In short
May and October. Both sit either side of the dry season, so you get clear skies and firm paths without June's crowds or February's rain. If your dates are fixed by school holidays, September is the best of the summer options and late October beats February by a distance.
Most guides to this question are written for travellers who can go whenever they like. Almost nobody can. If you are flying from the UK, your dates are usually decided by school terms, annual leave and the price of a flight in August — and those constraints pull against Peru’s best months in ways worth understanding before you book anything.
So this guide answers two questions. When is Machu Picchu genuinely at its best, and what do you do when you cannot go then.
Of the two months we would pick, May arrives straight after the rains, when the valley is green rather than dusty. October is drier underfoot and quieter on the trails, with the wet season still a few weeks away. Either one spares you the queues of June to August and the downpours of January to March.
Month by month
| Months | Season | Rain | Crowds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January – March | Wet, low season | Heaviest. February averages around 288 mm over 22 rainy days | Lowest of the year | Cheapest, greenest, wettest. The Inca Trail shuts in February |
| April – May | Shoulder | Falling fast | Moderate | May is our pick. Green valley, dry paths |
| June – August | Dry, high season | Least. July averages around 54 mm over just 2 rainy days | Very high | Best weather, worst queues, dearest flights |
| September – October | Shoulder | Still low | Moderate | October is our other pick. Quiet and clear |
| November – December | Wet returning | Rising | Moderate, then busy over Christmas | Fine in November, hectic by late December |
Machu Picchu takes roughly 1,989 mm of rain a year, which is more than twice what London gets. It is a cloud forest, not a desert. Even in July it rains sometimes, and in February it rains most days.
Temperatures move far less than the rain does. Expect daytime highs of about 15–16°C at the citadel all year, dropping to 3–8°C overnight. Aguas Calientes, 1,400 m lower down the valley, holds 10–13°C at night year-round. The practical consequence is that you dress for a cold morning and a hot midday in every single month.
The problem with British school holidays
This is the part other guides skip, and it is the part that decides most trips.
| When you are free | What Peru is doing | What we’d say |
|---|---|---|
| February half-term | Wettest month of the year. The Inca Trail is closed all February | Avoid unless you have no choice. Take the Salkantay or Lares trek instead |
| Easter | Shoulder season, decent weather | Good — but early April is a Peruvian holiday period with raised visitor caps and heavy demand |
| Summer holidays, late July to early September | Peak dry season and peak crowds. Flights from the UK are at their dearest | Workable. Push into September if you possibly can |
| October half-term | Shoulder season, quiet, dry | The best half-term of the year for Peru |
| Christmas | Wet season, and Peruvian holidays on 30–31 December raise the caps | Doable, but you are paying peak airfare for wet-season weather |
There is also a trap in the instinct to escape a British winter. January and February feel like the obvious months to fly somewhere warm — and they are precisely Peru’s wettest, when the Inca Trail closes and the mist can sit on the citadel until mid-morning.
If your dates genuinely cannot move, say so when you enquire. February is not a write-off; it just needs a different itinerary, and that is our job rather than yours.
May to October: the dry season
Predictable sun, hard paths, and the views you have seen in photographs. June, July and August are the peak: entry slots sell out, trains fill, and the popular circuits go months ahead.
The temperature swing catches people out. A 6 a.m. start in Aguas Calientes can be 8°C, and by one o’clock you are at 22°C with high-altitude UV coming through thin cloud. Layers and real sun cream, not an afterthought.
November to April: the wet season
Daily showers, high humidity, slippery stone. December to February are the wettest.
It is not the second-rate option some guides suggest. The valley is green, the orchids are out, and mist moving through the terraces gives you photographs the dry season cannot. Crowds thin out noticeably. If you are comfortable in proper waterproofs and boots with real grip, the wet season rewards you.
What it does not permit is the classic Inca Trail in February.
What time of day to walk in
Two windows are worth targeting.
First entry, around 6 a.m. Cool air, mist in the ruins, and the site at its emptiest. The gamble is that the cloud sometimes does not lift until eight, so you may be photographing fog rather than stonework.
Mid-afternoon, from about 3 p.m. Day-trippers have to leave to catch trains back to Cusco, so the site empties from two o’clock. You get low golden light and quiet until the 5.30 p.m. closure.
The hours in between are the busiest of the day in every season.
When the Inca Trail closes
Every February, for maintenance and ecological recovery at the height of the rains. Machu Picchu itself stays open.
If February is your only window, the alternatives all end at the same place:
- Salkantay — higher, wilder, and open all year
- Lares — gentler, with more village life along the way
- Quarry Trail — quiet and short, and it runs year-round
How far ahead to book
Further than feels reasonable, because supply is capped by law rather than by how many people want to go.
- June to August: three to four months ahead, minimum
- September to May: four to six weeks is usually enough
- Huayna Picchu: four months ahead whatever the season. It is limited to 400 people a day
- Inca Trail permits: released by Peru’s Ministry of Culture each November for the following year. The 2026 permits came out in stages between 17 and 25 November 2025, and May, June and July went within hours
That last point is the one that catches British travellers. If you want to walk the Inca Trail in the summer holidays, you are booking roughly ten months out.
The 2026 caps, in plain numbers
Peru limits daily entry, and the limit changes by date:
- 5,600 visitors a day on peak dates — 1 January, 2–5 April, 19 June to 2 November, and 30–31 December
- 4,500 a day the rest of the year
Those visitors are spread across ten sub-circuits, colour-coded on the ground, and you choose your route when you buy the ticket. You cannot change circuit on arrival — the Ministry of Culture does not allow it. Circuit 2, the classic route with the postcard view and the Main Plaza, sells out first.
One change worth knowing for 2026: Inca Trail Route 6 is running again after two years closed, capped at 100 walkers a day.
How many days you need
Two full days at Machu Picchu, with a night in Aguas Calientes so that you can be at the gate for the first entry rather than stepping off a train at eleven.
Before that, give Cusco or the Sacred Valley two to three days to acclimatise. Cusco sits at 3,400 m. Machu Picchu is 2,430 m — nearly a kilometre lower — so the citadel is the easy part. It is the days before it that need planning.
If you tell us your dates, we will tell you honestly what they will be like. If they are a bad fit, we would rather say so before you book than after you arrive.
Weather figures are long-term averages and will not predict your week. Entry caps, circuit rules and permit release dates come from Peru's Ministry of Culture and change without much notice — we check them before quoting any date.