Destinations
Peru is more than a destination
From the Pacific coast to the Andes and the Amazon, Peru is a country of extraordinary landscapes, ancient cultures and unforgettable encounters.
Coast
The Pacific Coast
Desert oases, pre-Columbian cities and the kitchens that made Peru a culinary destination. The coast is where most journeys begin — and where few travelers stay long enough.
Lima
The kitchen of South America
Most travelers treat Lima as an airport with a city attached. Give it two days and it becomes the reason you understood Peru: pre-Inca pyramids between apartment blocks, a coastline of cliffs, and some of the best restaurants on the continent.
Paracas
Desert meets Pacific
A national reserve where red cliffs fall straight into the ocean and offshore islands hold sea lions, Humboldt penguins and bird colonies dense enough to hear from the boat.
Huacachina
An oasis in the dunes
A genuine desert oasis ringed by dunes several hundred metres high. Buggies at sunset, sandboarding down the faces, and pisco distilleries in the valley below.
Trujillo
Capital of the Moche route
Chan Chan is the largest adobe city ever built in the Americas, and almost no one is there. Add the painted temples of the Moche, reed fishing boats unchanged in 2,000 years, and the north’s formidable cooking.
Chiclayo
Royal tombs of the Moche
The tomb of the Lord of Sipán was found intact — the richest undisturbed burial ever excavated in the Americas, and a find routinely compared to Tutankhamun’s.
Northern Beaches
Warm water, year round
Máncora, Vichayito and Punta Sal: the only stretch of Peruvian coast where the ocean is genuinely warm. Long left-hand waves, whale watching in season and the right place to end a long journey.
Andes
The Andes
Inca citadels, weaving villages and the highest navigable lake in the world. The Andes hold the Peru everyone comes for, and the corners almost no one sees.
Cusco
Capital of the Inca world
Inca foundations carry colonial churches, and the stonework still defeats modern masons. Most people pass through on the way to Machu Picchu; the city rewards anyone who stays.
Machu Picchu
Worth the cliché
Entry is timed and capped, which is good news: with the right slot and a private guide, you can still have the terraces in near silence. Arrive by train, on foot via the Inca Trail, or both.
Sacred Valley
Where to acclimatise properly
Lower and warmer than Cusco, which makes it the sensible place to spend your first nights. Terraced fortresses, weaving cooperatives and villages that still run on the Inca calendar.
Arequipa & Colca
White stone and condors
A city built from white volcanic stone beneath three volcanoes, and two hours north, a canyon twice the depth of the Grand Canyon where condors ride the morning thermals at eye level.
Lake Titicaca
The highest navigable lake on earth
Floating islands built entirely from reed, and inhabited islands where families still host travellers in their own homes. Stay the night — the day trip misses the point entirely.
Huaraz & Cordillera Blanca
The highest tropical range in the world
Glacial lakes the colour of antifreeze beneath 6,000-metre peaks. This is where Peruvians go to walk, and it remains almost unknown to international travellers.
Chachapoyas
A fortress older than the Incas
Kuélap holds more stone than the Great Pyramid and sits in cloud forest at 3,000 metres. Nearby, Gocta falls for 771 metres. On most days you will share both with almost no one.
Amazon
The Amazon
Sixty percent of Peru is rainforest. Macaw clay licks at dawn, river lodges reached only by boat, and communities who have lived here for generations.
Iquitos & the Amazon River
The largest city unreachable by road
You arrive by plane or by boat, and nothing else. From here, river lodges and small expedition vessels reach the Pacaya-Samiria reserve, where pink dolphins are a routine sighting.
Tambopata
Macaws at first light
The easiest serious rainforest to reach from Cusco — under an hour by plane. Its clay licks draw hundreds of macaws and parrots at dawn, one of the great wildlife spectacles of South America.