No permit lottery
Salkantay, the Inca Jungle, Llactapata and Huchuy Qosqo. Higher, emptier and available when the Inca Trail has been fully booked since January.
7 tripsfrom £295 per person
Two days on the old road from Cusco down into the Sacred Valley, over high grassland past lakes and llamas to the Inca site of Huchuy Qosqo, with one night camped at Pukamarca. Then the Short Inca Trail from Km 104 to the Sun Gate and a guided morning at the citadel.
Seventy kilometres joining Peru's two great routes. Two days on the wild Salkantay side over the Frozen Inca Pass at 5,100 m, then four on the Classic Inca Trail over Dead Woman's Pass and through Runkurakay, Sayacmarca and Wiñay Wayna to the Sun Gate.
Five days from the glaciers to the jungle — Humantay Lake, the Salkantay pass at 4,630 m, a coffee farm in the Lucmabamba valley, the view of Machu Picchu from Llactapata, and the citadel itself. No permit lottery, and you sleep in glass domes rather than tents.
Humantay Lake, the Salkantay pass at 4,630 m, the coffee farm at Lucmabamba, the view of Machu Picchu from Llactapata and the citadel itself — the full route, compressed into four days and two nights in glass domes.
Sixty kilometres of downhill riding from Abra Málaga, class III rafting on the Urubamba, a day on an original stretch of Inca road, a coffee farm, five ziplines over the Salkantay river, and Machu Picchu at the end of it. The least conventional way to reach the citadel.
Sixty kilometres of downhill riding from Abra Málaga, class III rafting, the Cocalmayo hot springs and a night in a glass dome on day one. Then coffee, five ziplines and the railway walk into Machu Picchu Pueblo, and the citadel on day three.
Ziplines and hot springs on day one, then twenty-four kilometres on an original Inca path to the Llactapata ruins and their view of Machu Picchu across the valley. The highest point is 2,700 m — seven hundred metres below Cusco.
Tell us your dates and how much walking you want to do, and we will tell you which of these fits — including when the honest answer is one of the cheaper ones.
