A jammed pack Peru itinerary that includes Lima, Isla Ballestas, Huacachina, Cusco, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, Humantay Lake, and Rainbow Mountain!!

11 Day Peru Itinerary 

With this 12 day itinerary you will see almost all the major sites in Peru….. Hope you’re prepared for an adventure!!

These days can be switched around to the order that you prefer but I’ll be listing them in the order of the trip we took. 

Fly into Lima and will most likely stay late. The best neighborhood to stay in is Miraflores and Barranco. We stayed in both and I recommend Miraflores. It’s closer to Larcomar and the beach and a lot more restaurants that are within walking distance. Airport to Miraflores is around 45-60 mins depending on when you arrive. Most flights arrive late to Lima so you will more than likely arrive get dinner and rest after a long travel day. Uber will be your friend in Peru. Extremely cheap and we had no problems in over 10+ Uber rides over our 12 days. 

Airbnb/hotel for our stay-$27 USD per night

Explore Lima we did a free walking tour from GuruWalk that covered Plaza De Armas area and included the catacombs of San Francisco church. Tour is around 3 hours long and very informative. 

Exploring Lima and the Catacombs of San Francisco - GuruWalk

Then we explored Barranco a bit before heading to the Magic Water Circuit of the Reserve Park. This is a light and water show that shows the history of Peru. Entrance is S/4 to get into the park which has dozens of different fountains with snacks and drinks for purchase. Light show starts at 7:15, 8:15, & 9:10 everyday. Make sure you are on the SE side of the fountain 5-10 mins before it starts directly in the middle for the best views. After this back to the lodging for an early night since tomorrow will be a long day.

This is going to be a long day but totally worth it!! Take a 1 day tour with Peruhop to Paracas and Huacachina. Charter bus leaves at 5:30am for a 4 hr drive to Paracas. Here you will hop on a boat for a 2 hr boat tour is the Islas Ballestas. This is named the “Poor man’s Galapagos island”. On this tour we saw thousands of birds, learned about the island’s history, even were able to see dozens of penguins, and atleast 8+ seals. You will also see the sand print called the Candelabra. Make sure you sit on the left side of the boat for the best view of the candelabra on the way there!! After the 2 hr boat ride you return to Paracas to have lunch. Then in the bus for another hour to reach Huacachina. Huacachina is the only natural desert oasis in South America. A small body of water surrounded by sand dunes over 300ft high. Here you will have a 2 hr session of dune buggy and sand boarding!! When I say the dune buggy session HEART POUNDING THRILL RIDE it may be an understatement. These things fly across the desert to the top of a dune then go down 200 ft+ full throttle. You will not be bored on this ride I can guarantee you that. About every 20-30 mins after riding the buggy you stop at the top of 3 consecutive dunes and will sand board down all 3 before being picked up at the bottom of the 3rd one. These were our favorite by far!! These steep dunes make for great sand boarding. If you would like the stand up and ski or Snowboard you can but those are an extra fee. After about 1:45 of boarding and buggying you get to watch the sunset over the desert. Then back to the bus for a 4 hour ride back to Lima where you arrive to your lodging around 11:30pm-12am. The buses are nice with reclining seats to sleep on and even have a bathroom, although it is only for number 1 no number 2 on the bus.

https://www.peruhop.com/passes/full-day-tour-from-lima/

Today we take a plane to Cusco to start our ways towards the whole reason you came to Peru, Machu Picchu! We took our flight at 11am so we didn’t have to get to early. We landed in Cusco around 1pm. You won’t want to do much on this day so you can acclimate to the high altitude since Cusco is at 11,152 ft (3,399m) above sea level. You can drink Coca tea and chew coca leaves to help with the high altitude. It is less than 10 mins from the Cusco airport to the Plaza De Armas area which is where you will want to stay. Everything you will need tour wise, shopping, and restaurants are located in or around Plaza de Armas. We dropped off our luggage at our airbnb which was a 7 min walk from the square then headed to Sacsayhuaman which is a historic capital of the Incan empire. You are able to walk here but it is a steep incline and without acclimating to the altitude we recommend taking a cab. We walked half way up and our heart rate was over 160 from just a walk. Spend the $6 on an Uber trust me it’s worth it. Entrance is a bit steep at $23 but worth it to explore at your own pace and get great views of the city from high above Cusco. After this we got dinner and headed to our room to get some rest as the next 3 days will have some early mornings.

Rountrip LATAM airlines to Cusco- $225/person

Start the day out with an ATV tour at 7am that takes you to Moray and Maras salt mines. 

https://www.viator.com/search/29542P1?mcid=42383&pid=P00151359&medium=link&campaign=Peru

Here the van picks you up in the morning and takes you to the location of the ATVs. Then they go over a short learning course on how to drive the ATV. Then you take off to head to Moray. Moray is an ancient archaeological site that belong to the Incans. Here they have terraces that allowed them to grow different types of crops on each terrace since each one had a different microclimate. After exploring Moray for about 30-45 mins you take the ATV back to the bus since it isn’t allowed to go to Maras on the ATV anymore. Once the bus arrives at the Maras salt mines you will learn about how they harvest salt and the different types of salt that comes from this mine. You will also have a great opportunity to buy souvenirs for friends and family since the salt is straight from the mine you are exploring. 

Side note- we kept our airbnb in Cusco to store our larger luggage and just took one backpack to Aguas Calientes because we will be carrying everything with us while at Machu Picchu and didn’t want to try and find a place to store our bags. You could cut this out to save some money but since it was only $37 a day for the Cusco airbnb we decided it was worth keeping.

Today is the day you finally get to mark Machu Picchu off you bucket list!! You will want to make sure you buy your tickets well in advance especially if you are going in the high season. I was able to get my tickets a month in advance but that was for a November trip which is the start of the rainy season. You must buy tickets online and bring your passport when you arrive. When buying online you can choose a 1,2,3, or 4 circuit ticket but when you arrive you must select one of the circuits. The main instagram photo you see everyone take is on circuit 1 or 2 so make sure you choose one of those if you want that photo. We met plenty of people who didn’t realize this before arriving and did circuit 3 or 4 only to realize they didn’t get that magic photo opportunity. We bought 2 tickets for the same day. First was Huayna Picchu and circuit 4 which was entrance to Machu Picchu at 6am then entrance to Huayna Picchu at 7am. We then bought at 1,2,3,or 4 circuit ticket at 12 pm entrance. So we did circuit 4, then hiked Huayna Picchu, left the complex at 11:45 then came back in at our 12-1pm entrance window. This worked out great to get a high view of the complex and the Instagram photo that everyone wants. We arrived at 6am and stayed until 3pm so we were there for almost 9 hours in one day. Considering they only sell 200 tickets a day to Huayna Picchu not many people can say that. Hiking around Machu Picchu doesn’t take a lot of physical fitness but doing Huayna Picchu will take quite a bit of effort. It is almost 1,000ft of elevation gain in about a mile of total distance so the whole thing is all stairs!! 

Tips: There are no bathrooms inside the complex but there are at the entrance. You will need water inside as well so bring a big bottle. There is a restaurant at the entrance and the food is pretty good. You aren’t allowed to bring a selfie stick, tri-pod, drone or even a gimble into the complex.

Inca rail round trip tickets- $150/person

Machu Picchu circuit 1,2,3,&4- $40/person

After 3 we left to head back to the train station for our 4pm train which got us back to Cusco at 9pm.

Today will be another early morning. We leave Cusco to head to Humantay Lake. This is one of the most beautiful lakes in the whole world! It is almost a 3 hour ride to the base of the hike. There it will take about 3-4 hours to reach the top explore and head back down before the 3 hour drive back. This is another strenuous hike, according to my Apple Watch it was about 5 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1,300ft. If this sounds to hard they do offer horses at the bottom so you can ride up and enjoy the view without having to exert any effort. Horses cost about $20 and only give you a ride about 90% up, the last is pretty steep so the horses can’t do it safely. You will need to hike the last 10% along with the way down on your own. You will arrive back in Cusco around 4pm.

https://www.viator.com/search/29542P3?mcid=42383&pid=P00151359&medium=link&campaign=Peru

I know the last few days were early but today is even earlier. Tour leaves at 3am to see Rainbow Mountain. This will be another long ride of 3 hours in a van along windy roads. Leaving early isn’t fun but this means you will beat the crowd. On the way up there was only dozens of people on the trail on the way down there were 100s of people. So leaving early is worth it to beat them all to the top. This is another strenuous hike at 5 miles round trip and 1,100 ft oh elevation gain. This hike starts even higher in elevation than the Humantay Lake ending just under 17,000ft at the summit. Which is only around 600ft below Everest base camp. If you do the trip in the order I have the days listed you should be acclimated to the altitude by now. If you happen to change anything up just make sure you give yourself time to acclimate. About 1/3 of our tour didn’t make it to rainbow mountain summit because of the hike, elevation, and altitude so be prepared. Going to close to the rainy season does run the risk of snow. We went to Rainbow Mountain on Nov 25th and it had be raining all night and the morning of on the way to the mountain but as elevation got higher it turned into snow. This was the first snow of the year they said and by the time we got to the top we weren’t able to see the colors of the mountain. It was still a beautiful hike but still a bummer. You will make it back to Cusco around 3-4pm.

https://www.viator.com/search/186640P1?mcid=42383&pid=P00151359&medium=link&campaign=Peru

Today is a more laid back day. You can sleep in a lot compared to the 2am wake up from the day before. We booked a cooking class to learn how to make traditional Peruvian dishes which was very fun and we loved learning about the history or the dishes. You start out in San Pedro Central Market to buy the ingredients fresh and tour around to look at all the types of fruit, vegetables, meat and cheeses. Then head back to the kitchen to start cooking. Drinks, appetizers, main course, and desserts all from the ingredients you just picked up in the market. The cooking class ends around 1. You can head back to Lima when you want at this point we decided to head back at 3:40pm to land at 5pm in Lima. Once in Lima we took it easy walked around Miraflores, got dinner, and went to bed.

https://www.viator.com/search/8721P57?mcid=42383&pid=P00151359&medium=link&campaign=Peru

Last full day in Peru. We wondered around Miraflores, stopped at Larcomar to explore the mall siting on the cliff with ocean views. After that was walked down the Malecon or the Boardwalk to see Parque del Amor along with the lighthouse. Just between those is an area that people are practicing Paragliding. Here you can sign up to go Paragliding which I can’t recommend enough. After Machu Picchu this was easily number two on our list of top Peru activities.  It was only about 45 mins total that included a car ride to the beach, the ride, then back to where you started on the boardwalk. You will also receive the GoPro video of this flight sent to you on WhatsApp. They do accept cards of you don’t use the link provided below.  After this we went to the cat park which is a park with dozens of cats around just hanging out. Did some shopping before heading to the magic water light show that we wasn’t able to make the first night in Lima. 

11 Day Peru Itinerary

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