Machu Picchu is one morning. Cusco is the other nine days.
Which train gets you to the citadel and back in daylight. What a trek without a permit costs. Whether Vinicunca is worth a 4am pickup on your second day at altitude. Reviews of every tour you can book out of Cusco.
Four days a Cusco week gets built around.
Book these first and the rest of the itinerary arranges itself. What each one costs, and what the travellers who went say about it.
01The one you came forFull-Day Group Tour of Machu PicchuTrain down the Urubamba gorge, the shuttle up the switchbacks, a guide inside the citadel and the same seat home that evening.
02The valley daySacred Valley & Maras Salt Mines Tour with LunchMoray, the salt pans above Maras and lunch in the valley floor. Lower than Cusco, which is why it belongs early in the week.
03The first altitude dayHumantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet LunchA glacier lake at 4,200 metres, an hour of steep walking to reach it, breakfast on the way up and a buffet on the way back.
04The colour dayRainbow Mountain Tour and Red Valley Hike (Optional)Vinicunca in the morning light, then the Red Valley over the ridge that most groups skip.
Four ways up to Machu Picchu, and what each one asks of you.
Everyone arrives at the same gate. The difference is whether you spend four hours on a train or four days on a mountain, and what it costs to reserve the version you want.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchu
By train, there and backOllantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, guided, no walking beyond the citadel.
The four-day Inca TrailDead Woman’s Pass, three camps, the Sun Gate at first light.
Salkantay, no permit neededA 4,600-metre pass under the glacier, and beds instead of a permit lottery.
The one-day Inca TrailKm 104 to the Sun Gate in an afternoon, then the citadel the next morning.
All 195 ways into Machu Picchu →
The valley is 600 metres lower than Cusco. Go there first.
Terraced circles cut into a hillside at Moray, three thousand salt pans stepping down a ravine at Maras, weavers at Chinchero and a fortress you climb at Ollantaytambo. It is also the easiest air you will breathe all week.
- 1Sacred Valley & Maras Salt Mines Tour with Lunchfrom $28
- 2Moray, Maras Salt Mines & Chinchero Weavers Tourfrom $15
- 3Sacred Valley, Pisac, Ollantaytambo, Salt Mines Morayfrom $28
The high days out of Cusco, and the ones that start at four in the morning.
Vinicunca, Humantay, the seven lakes under Ausangate. Every one of them is a pre-dawn pickup, two hours of minibus and a walk that gets harder with each hundred metres. Give yourself two days in the city first.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Cusco.
Every Cusco tour we have reviewed →Ordered the way demand orders them, with what each costs and what earns it the slot.
1
Humantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet Lunch
Leave Cusco before dawn for Humantay Lake, a steep high-altitude hike with views of Salkantay and Humantay peaks. Guides such as Jonathan, Eduardo, Kevin, and Waldir are known for pacing groups carefully. Breakfast in Mollepata, a buffet lunch, transport, and emergency oxygen are included.
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
What a day out of Cusco actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between a valley day and a citadel day is the widest number in Peruvian travel, and it is worth understanding before you book.
City walks, the valley loop, quad tracks above Maras, the high lakes with breakfast thrown in.
Cooking classes, private valley days, Rainbow Mountain with a small group, the shorter treks.
Anything with a Machu Picchu train ticket inside it, the four-day treks, and the observatory-car train.
- 1Full-Day Group Tour of Machu Picchufrom $321
- 2Machu Picchu Day Trip from Cuscofrom $336
- 3Full-Day Tour from Cusco with Optional Lunchfrom $283
Cusco sits at 3,400 metres. Plan the first two days around that.
The city is higher than almost anywhere you have arrived from, and the standard advice is real: walk slowly, eat lightly, and leave the 5,000-metre viewpoints until day three. These are the things worth doing while your body catches up, all of them inside the city or below it.
Three things you can only do from Cusco.
Ruins and mountain viewpoints exist all over the Andes. A grass bridge rewoven every June, a glass capsule bolted to a cliff and three thousand hand-cut salt pans do not.
The Qeswachaka Rope Bridge
Four communities cut and twist grass rope for three days each June, then cut the old bridge loose and let it fall into the Apurimac. What hangs there now is the last Inca suspension bridge still made the way it was five hundred years ago. It is a long day south of the city, most of it in a van, and the crossing itself takes about a minute.
- 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
The Glass Pods at Ollantaytambo
Transparent capsules hang 400 metres above the Urubamba, reached by a via ferrata up the rock face or a zip line traverse across it. You sleep in one, watch the valley go dark through the ceiling, and come down the other way in the morning. Nobody carries your bag up for you.
- 1Salkantay Trek 4 Days to Machu Picchu by Glamping Sky Lodge Dome★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 68 reviews
- 2Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu 5D/4N or 4D/3N by glamping★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 35 reviews
- 3Via Ferrata and Sky Lodge Zipline★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 16 reviews
The Salt Pans at Maras
A warm salt spring comes out of the mountain and has been channelled into terraced evaporation pools for longer than anyone can date. Around three thousand of them step down the ravine, still worked by the families who own them, and the colour shifts from white to rust depending on how far along each pan is.
- 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
Four Cusco bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this city can be sorted over breakfast the day before. These four run on government permits, entry slots and a train timetable that has no interest in when you land.
- 014-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with AccommodationPeru caps trail permits per day and sells them months ahead. When the day is gone it is gone, and the alternative is Salkantay.
- 02Machu Picchu 2-Day Inca Trail with Panoramic TrainCitadel entry runs on timed slots tied to a circuit, and the trains into Aguas Calientes fill before the tickets do.
- 03Rainbow Mountain Tour and Red Valley Hike (Optional)These leave between 3am and 4am and the small-group departures sell out first. The late ones arrive with everybody else.
- 04Humantay Lake Tour with Breakfast and Buffet LunchA handful of capsules, one night each. There is no second departure to move to.
Six places a Cusco week keeps returning to.
The citadel, the valley below the city, the coloured ridge, the fortress town, the streets built on Inca foundations and the lake that takes a whole day. Each one with the best day out we found for it.
By place — the city, the valley, the high country
By kind of day — train, trail, kitchen or quad bike
Cusco low, then the valley, then the citadel, then the high ridge.
HumantayThe newest Cusco tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Exclusive Huayna Picchu Tour in 1 Day from Cusco
Read our review →
2 Day – Short Inca Trail to Machu Picchu – Group Service
Read our review →
5 Day – Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu – Group Service
Read our review →
Private Tour Sacred Valley, Chinchero, Maras Moray, Ollantaytambo
Read our review →
6 day Rainbow Mountain x Ausangate Trek – FlashpackerConnect
Read our review →
Palccoyo Rainbow Mountains Full Day Tour from Cusco
Read our review →
Rainbow Mountain Perú Full Day Group Shared Service
Read our review →
