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Sacred Valley — how much can you realistically fit in?

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I’m working on a rough plan for the Sacred Valley in Peru and I’m a bit stuck on how to pace it out.

At first it looked like you could easily move around and see a lot of places in a short time, but the more I read, the more it seems like distances + altitude + just general travel time make things slower than expected.

I’m trying not to overpack the itinerary, so now I’m wondering what actually makes sense if you’ve only got a few days there (like 2–4 days max).

While trying to piece it all together, I came across this write-up which helped me understand how people usually group the main spots in the valley:
explorerspassage.com/chronicles/things-to-do-in-the-sacred-valley-peru

It kind of made it clearer how everything is spread out and what combinations actually work without rushing too much.

Still figuring it out though, so would really appreciate any real-world advice from people who’ve been - especially on what’s actually worth prioritizing vs what can be skipped if time is tight.

Posted by
2097 posts

Everyone's priorities are different, I think, but here's what we did:

We hired a driver to take us from Cusco to the Pisca Ruins and nearby market and then to Urubamba. (We has a particular reason for visiting Urubamba, though). Then, he took us on to Ollantaytambo where we visited the ruins and spent the night before heading to Aguas Calientes by train. We stayed overnight in Aguas Calientes to visit the Machu Picchu citadel twice. Then we took the train to Cusco where we spent a couple of nights and visited the Sacsayhuaman Ruins, the Inca walls, and other sights in the town, before flying back to Lima and spending a couple of days there.

We thought that worked brilliantly.

Here is the company we used: http://www.cuscotransport.com/

Posted by
9994 posts

We did a wonderful four day. tour of Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu in 2019 with PeruAgency.com

We stayed in great hotels, the one in Cuzco was over 250 years old, very historic and nice. The one near MP was a newer 3 star, but nice.
Our guide had a University education in history and was great. We visited great places in Cuzco, then several place in the Sacred Valley en route to where we picked up the train to Aqua Calientes. The city were we picked up the train was very historic and we did spend a bit of time there.

Cost of the tour was about $750 pp but didn't include air from Lima to Cuzco.

Posted by
1355 posts

We had limited time when we went, too. What we did was fly into Cuzco, get a taxi to Ollantaytambo and spend the day/evening there, the next day in the afternoon get the train to Aguas Calientes and spend the night, see Machu Picchu the next day, and then afterwards take the train plus taxi back all the way to Cuzco for two more nights. It’s advisable not to start with Cuzco because of the altitude- so if you’re flying into Cuzco, immediately descend to somewhere like Ollantaytambo which will help you to acclimate. Good luck with your planning!

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