Ticket rules change, permits sell out months ahead, and half the advice online is years out of date. We check the official sources and put the date on every page.
These are the ones people get wrong most often — and where a mistake costs you a booking, a permit, or a day of your trip.
Tickets sell out months ahead and the rules change often. Here is what actually applies right now.
4,500–5,600 daily visitor cap, by season — book early
Permits, alternatives when the Classic Trail is full, and how hard each route really is.
~200 trekker places a day, of a 500-person cap
The base for everything in the Sacred Valley — and where altitude hits you first.
Altitude, safety, money and getting around — the practical side.
What to eat, what it costs, and recipes you can make at home.
Peru is one of the most written-about destinations in the world and one of the worst served by that writing. Entry rules for Machu Picchu have been revised repeatedly. Circuit names and numbers change. Permit quotas shift. Yet most of what ranks in search was written years ago, has never been revisited, and was copied from a page that was already out of date.
The cost of that is real: a wrong circuit number means the wrong ticket, and a wrong permit date means no trek at all. So we took the opposite approach — fewer pages, each checked against the body that actually sets the rule, each carrying the date we checked it.
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If you are planning a first trip, read trip planning before anything else — altitude should shape your itinerary before your interests do. If your dates are already fixed and fall between June and August, deal with Machu Picchu tickets and Inca Trail permits first: those are the two things that sell out and cannot be fixed later.
The short answers. Each links through to the page that covers it properly, because most of these deserve more than a paragraph.
Most European, North American, British and Australian passport holders do not for tourism, and are admitted for up to 90 days. Your passport must be valid for six months beyond arrival. Requirements depend on nationality and change — confirm with MIGRACIONES or a Peruvian consulate.
May to September is dry in the Andes: clear views, cold nights, the most visitors and the highest prices. April and October are the compromise most people prefer. Note the coast runs opposite — Lima is grey from June to October and sunny in January. Season by season.
Ten days covers Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu without rushing. Two weeks lets you add Arequipa and Colca, or the Amazon. Seven is possible but much of it goes on transit. Working out your days.
Broadly yes, with normal city precautions. Opportunistic theft — phones and bags in crowds, at markets and bus stations — is the common problem rather than violence. Use a ride app or registered taxi at night. Tourist police: (01) 460 1060. Safety in detail.
Excluding flights, roughly US$30–50 a day on a budget, US$70–120 mid-range. Machu Picchu is the outlier: entry, train and bus together run well over US$150 for a single day, whatever your budget elsewhere.
English is common in hotels and agencies in Cusco, Lima and Aguas Calientes, and rare outside them. A hundred words of Spanish changes what you pay in markets and taxis more than it changes whether you are understood.
Cusco sits at 3,400 m and most visitors feel something for a day or two — headache, breathlessness, poor sleep. It is unrelated to fitness. Schedule nothing for your first afternoon, and allow two to three nights before any trek. This is general information, not medical advice. What actually helps.
No. Use bottled or properly filtered water, and be careful with ice in cheap places. Most travellers' stomach trouble in Peru comes from water rather than food. Eating and drinking safely.
The sol (PEN). Cards work in city hotels and larger restaurants; cash is needed in markets, small towns and most taxis. When an ATM offers to charge you in your own currency, decline — choosing soles is almost always cheaper. Money and cards.
Yes, and the crowding is manageable if you plan around it. Entry is timed and circuits are one-way, so numbers are spread through the day. The first slot and the last two hours are the quietest. Tickets and circuits.
Anything we have not covered — or a page where our answer no longer matches what you found on the ground — please write to hello@perupulse.com. Corrections get priority over everything else.