view.

Should we take the time to visit Machu Picchu a second time?

Yes, absolutely. I would have gone a third and fourth time if I had been able to.

I didn't go to Arequipa but your plan to rest there is a good one. The elevation is moderate and you'll be tired from your travels.

I'd be a bit worried about your last day plan to fly to Lima and then home that same day. Lima is a giant, spread out city. The airport is a solid 45-90 minutes drive to the city center (depending on traffic, which is HORRIBLE). You have zero room for error if your flight from Cusco is delayed or canceled (that happened to me) or there are issues with Lima airport (can be foggy/delays). I myself would fly to Lima the day before your flight to the US. I also had a late night departure and paid for two nights of hotel in Lima so I didn't have to check out in the morning. It was nice to keep my bags in the room, do some sightseeing, and clean up and pack before a long overnight flight.

We didn't hike the trail, but we still visited MP twice, and we're glad we did. We visited the citadel the first afternoon. Most people try to go in the morning, many hoping to see the sunrise. However, it's not always clear early in the morning. We thought going later in the afternoon was perfect. Our entry was at 2 pm, and we stayed until closing. It was much less crowded after about 3 pm. Also, we were there for golden hour and the beginning of sunset.

We went early the next morning (but not sunrise early) and walked to the Sun Gate. The ruins were shrouded in cloud and fog early on, and this didn't clear until a few hours after sunrise, anyway. We liked having the different views of the citadel on this second day.

Here is my trip report, in case there might be something in it that's helpful to you. Enjoy your planning.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/beyond-europe/peru-mini-trip-report

Thanks all! Appreciate the confirmation that returning to Machu Picchu is a solid plan, and that an afternoon visit may be more enjoyable than a morning visit. I’ve reached out to the tour operator we are planning to go with to see if we might be able to return to MP after our group lunch that same day. We will want to catch their group return to Cusco the next day so could only do a morning MP visit the next day.

Also, CL, good point on the return flights. I’ll do some more thinking on that arrangement.

BB, thanks for sharing your trip report.

Will look for my trip report.

Arequipa was disappointing to us, planned on 3 nights but spent a half day rejiggering buses and accommodation to get out after 2 nights. The Convent is a great attraction, a highlight of Peru, a half day, the rest of the city is high end boutiques and restaurants. If you go stay north of the square, it’s kinda gross south of there.

Machu Picchu: Peru is a special country and has oodles to see. The problem with a second visit is it displaces equally worthy things. MP is also crowded as all get out. I believe ticket policy has changed since BB’s visit so it’s now hourly admission and chockerblock dawn till dusk. Sorry, the window for a great MP visit has probably closed forever (I missed it too).

Your last hours in Lima make no sense, it’s too congested to get to anything interesting from the airport and the airport area is dumpy, identical to Mexico City’s situation if you know it. If you are flying Delta you can codeshare with LATAM to/from Cusco or Arequipa on one ticket and skip Lima (although maybe you are doing that, if do reduce the connection time and skip Lima).

Adding: My 3 “everything” countries, those that have it all (great cuisine, great scenery, friendly and polite people, music, art, culture, history, completely safe for tourists in tourist areas) are Japan, Mexico, and Peru.

Edit: Adding trip report
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/peru-trip-report-september-2024

Pay special attention to my Pisac section, I preferred it to MP (but doing the through hike).

Hi Julie,
A definite yes to doing at least two different Machu Picchu routes. I went about a month ago for the first time (I added a trip report) and we did 3B in the afternoon and 2B the next morning at 6am. The 6am one had much better weather and it was amazing to be there with so few people. Any time you go, you never know what the weather will be like, and we liked the different perspectives the two routes gave us, even though there is overlap.

Arequipa is charming and worth a few nights. I don't think it's a "must see" but the center area and the Plaza are quite nice and a great example of colonial architecture.

I would think about maybe just day-tripping to Pisac from Cusco, and head straight to Ollantaytambo. The Pisac ruins were the least interesting of the ones we saw and we didn't like the town as well as we liked Ollantaytambo. I would also strongly suggest adding at least a night in Cusco. It's big, there's a lot to see, and it was one of my favorite places we've been in Peru (I live in Lima, FYI). We had three nights in Cusco during our Sacred Valley trip, and we all agreed we needed one or two more.

Don't fly out of Cusco then from Lima the same day. Lima traffic can be horrific and Cusco flights are known to be cancelled and delayed. Lima has an amazing restaurants, and it's a great place to live, but there's not a lot to see from a tourist perspective. The airport is in Callao, which is not a safe area- it's one of the most dangerous areas in Lima- and the tourist center is a 45 minute plus drive, depending on traffic. I'd just leave from Cusco. Do keep it last, though, to give yourself time to acclimate to the elevation.

Though I've visited Peru ten times over the past two decades (obviously I think it's a great country to see), I'm not going to tweak your proposed itinerary any further. It's a pretty standard tourist itinerary, and I'm sure it will be fine if you follow it as written -- though I will commend you for including Arequipa, which not all tourists do.

I was impressed to see CL’s advice (and Coffee Girl's affirmation) about leaving for Lima a day before your final flight back home, for it's basically the same advice I've given on travel forums myself. Though chances are good that your final flight from Cusco to Lima will go as scheduled, long delays, and even cancellations, do happen, mainly because of bad weather in the high mountains, and so flying back to Lima one or two days before your flight back home is usually worth considering. Example: on one of my visits, when my flight back home left on a Saturday, I arranged to fly from Huaraz back to Lima the preceding Thursday, leaving Friday as something of a full "grace" or "buffer" day between flights. And in fact that Thursday flight back to Lima was cancelled for the day -- but thanks to my prudence, the next day, Friday, I was able to fly back to Lima and thus make that Saturday flight home. (Not that I was all that anxious to return home after another great Peru trip, but rescheduling long flights can be an expensive nuisance.)

Now I’m sure that the opinions offered in the preceding comments are all personally honest; but in fairness to Peru, I feel I should add the following two points:

[1] I found Arequipa to be a great Spanish-colonial city, one where I gladly stayed three full days (without even going to the Colca Canyon, justly popular as it is.). Now my visit was back in 2009, and I can allow for the possibility that things may have changed since then, though I will add that over on another Peru forum (TripAdvisor) there is a regular respondent, something of a Latin America expert, who has been to Arequipa more recently and still recommends it as fondly as I do. I'll just add that at the time of my visit, the area south of the main plaza did seem a little plainer than the rest of the city center, but nothing worse.

[2] Passing through Lima International on so many trips, I have never found it to as bad as implied in a response above , though I would say that while there's nothing really wrong with it, it may not be the most visually elegant of airports. (I am referring to the "old" Lima airport, which I think is still functioning, even though a newer addition, which I haven't been through yet, has recently opened. And incidentally, I have been through some truly palatial-looking airports, so I can make comparisons.) However, while the Lima airport itself is safe (and so is the taxi ride into the city), the area surrounding the airport may in fact be closer to what one might call "dumpy." Except for the airport hotel, and the near-by Holiday Inn, I wouldn't consider lodgings in that neighborhood. Also, a fun fact: while many international airports are named after heads of state, generals, or national celebrities, Lima's may be one of just a few named after a real aviation pioneer -- in this case Jorge Chavez.

Toby, was there anything in particular that made Arequipa disappointing to you? Do you think it was more of the timing of where it fell in your trip or you just didn't personally jive with the city? Or expectations didn't meet reality? I had that happen on our first trip to Spain - didn't like Sevilla as much as I thought I would and ended up loving Granada (and when we went Granada was not nearly as well-loved as Sevilla).

Machu Picchu: I did find out today from our tour operator that we will have the opportunity to either stay for an unguided 10:00am Circuit 2 tour that morning after we finish our guided Circuit 1 and 3 tours, or we can go up Huayna Picchu. If we do this instead, we could think about saving that night in Aguas Calientes and putting it towards somewhere else.

Lima: I was honestly thinking we could just fly from Cusco to Lima mid-day and not even go into the city. They have sleeping pods and showers in the airport (great option to have!). I have read that it is less likely to have weather cancellations in September, but I did not realize weather cancellations were as common in general as it sounds like they are there. Since we don't have flights booked yet, I am going to look into booking this leg of our trip as one complete ticket rom Cusco back to the USA (instead of separate tickets) so there would be some obligation for the airline to get us on another flight if something were to go wrong. No matter what, it sounds like we need to reconsider this portion - thanks for the great advice!

I am very interested in the hike with the ruins at Pisac - I was hoping that they would be more enjoyable and intimate with being more off the beaten path.

Coffee Girl, what time of year did you go to MP? Thanks for the point of view on staying in Pisac. I had been thinking a night there might be well spent but there is also something nice about packing/unpacking fewer times on a trip. Why about Ollantaytambo made you like it more than Pisac? As currently planned, we will have 4 nights in Cusco. If we drop the night in Aguas Calientes, we could spend another night in Cusco (the transit is part of the package from our Inca Trail operator). Did you have any other ruins that you would recommend in lieu of those at Pisac?

Faedus, you must love Peru with so many return trips there! It is our first visit to Peru and it is very difficult trying to narrow down the places to see. I'm glad to hear you really enjoy Arequipa - what are some of your favorite things about the city? And what are some of your favorite things to do there? I have seen a lot of feedback from other travelers that it is their favorite city in Peru. I was hoping that Arequipa might be a nice contrast to some of the other places that we will be visiting. I had also thought about taking a cooking class while there - the ones offered by Peruvian Flavor are incredibly well reviewed and sound fun and tasty. I've read that the food scene is great in Arequipa in general and since we won't have any time in Lima as currently planned, I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to eat some good food there.

I've been playing around with our itinerary and am considering trading the day hike to Humantay Lake (or possibly 7 Lagunas Ausangate) for an extra day at the front end of our trip to have the time to visit Colca Canyon. With either option, we will be spending a similar amount of time in a tour vehicle to get to either destination. I am thinking that Colca Canyon with its condors would be more of a unique experience than hiking to alpine lakes (albeit with stunning scenery).

Thank you so much for the ideas and feedback - it is very appreciated!

I know my trip report was long but do read the Pisac section and about hiring a driver for the day. The upper Pisac ruins aren’t so very much and very crowded but the crowds thin out quickly hiking south. The Taxidatum website is very handy for you for Pisac and also for Ollantaytambo.

Arequipa: I don’t see much here to do other than the convent. We even had a guidebook that brought us into hidden historic courtyards and put effort into it, aside from the convent it’s a thin destination, mostly a hang out place after backpacking overland from Lima or Chile. There are high end shops here. There are houses to tour out of center but we didn’t do anything out of walking distance. There are way more colonial buildings in Cusco over Arequipa. Perhaps the more important question is what do people do there after seeing the convent? The cathedral on the main plaza is fairly ugly inside, and not so great outside either.

We’ve visited Peru twice in the last year as our son was in the Peace Corps in Northern Peru.

Last December we did the typical tourist swing - Lima and Cusco and Machu Picchu, much like you have planned. My niece spent a day traveling to the rainbow mountain from Cusco and loved it - we were tired of so much van time and didn’t go.

Last summer we did a less typical trip which included Cajamarca (near where our son was) and then Arequipa and Culca Canyon, which we loved. In addition to the convent and the beautiful volcano views and the cathedral, we would highly recommend the museum where Juanita is. Here’s a link - https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294313-d318518-Reviews-Museo_Santuarios_Andinos-Arequipa_Arequipa_Region.html.

We also spent a few days on the coast south of Lima and did sand dunes by jeep and the “poor man’s” Galapagos. We stayed in Paracas.

I would recommend both Arequipa and Culca Canyon.

Hi Julie,

Sure, happy to answer your questions. We went to Machu Picchu just last month- our afternoon visit was 3B on New Year's Eve (it was supposed to be at 3pm, but this was the day after the train accident and so we were a few hours delayed) and our 6am visit was on New Year's Day. Even though the morning weather is supposed to be foggy that time of year, we had clear blue skies in the morning after clouds and gray the afternoon before. We just moved to Lima in June so this was our first and only visit so far.

Ollantaytambo, while quite touristy, is the best preserved Incan town in Peru. It has a lot of character. Pisac has a nice main square but the ruins are outside of town and not nearly as interesting imho, although they have some very nice Incan terraces. It felt very quiet and a little rundown.

Our favorite ruins of the trip were (roughly in order): Machu Picchu, Pinkuylluna (these are the Incan Granaries/ storehouses also in Ollantaytambo), Sacsayhuaman (in Cusco), Pisac, and Qoricancha (also in Cusco). We didn't make it to Moray and Maras, although we wanted to. We also drove by several sites outside of Cusco that we didn't stop at.

Four nights in Cusco should be good, but you'll have plenty to do still if you add a night. Make sure to eat at Cicciolina (I think I spelled that correctly)- it was the best meal I've had in Peru in 7 months of living there. Also agree with another poster who recommended Taxidatum- if you're traveling independently, they're awesome.

Hi Julie: As you guessed, I do in fact love Peru, which perhaps is why I get a little verbose when responding about it — and I’m afraid I’ve done so again, but I do want to answer the questions you posed for me above...

As for what I liked about Arequipa: first, I should note that my travel aims may a little different from most people’s — rather that dash to as many grand “must-see” spectacles as I can, I prefer to visit aesthetic old historic cities (medieval ones in Europe, colonial ones in Latin America) and get to know them well. And for me, Arequipa was a great place for a relaxed dive into traditional and colonial Peru. I basically found the historic center of Arequipa to offer the kind of chaming old Spanish-colonial environment that I love to explore.

But, noting again that my recollections are from 2009, I did find a number of discrete attractions as well. The amazing Santa Catalina convent is too well-known to require comment from me, but I also found a few museums, including one that housed those two famous Inca mummies dating, I think, from the twelfth century, along with several other Inca artefacts. Also, I particularly liked the museum of the La Recoleta monastery, divided (at least then) into separate historic and Amazonian sections. And then there is the architecture of some of the grander older buildings, notably the churches: built of relatively malleable white volcanic pumice, they bear elaborate exterior carvings.

Food is generally of little interest to me — though I’ve noted that most tourists feel otherwise! — so I’ll point out that I encountered, mostly in passing, a number of fine-looking restaurants in Arequipa. My recollection is that they were mainly on San Francisco Street, as it ran northwards from the north-east corner of the main plaza. As you have noted, Arequipa appears to have its own distinctive cuisine.

I'll add that Arequipa traditionally considers itself the most cultured city in Peru, and during my three or four days there, I saw good evidence of this, including an abundance of bookstores; speakers embedded in a few traffic-light poles that played Bach; a few old-fashioned, independent wine-shops; and a branch of the Alliance Francaise (“French Alliance,” a Paris-based cultural institution — and the French don’t put those branches just anywhere!). Of course, it’s possible that these specifics have changed since 2009.

As for internal Peru flights: I wouldn’t say that delays and cancellations are “common”; but then, they;re not exactly rare either. This may help: Among my 17 internal (“domestic”) flights in Peru across the past 20 years, where I’m counting each round trip as two flights, I have experienced two delays of three hours or more, and two cancellations for the scheduled day. Now this is not a random sample of flights, and it does not prove anything statistically; it’s just the experience on which I’ve based my advice to return to Lima a full day or two before your flight home.

But note: Cusco, from where it appears you will make your final return to Lima, has, I think, a few flights each day (rather than just one, as was the case when I was in Huaraz); so if your flight gets cancelled, and it was one of the earlier ones, you may be able to get onto a later flight. But of course, the other passengers from your cancelled flight will be seeking to do the same.

Disagree that Ollantaytambo is touristy, for example finding a place that serves coffee or breakfast before 9 am is a challenge and there are no ATMs. There’s a lot to see in Lima also, could fill up 4 days although maybe not the best use of time. Sometimes I wonder if other people are talking about the same places I visited?

Cusco to/from Lima in September has like 8 flights a day at least, not “a few.” They will add new flights as the existing fill up.

Need to know:

1. Are you flying Delta? You can maximize your time that way with protected connections @ Lima

2. How many days do you want to acclimate before Inca Trail? Only you know what your history is with altitude.

And how many days total do you have to work with?

I ran across a Seattle couple doing a heck of a lot in 2 weeks flying Delta to Cusco on one ticket and returning from Arequipa on one ticket, and going overland in between to catch Titicaca and Colca. Would need 5 days for that, 2 nights Puno, 2 nights Colca.

Julie: I don't want to push the Arequipa matter farther than you want it to go, but it occurred to me to suggest that for that city, and others in Peru (like Ollantaytambo), you might want to consult a web-site called "Accidental Nomads" (accidentalnomads.com). From the home page, click on “Destinations”; scroll down to “Peru”; then scroll down the Peru page to find “Arequipa”; and then click on the picture of the cathedral to see the text. I know there are lots of travel blogs out there, but this one has impressed me as being well above average (and their photos are great).

Toby, I did read your report, thank you so much for sharing. Our plans for Pisac would be very similar, hiring a taxidatum driver and hiking down. I need to see if the trail is on AllTrails and do some reading on it, especially with your point on the tunnel. My husband is a larger guy and it wouldn't be fun for him to not fit! We've had some experiences with ruins on our travels that were off the beaten path and it was almost luxurious to have them to ourselves. There is definitely so much to appreciate about that. And thanks for sharing your additional perspective on Arequipa.

Cathy, thanks for sharing your experience and the museum recommendation.

Coffee Girl - how lucky you were to have blue skies at MP when you weren't expecting to have them! Thank you for your ruins list and the restaurant rec - I always go on trips with a dinner reservations pre-booked as food is always a big part of the travel experience for me :)

Faedus, thanks for taking the time to paint a picture of Arequipa. It seems like a place that we would enjoy - I love architecture, museums, food, and shopping. The views to the mountains look lovely, too. And thanks for the lead on the travel blog - I have been trying to comb the internet for more info on Arequipa and hadn't ran across that one yet. Also enjoyed their writing about the Colca Canyon but so sad about the earthquakes!

Toby, Delta seems to offer the best flight options for us. I can book everything but the Arequipa leg on one reasonable ticket (ICT to LIM; then CUZ to ICT). We would just have to book the LIM to AQP leg separately as it won't let me book AQP through Delta.

A couple days is generally all I need to acclimate. We go hiking in Colorado quite a bit and this past summer I bagged my first 14'er, Mt. Elbert. We're actually planning to go back a few times this summer for some more backpacking and hiking more 14'ers - it'll all be good prep for this trip. Traveling to Peru is obviously different than driving to Colorado but I do feel comfortable with a few day buffer; as it's currently planned we would have 6 days on the ground before starting the Inca Trail. A friend of mine has hiked a lot of 14'ers and he told me that every trip is different for him - some trips he feels the altitude more than others, depending on what is going on with his body. There are some things you just can't control. No matter what, it'll be smart for us to prep on the front end by hydrating well for a week or so ahead of our trip. As currently planned, we would leave ICT on Thursday night, arrive AQP Friday morning. We would go back to ICT two Fridays (basically Saturday morning) after that on a midnight flight home. 15 days minus some travel time. Not planning on Puno/Titicaca this trip.

Thank you all again for the insight and recommendations! It is very helpful.

Pisac thru hike: I’d say 36” jeans waist size is as wide as I would risk it. It’s more of a crevasse so height not an issue. 38” might work. There was a washed out trail alternate that may be open now. Note that we opted out of Ince trail so needed some other substantial hikes.

I thought the convent in Arequipa was a national highlight. I’m speculating but I wonder if Arequipa has transitioned from a backpacker hangout in the 80s to a destination for the wealthy of Lima to get out of the fog and drizzle to shop for their Dolce & Gabbana in the sun? That’s more the vibe I picked up.

Julie:
I’m sure everyone wishes I would shut up soon, but since you mentioned mountain views, I’ll briefly add that I recall certain points in Arequipa from where I could see a range of high Andean mountain peaks in the distance — they include a vantage point on the plaza from where I saw those mountains poking up from behind the cathedral. (Perhaps consider an upper-story hotel room with an unobstructed north view.) Also, I recall having lunch on the patio dining area of a cafe in the aesthetic Yahahuara neighborhood, from where I had a great unobscured view of El Misti volcano. I’ll assume that El Misti is still there, but if the cafe isn’t (that was 2009, recall), you can get the same view from a near-by public mirador, or “look-out” patio — if, of course, it's still there.