How to Visit Machu Picchu — Planning Your Peru Trip

Most people who get sick at Machu Picchu didn't do anything wrong at the ruins. They did something wrong four days earlier — they landed in Cusco at 3,400 metres, felt fine for about six hours, and then woke up at 2am with a headache that felt like their skull was being slowly compressed. Altitude sickness isn't dramatic until it is, and the mistake is almost always the same: underestimating how much the acclimatisation leg of this trip actually matters.

The good news is that Machu Picchu itself sits at 2,430 metres — lower than Cusco — so by the time you reach the ruins, your body is already adapted. The bad news is that getting there properly takes time, sequencing, and some advance booking that most travellers leave too late. This guide walks you through the full 10 to 12 day shape of the trip, the real trade-offs between your route options, and the logistics that will make or break the experience.

Lima is where almost every international flight into Peru arrives, and it's worth at least one full day. The Miraflores and Barranco neighbourhoods have some of the best food on the continent — Maido and Central are the famous names, but even a ceviche lunch at a market counter in Surquillo will recalibrate your expectations. Lima sits at sea level, which makes it a useful staging point before altitude, but it's not the reason you're here.

One night is the minimum; two nights lets you eat well and sleep properly before flying up to Cusco. A direct Lima–Cusco flight takes about 1 hour 20 minutes on LATAM or Sky Airline and costs roughly $60–120 USD depending on how far in advance you book. Fly in the morning if you can — afternoon cloud cover in the Andes sometimes causes delays, and arriving with daylight gives you time to settle before the altitude hits.

Cusco is the part of the trip most people try to abbreviate and later regret. The city sits at 3,400 metres above sea level, and your body needs genuine time to adjust — not a half-day of lying down and hoping for the best. The standard advice is two full days before you do anything strenuous. Three days is better if you plan to hike.

On arrival, go slow. Walk rather than take taxis for short distances, drink more water than feels necessary, and avoid alcohol for the first 24 hours. Coca tea — served everywhere — genuinely helps with mild symptoms. Acetazolamide (Diamox) is worth discussing with a doctor before you travel if you're prone to altitude problems; it works best when started 24 hours before ascent. Most hotels in Cusco offer oxygen on request, and it's worth knowing where to find it.

Cusco itself rewards the slow pace. The San Blas neighbourhood above the Plaza de Armas is full of small workshops and unremarkable-looking doorways that open into beautiful colonial courtyards. The Qorikancha — the Inca sun temple the Spanish built a church on top of — takes about two hours and tells you more about what happened here than any guidebook paragraph. Budget around $8–15 USD for most major sites; the Cusco Tourist Ticket (Boleto Turístico) covers several attractions at roughly $42 USD for a partial circuit or $70 for the full one.

After Cusco, most routes drop down into the Sacred Valley before continuing to Machu Picchu. The valley sits at around 2,800 metres, which makes it a gentler overnight stop than Cusco for people still adjusting. Ollantaytambo, at the far end of the valley, is where most travellers board their train to Aguas Calientes.

The valley is worth a full day rather than a rushed transit. The market town of Pisac has one of the better crafts markets in the region on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays; the Pisac ruins above town are less crowded than Machu Picchu and give you a useful preview of Inca stonework. Ollantaytambo's ruins are genuinely spectacular — the unfinished Sun Temple shows the construction process mid-step, with massive stones still on the ramp — and the town itself is one of the few places in Peru still laid out on the original Inca street grid.

Hiring a driver for the day from Cusco to cover Pisac, lunch in Urubamba, and an afternoon in Ollantaytambo costs around $60–80 USD and avoids the logistical hassle of piecing together local transport with luggage.

This is the decision most people agonise over, and the honest answer is that each option suits a different kind of traveller. None of them is objectively better.

The Classic Inca Trail is four days and three nights, covers 43 kilometres, and arrives at Machu Picchu through the Sun Gate at dawn — which is genuinely one of the best moments in travel. It requires a licensed guide and is capped at 500 people per day (including crew), which means permits sell out months in advance; for peak season (June–August), six to eight months ahead is not excessive. Expect to pay $550–700 USD per person through a reputable agency. The trail is not technically difficult, but the second day — Dead Woman's Pass at 4,215 metres — is a hard physical day. It requires solid fitness and confidence at altitude.

The Salkantay Trek is the most popular alternative: five days, more dramatic mountain scenery, no permit system, and typically $300–450 USD. It doesn't arrive through the Sun Gate, which some people find anticlimactic, but the route through the cloud forest on day four is beautiful and the overall experience is arguably more varied. It's a good choice if the Inca Trail is sold out or if you want more flexibility.

The train is the right call for more travellers than will admit it. Peru Rail and Inca Rail both run services from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes in about 1.5 hours; tickets range from $50–80 USD each way in tourist class and $300+ in the Belmond Hiram Bingham if you want a different kind of day out. Arriving by train means you can spend two nights in Aguas Calientes, visit the ruins on two separate mornings with different light, and not be exhausted when you get there. There's no shame in it.

The ruins themselves require a timed-entry ticket purchased in advance through the Peruvian government's official portal (machupicchu.gob.pe). Tickets sell out. In peak season they sell out weeks, sometimes months, ahead. The price is around $50–60 USD for adults depending on the circuit you choose, and several add-on options — including the hike up Huayna Picchu mountain or Machu Picchu Mountain — carry separate tickets with their own quotas.

Huayna Picchu (the steep mountain in the background of every classic photo) is limited to 400 people per day across two time slots: 7am and 10am. If that's on your list, it needs to be booked before almost anything else. The bus from Aguas Calientes up to the ruins costs around $24 USD return and runs from 5:30am; the queue for the first buses starts before 5am among people trying to reach the Sun Gate at sunrise. If that sounds unappealing, a later start — say 9am — means shorter queues and the same ruins.

May through October is the dry season and the obvious answer. Skies are clear, trails are dry, and the mountains behind the ruins are visible. June, July, and August are peak months — busiest, most expensive, and when trail permits go fastest. May and September are the sweet spot: reliably dry, meaningfully less crowded, and hotel prices about 20–30% lower than July.

The wet season (November–March) brings daily afternoon rain and occasional trail closures. The Inca Trail closes entirely in February for maintenance. That said, the ruins are quieter, the cloud forest is lush, and if you visit in the morning before the rain arrives you'll have the site largely to yourself. It's a genuine option for travellers who can't do May–October — just not with an Inca Trail permit.

One thing the dry season doesn't guarantee: cloud cover at the ruins themselves. Machu Picchu sits in a microclimate that generates mist regardless of season. Some mornings you'll have perfect visibility; others you'll walk into a white wall that clears by 10am or doesn't clear at all. Two days at the site rather than one gives you a second chance.

A realistic 10 to 12 day budget for this route, covering flights within Peru, accommodation, transport, food, and entry fees, looks something like this for a mid-range independent traveller.

Internal flights (Lima–Cusco return): $120–200 USD. Accommodation for 10 nights averaging $50–80 per night: $500–800 USD. Sacred Valley transport and day trip: $60–80 USD. Train to Aguas Calientes return: $100–160 USD. Machu Picchu tickets (two days, bus included): $170–200 USD. Cusco Tourist Ticket: $42–70 USD. Food and incidentals: $300–400 USD. The Inca Trail or Salkantay adds $300–700 USD on top. Total mid-range budget: roughly $1,600–2,500 USD excluding international flights. It's not a cheap trip, but most people who've done it consider it worth it.

Every part of this journey that goes wrong traces back to the same mistake: trying to compress the time. Skipping a Cusco acclimatisation day, booking only one morning at Machu Picchu, leaving the trail permit until three months out, flying into Cusco late and heading to the ruins the next morning. The trip is generous if you give it the days it needs. It's punishing if you don't.

The sequence that works — Lima, two nights; Cusco, three nights; Sacred Valley, one night; Aguas Calientes, two nights — sounds like a lot of moving around, and it is. But each stage has a purpose beyond logistics. You're not just killing time in Cusco waiting for altitude adaptation; you're seeing one of the most interesting colonial cities in South America. The Sacred Valley isn't just a staging post; it's where the context for Machu Picchu starts to make sense. The trip rewards the travellers who treat the whole route as the destination.

If you're starting to map this out — working out which nights go where, when to book the Inca Trail versus the train, how to sequence Cusco and the Valley without doubling back — it helps to have a framework before you start filling in specifics. That's exactly what Daypin builds: a day-by-day structure you can adjust as the details come in, so you're not holding the whole thing in your head at once.