Everyone books Machu Picchu. The week around it is the hard part.
Which day trip actually includes the bus up from Aguas Calientes. What a trek costs once the Inca Trail permits are gone. Whether the Sacred Valley deserves two days or four. Reviews of every tour you can book out of Cusco.
The citadel, the salt pans, a glacier lake and the walls above town.
Four bookings a first week in Cusco hangs off. What each one costs, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The one you came forFull-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuThe whole day to Machu Picchu: the train down the gorge, the bus up the switchbacks and a guide on the terraces. Out of Cusco before dawn, back after dark.
02The valley daySacred Valley & Maras Salt Mines Tour with LunchMoray, the salt pans at Maras and the weavers at Chinchero in one loop, lunch included. The day that explains how anyone farmed a mountain.
03The alpine dayHumantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet LunchAn early start for a turquoise lake sitting under the Salkantay glacier, with breakfast and lunch on the way. The most-booked day out in Cusco.
04The first afternoonHalf-Day City Tour with Sacsayhuaman and Q’encoSacsayhuaman and the ruins on the ridge, in half a day. The gentle way to spend your first hours at 3,400 metres.
Train, trail or over the pass. Machu Picchu has three answers.
Nobody drives to Machu Picchu. You take the railway down the gorge, you walk in on the Inca road, or you cross a pass on one of the treks that reach it from behind. What each way costs to start, and who it suits.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchu
The day from CuscoOut before dawn, on the terraces by mid-morning, back for dinner.
The classic Inca TrailFour days on the original stone road, in through the Sun Gate.
Over the Salkantay passThe permit-free route: a 4,600m col, then down into cloud forest.
The train, properlyPanoramic glass, the Urubamba out of the window, no walking at all.
All 195 Machu Picchu tours and tickets →
Six ways out of Cusco, and the best day in each.
A citadel at the end of a railway, a valley of terraces and salt pans, a painted ridge above 5,000 metres, the stone road the Inca actually walked, the old capital itself, and the farm country in between.
The Sacred Valley is where the Inca did the farming.
An hour down from Cusco the air thickens and the terraces start. Moray cut in concentric rings, thousands of salt pans stepping down a ravine at Maras, Pisac market on its ridge, Ollantaytambo still lived in after five hundred years. Most people give the valley a day. It takes two.
What a day out of Cusco actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between the cheapest morning and the four-day walk into Machu Picchu is wider here than almost anywhere.
City walks, the ruins circuit above town, the valley loop, and the ridge days that leave before dawn and are back for dinner.
Cooking classes, rafting and zipline days, private drivers, and the long trek days with a guide and a lunch stop.
Machu Picchu with the train, the four-day Inca Trail, jungle runs into Manu, and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
- 1Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchufrom $321
- 2Machu Picchu Day Trip from Cuscofrom $336
- 3Full-Day Tour from Cusco with Optional Lunchfrom $283
Above Cusco the colour comes out of the rock.
Every high-country day →
Three ranges within a morning of the city, all of them higher than anything in the Alps. The striped ridge at Vinicunca, a glacier lake at Humantay, and the chain of lagoons under Ausangate. Go after a few days in town, not before.
Vinicunca, and the walk that gets you there
The stripes are mineral beds tilted on their side and uncovered as the ice retreated. The last hour is a slow climb in thin air, and horses wait at the saddle for anyone who has had enough.
Humantay Lake, under the Salkantay ice
Meltwater off the glacier collects in a bowl the colour of antifreeze. It is two hours up from the road head and considerably quicker down, and the buffet lunch afterwards is better than it needs to be.
The lagoons under Ausangate
Seven lakes strung under Peru’s fifth-highest peak, on a track that sees a fraction of the Vinicunca traffic. Alpaca herds, red rock and, most mornings, nobody else in the photograph.
The trails out of Cusco are why people stay a fortnight.
Stone stairs through cloud forest, passes with ice on both sides, camps at altitudes where the water boils cool. The three below carry the most walkers; the rest of the network sits under them.
The days out of Cusco more travellers take than any other.
Every tour we have reviewed in Cusco →The bookings that carry more travellers than anything else in the region, 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 high-altitude hiking, Salkantay views, breakfast, buffet lunch, costs, and practical tips.
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
Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchu
from $321
5
Machu Picchu Day Trip from Cusco
from $336
6
Half-Day City Tour with Sacsayhuaman and Q’enco
from $13
7
Sacred Valley, Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Salt Mines Moray
from $28
8
Full-Day Tour from Cusco with Optional Lunch
from $283
Cusco is a Spanish city built on Inca foundations that outlast it.
The colonial arcades sit on stonework nobody has managed to improve on: Qorikancha under the Dominican church, the twelve-angled stone in the Hatunrumiyoc lane, and Sacsayhuaman on the ridge with blocks the size of vans. Half a day covers the ring above town.
- 1Half-Day City Tour with Sacsayhuaman and Q’encofrom $13
- 2City Tour Cusco Qoricancha Sacsayhuaman y Tambomachayfrom $13
- 3Open Bus Cusco City Tourfrom $14
Cusco eats at altitude, and it eats well.
Corn with kernels the size of a thumbnail, more potato varieties than anyone can name, trout out of the Urubamba, and a pisco sour that arrives faster at this height. Book the market walk for the morning and the class that finishes as lunch.
Every kitchen in Cusco →
Three things that happen in the Cusco region and nowhere else.
Mountains and ruins turn up all over South America. A ridge striped like a layer cake, a working salt terrace older than the Inca, and a grass bridge rebuilt by hand every June do not.
Vinicunca
The ridge is a stack of mineral beds, iron reds and copper greens and sulphur yellows, laid down flat, tilted almost vertical by the rise of the Andes and only uncovered in the last decade or so as the ice on it retreated. The path tops out above 5,000 metres, higher than any summit in western Europe, on a slope where a hundred metres of climbing feels like four.
- 1Rainbow Mountain Tour and Red Valley Hike (Optional)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 149 reviews
- 2Private Rainbow Mountain Full Day Tour from Cusco★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 129 reviews
- 3Full-Day Rainbow Mountain & Red Valley Trekking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 121 reviews
The Maras Pans
A saline spring comes out of the hillside above the Urubamba and has been channelled into thousands of shallow evaporation pans stepped down the ravine, family by family, since long before the Inca arrived. They are still worked and still divided the same way. Moray is twenty minutes off: concentric terraces sunk into the ground, each ring a little warmer than the one above it.
- 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
The Qeswachaka Bridge
Four communities on the Apurimac canyon cut and twist mountain grass into cable, take down last year’s suspension bridge and build a new one across the gorge in three days. It is the last Inca rope bridge still made this way, it carries a person’s weight, and the rebuilding is the only reason the technique survived.
- 1Q’eswachaka Bridge & 4 Lagoons Full-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 10 reviews
- 2Four Lagoons and Q`eswachaka bridge tour full day★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 7 reviews
- 31 day excursion to Qeswachaka bridge and the 4 lagoons★★★★★★★★★★ 3.6 · 3 reviews
Four Cusco bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this region can be arranged over breakfast the day before. These four run on government permits, timed entry slots and a single railway line, none of which take any interest in when your flight lands.
- 014-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with AccommodationPermits are capped at 500 people a day including porters and guides, sold by date, and gone months ahead for the dry season. The trail also closes for the whole of February.
- 02Huayna Picchu and Machu Picchu from Cusco Full dayThe peak behind the citadel takes a small number of climbers per time slot on a separate ticket. It sells out well before ordinary entry does.
- 03Full-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuEntry runs on numbered circuits with a fixed slot and a daily cap. You choose the route and the hour when you buy, not on the morning.
- 041-day Machu Picchu Tour by TrainOne railway reaches Aguas Calientes and there is no road in. Seats run to a timetable, and the useful departures go first in the dry months.
You land at 3,400 metres. Spend the first day in Cusco like it.
Cusco sits higher than almost any city travellers fly straight into, and the ridge days go a good deal higher still. Give the first day to the old town: a short walk, a long lunch, coca tea, a kitchen or a loom rather than a mountain. The Andes will still be there on Wednesday.
By place — the city, the valley, the mountains
By kind of day — ruin, ridge, kitchen or river
Cusco, the valley, the citadel: the order almost everybody ends up doing.
The newest Cusco tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Sacred Valley Day Trip with Maras & Moray Salt Mines
Read our review →
Rainbow Mountain Tour at Sunset Without the Crowds
Read our review →
Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu – 5D/4N – Premium
Read our review →
