Peru · Private journey
Machu Picchu Tour Packages: 8 or 11 Days from Lima
Photo by Simon P. Toaquiza.
From $2,300 per personfor the 8-day versionFrom $4,200 per personfor the 11-day versionland only · 4 or more sharing
See dates & prices- Lima to CuscoLima to Tambopata
- 8 or 11 days
- 1 country
- 4 bases5 bases
- highest point
- 3,399 m3,399 m
- moderate pace
- Private
Machu Picchu tour packages of eight or eleven days from Lima: two nights low in the Sacred Valley before Cusco, an early entry to the citadel, and the Amazon if you want it.
Most Machu Picchu tour packages are built the same way: fly to Cusco, sleep there the first night at 3,399 m, run the city tour that afternoon, and lose the next morning to a headache. These two do it in the other order, and the order is the whole product.
Why the valley comes before Cusco
From Cusco airport we drive past the city and down to Urubamba, on the floor of the Sacred Valley at 2,871 m. Two nights there, one in Aguas Calientes at 2,040 m, and only then two nights in Cusco.
We will be precise about what that buys you. The US CDC’s guidance is that two to three nights at 2,450 to 2,750 m before going higher is “markedly protective”. The valley floor sits just above that band, so the honest claim is materially safer than sleeping in Cusco first, not risk-free. And the citadel itself, at 2,430 m, is below the 2,450 m at which the CDC considers an unacclimatised traveller at risk at all. The detail, with sources, is in our South America altitude guide.
Machu Picchu tickets fix your dates
Everything else on this trip can move a day. The entry ticket cannot. Tickets are sold only through the Ministry of Culture’s official system, tuboleto.cultura.pe, with a timed entry on one of three circuits, and every circuit and route is a different walk through the site.
The daily cap for 2026 is 5,600 visitors in high season, which includes 19 June to 2 November, and 4,500 the rest of the year. In practice the ticket is the first thing we book once you say yes, then the train around it, then the flights around the train. It is also why the night in Aguas Calientes is in both versions: it is what makes an early entry possible without a 4 a.m. start in the valley.
The Mandor waterfall, in the cloud forest below Machu Picchu near Aguas Calientes, where you spend the night of day five. Photo by Simon P. Toaquiza.
When to go
The Andes have a dry season from May to September and a wet one from November to March. Machu Picchu is open all year; what changes is the mud, the cloud and the train. The classic Inca Trail, if you were thinking of walking in instead of taking the train, closes every February; in 2026 it was shut from 31 January to 28 February.
The month-by-month numbers, including why April and May are not as quiet as everyone says, are in our guide to the best time to visit Peru.
Humantay lake, below the glaciers of the Cusco range. It is not in either version: a long day out from Cusco that needs a day of its own if you want it. Photo by Simon P. Toaquiza.
The eleven-day version: why Tambopata
Peru has two Amazons, and only one of them fits after Cusco. Iquitos, in the north, cannot be reached by road and is flown to from Lima, so you would backtrack before you start. Puerto Maldonado is a short flight from Cusco, and from there the lodge is about an hour by road and an hour by boat up the Tambopata river. Its driest months are June to August.
The extension adds three nights, not two, because the first and last days in the forest are travel. The comparison between the two jungles, and what each add-on costs in days, is laid out in our Peru itinerary guide.
The flights, and why the morning one
The flight from Lima to Cusco runs nonstop on LATAM, SKY and JetSMART and takes an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. We book a morning departure: in the wet season, from November to March, it is the afternoon flights into Cusco that tend to run late.
Both packages are priced land only. Lima to Cusco and back, and on the longer version Cusco to Puerto Maldonado and Puerto Maldonado to Lima, are quoted separately so that you can compare our price with a package that hides them, and see the difference. For what the full trip costs once flights are in, the South America travel cost guide breaks it down.
Want Lake Titicaca and Bolivia as well?
Then this is the wrong page. Our Peru and Bolivia tour uses the same first week and carries on overland to Puno, La Paz and the Uyuni salt flats in thirteen days. If you also want Galapagos, Machu Picchu and Galapagos puts the two in one trip. Every other way of seeing the country is on our Peru tours page.
The shape of it
Where this trip actually goes
Day by day
Three lengths, one trip
The version we recommend for a first trip. Two nights in the valley before Cusco, one night at the foot of the citadel for an early entry, and two in Cusco at the end, when the altitude no longer costs you anything.
Day 1
Land in Lima
Overnight: Boutique hotel, MirafloresA transfer to Miraflores and nothing else. Most flights from North America and Europe arrive late, so the first day is for sleeping. If you land in daylight, the clifftop path above the Pacific is a ten-minute walk from the hotel.
Day 2
Lima: the old centre and Museo Larco
Overnight: Boutique hotel, MirafloresThe colonial centre in the morning, lunch in the city that taught the rest of Peru how to eat, and the pre-Columbian collection at Museo Larco in the afternoon. An early night: tomorrow you climb almost three thousand metres in a morning.
Day 3
Morning flight to Cusco, straight down to the valley
Overnight: Country hotel, UrubambaThe flight takes an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. We book the morning one on purpose. From Cusco airport you drive past the city and down to Urubamba, five hundred metres lower, and the afternoon is yours to do nothing in.
Day 4
Maras and Moray
Overnight: Country hotel, UrubambaThe salt pans of Maras, still worked by hand, and the circular terraces of Moray, sunk into the ground like an amphitheatre. A slow day at the same altitude as the night before, which is the point of it.
Day 5
Ollantaytambo and the train to Aguas Calientes
Overnight: Riverside hotel, Aguas CalientesThe fortress terraces of Ollantaytambo while the morning light is on them, then the train down the Urubamba canyon, about an hour and a half. You sleep in Aguas Calientes so that tomorrow starts at the gate, not on a platform.
Day 6
Machu Picchu at opening, then up to Cusco
Overnight: Boutique hotel, central CuscoOne of the first buses up, your timed entry with a private guide, and enough time inside to sit down. The afternoon train back to Ollantaytambo and the road to Cusco, where you arrive with three Andean nights already behind you.
Day 7
Cusco on foot
Overnight: Boutique hotel, central CuscoThe Qorikancha, where the convent sits on top of the Inca temple and you can see the join; Sacsayhuaman above the city; San Blas and its workshops in the afternoon. Nothing that needs an alarm clock.
Day 8
Fly out through Lima
Departure dayTransfer to Cusco airport for the flight to Lima and your connection home. If your international flight leaves before the afternoon, we move the Cusco flight earlier rather than leave you short of time.
The same seven days, then a short flight from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado and three nights in a rainforest lodge on the Tambopata river. It is the jungle that fits after Cusco without going back to Lima first.
Day 1
Land in Lima
Overnight: Boutique hotel, MirafloresA transfer to Miraflores and nothing else. Most long-haul flights arrive late, so the first day is for sleeping, or for the clifftop path above the Pacific if you land early.
Day 2
Lima: the old centre and Museo Larco
Overnight: Boutique hotel, MirafloresThe colonial centre in the morning, a long lunch, and the pre-Columbian collection at Museo Larco in the afternoon. An early night before the climb.
Day 3
Morning flight to Cusco, straight down to the valley
Overnight: Country hotel, UrubambaAn hour and a quarter to an hour and a half in the air, on the morning flight. From Cusco airport you drive past the city and down to Urubamba, five hundred metres lower.
Day 4
Maras and Moray
Overnight: Country hotel, UrubambaThe hand-worked salt pans of Maras and the circular terraces of Moray, at the same altitude as the night before.
Day 5
Ollantaytambo and the train to Aguas Calientes
Overnight: Riverside hotel, Aguas CalientesThe fortress terraces in the morning, then about an hour and a half on the train down the Urubamba canyon. A night at the foot of the citadel.
Day 6
Machu Picchu at opening, then up to Cusco
Overnight: Boutique hotel, central CuscoAn early bus, your timed entry with a private guide, the afternoon train back to Ollantaytambo and the road up to Cusco.
Day 7
Cusco on foot
Overnight: Boutique hotel, central CuscoThe Qorikancha, Sacsayhuaman and San Blas, at the pace of someone who has finally acclimatised.
Day 8
Fly to Puerto Maldonado and up the Tambopata
Overnight: Rainforest lodge, TambopataA short flight down from the Andes to the lowland forest. From Puerto Maldonado it is about an hour by road and another hour by boat up the Tambopata river to the lodge, which is how you know you have left town.
Day 9
The forest with a naturalist
Overnight: Rainforest lodge, TambopataOut at first light, when the forest is loudest, with the lodge's naturalist guide. The afternoon on the river or a lake by canoe, and a night walk after dinner for what only comes out in the dark.
Day 10
A second full day in the reserve
Overnight: Rainforest lodge, TambopataWhat this day holds depends on the lodge and on how high the river is, which is why we name the lodge and its programme when we quote rather than promise a sighting here.
Day 11
Downriver and the flight to Lima
Departure dayBack by boat and road to Puerto Maldonado and a direct flight to Lima, about an hour and thirty-five minutes, in time for an evening connection home.
What is included
- Every hotel night for the length you choose, with breakfast: a boutique hotel in Miraflores, a country hotel in the Sacred Valley, a riverside hotel in Aguas Calientes and a boutique hotel in central Cusco.
- Private English-speaking guide and driver in the Sacred Valley, at Machu Picchu and in Cusco, and every airport and station transfer.
- Machu Picchu entry with a timed slot, booked on the official ticket system as soon as your dates are fixed.
- The train between Ollantaytambo and Aguas Calientes in both directions, and the buses up to the citadel and back down.
- Entry to every site in the day-by-day plan: Maras, Moray, Ollantaytambo, the Qorikancha and Sacsayhuaman.
- On the eleven-day version: three nights in a Tambopata rainforest lodge with all meals, the lodge's naturalist guide, its excursions and the boat and road transfers from Puerto Maldonado.
- The meals marked in the table. The rest are left free on purpose: Lima and Cusco are better eaten outside the hotel.
What is not
- International flights, quoted separately so that our price can be compared with anyone else's.
- Internal flights: Lima to Cusco and Cusco to Lima, or on the eleven-day version Cusco to Puerto Maldonado and Puerto Maldonado to Lima. We book them with you and add them up in the quote.
- Huayna Picchu or Machu Picchu Mountain permits, which have a separate daily quota.
- Travel insurance, which we ask you to arrange before departure.
- Drinks, tips and personal spending.
Make it yours
This is a starting point, not a package
Every one of these days can move, and so does the length. Tell us what you have and we rebuild it around you, usually within a working day.