Peru destinations & attractions

Amazonian Peru

The eastern parts of Peru, where the lands have lower elevation and are covered by dense rainforests are great places for ecotourism, jungle treks and various exciting adventure travel trips!

The city of Iquitos in the northeast and the Manu National Park in the southeast are the most attractive for jungle-lovers.

You can see the life of the jungle, take boat tours on the rivers and climb up to towers to admire the jungle panorama. This part of the country is wild, dangerous, yet beautiful. Remember, the Amazon is one of the best conserved areas of the World!

Northern Peru: the Chachapoyan ruins and the big cities

Remains of ancient ruins belonging to the Chachapoyan culture are found in the center-north part of Peru, in the Andes.

Otuzco and the fortress of Kuelap are indeed very different from what you can see in the Sacred Valley. These were build by the Chachapoya people who inhabited the area around the city Cajamarca long before the Incas.

Cities we recommend you to visit in this part are: Trujillo, Cajamarca, Chiclayo, Chachapoyas, Chimbote.

The Sacred Valley, Cuzco, Machu Picchu

Our site is, of course, mainly dedicated to these places. They're Peru's most visited places. A very large majority of tourists heads to see the Incan ruins in and around the valley of the River Vilcanota, they visit the cities and towns in the area, hike & bike and do other activities. 

If you're a first time traveler to Peru, it's these parts that you should visit first!

Our main sections will drive you to many in-depth articles about these destinations, check them out for full information.

Lima & surroundings

"El Ciudád de los Reyes" (City of the Kings), Lima is a huge city of almost 7 million inhabitants (metropolitan area included). All sorts of neighbourhoods exist here, like in any city of South America. From the poor neighbourhoods to the luxurious Miraflores districts, which lies on the Pacific Coast, you'll see plenty.

What you should see in Lima: the churches primarily. Visit the old churches, they're spectacular! 

Then, you should see the Plaza de Armas, where you'll notice uniquely decorated buildings with typical terraces from the colonial era.

Hotels can be very cheap. You can stay in Lima for as little as 10-15 USD, but for good conditions (meaning no smelly room, no insects, etc.) you'll have to be prepared to take out between 40 and 100 USD, depending on how "needy" you are.

Transportation and circuit making

One of the key issues that travelers are facing when travelling to Peru is how to actually get to the attractions. One has to be able to get to relatively remote ruins, towns, villages and big cities. How to make the connection? How can you go around in a circuit and visit everything you want and not have trouble with accommodation and coordination of the periods of stay at certain destinations with those at others?

Let's see.

You would like to get to the Sacred Valley, for example, in order to visit the towns villages, then head for Machu Picchu and finally see the Lake Titicaca region as well. How do you do it?

Most probably you'll start the trip at Lima and then go around the attractions and get back.

So, build yourself a circuit: using maps, software tools, a calculator. Calculate time needed to spend at various locations. Create the circuit with a starting point and a finishing point (which must not necessarily be the same as the starting point).

Select a base for ever region you'd like to visit. For the Lima area and for Peru in general, the capital Lima is good. For the SAcred Valley-Machu Picchu-Cuzco zone, the city of Cuzco is the most adequate. For the Lake Titicaca region, select Puno.

You'll have to go like this: Lima (and visit attractions around) -> Cuzco (and visit attractions around) -> Puno (and visit attractions around) -> Lima (back to the starting point).

Select the transportation method: for each segment of the circuit. For example, in our case you could go from Lima to Cuzco by plane, from Cuzco to Puno most interesting is by train, then from Puno fly to Lima. Around these bases you will travel on foot, by train and road vehicles, perhaps by bicycle as well.

It is always important to select the most important cities, which have regionally centered position. To these spots you'd rather get fast, not much scenery admiration is necessary, you want to get to the base, not loose time on the way there.

Accommodation: you will spend more days and perhaps return multiple times to the bases, because one day you "go out" to some village nearby, the next day to some ruin in another direction.

Coordinating the times and periods of hotel booking and transportation method booking is essential.

In Peru there are many airports. Keep in mind that the major cities all have airports/airfields, even though they don't quite look like New York JFK. You can fly in and out of cities like: Lima, Cuzco, Iquitos, Cajamarca, Chachapoyas, Puno, Arequipa, etc.

Have a nice trip!