Multi-Day Tours in Peru

Multiday tours in Peru are organised around three landscapes. In the Andean south, Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu form the spine of most itineraries, reached by train or on foot along the Inca Trail, Salkantay and Lares routes. The southern circuit continues to Puno on Lake Titicaca and to Arequipa, from where the Colca Canyon takes two or three days. The Amazon is a separate trip: lodge stays in Manu National Park, the Tambopata reserve near Puerto Maldonado and Pacaya-Samiria out of Iquitos. The north is the quiet option, with Kuélap, a Chachapoya fortress on a limestone ridge at about 3,000 metres, and Chan Chan, the Chimú adobe capital outside Trujillo.

Peru multiday tours come in three shapes. Treks run from two to eight days, as group departures or private services, and the private ones are sold in comfort and luxury grades. City-to-city packages run from four days to two weeks, usually linking Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu, with Nazca, Arequipa or Puno added to the longer ones; the longest in the offer takes fifteen days and strings the whole south together. Jungle and northern programmes are shorter, three to five days from the nearest airport. The briefest options are two-day Machu Picchu trips from Cusco, by train or on the Short Inca Trail.

Practical. The Andean dry months run roughly May to September and the rains from December to March. Cusco's afternoons stay near 21C all year, but July nights hover around freezing and January brings about 150 mm of rain (SENAMHI's 1991–2020 normals). In the Amazon the wetter months fall between November and March and the drier ones between May and October. Cusco stands at about 3,400 metres, so a night in the Sacred Valley, several hundred metres lower, is a gentler start than a pass on day one. Lima to Cusco is a flight of about an hour and a half, which is how most packages cross the country. Inca Trail permits sell out months ahead in the dry season.