13 Wonderful Things To Do In Cusco - ALONG DUSTY ROADS

Use It As A Base for Day Trips

Cusco’s sights on their own could easily be discovered over the course of two or three days. However, many travellers (including us) end up setting up camp and staying in the city for a week or longer.

The reason? There are an incredible number of excellent sights and hikes an hour or two from Cusco and it just makes more sense to use the city as a base instead of leaving it. You can head over to our guide to the best day trips from Cusco for a full breakdown, but the most popular include:

Machu Picchu // Because nobody comes to Cusco without visiting Machu Picchu! The good news is that if you’re short on time, it’s really easy to do visit this Incan highlight on a day trip - but we’d recommend taking a tour to keep the moving parts down to the bare minimum.

There are many companies that offer this as a day trip, but two super popular and highly rated options are this one from GetYourGuide, and this one from Viator. Both include bilingual guide, return train and bus journey, plus citadel entry ticket. Be sure to check out our Machu Picchu guide for full details and what to expect and what you need to know before visiting.

The Pisac Ruins // Easy to visit independently - you can find all the details in our guide to visiting Pisac. Alternatively this tour (which also combine time in Ollantaytambo, Moray and Maras) is also very popular.

Rainbow Mountain // We’re lovers of independent adventures, but Rainbow Mountain is one hike where it really is best to take a tour - like this one with amazing reviews. You can find everything you need to know before attempting this hike in our complete guide to Rainbow Mountain.

Ollantaytambo // It’s easy enough to jump in one of the regular colectivos that zip between Cusco and Ollantaytambo, but if you’re short on time you could consider combining your visit with Pisac, Moray and Maras on this tour. Whichever you choose, be sure to check out our guide to Ollantaytambo.

Moray and Maras // It’s absolutely possible to visit both of this on a singular independent day trip (it’s what we did - we’re still planning to put out that blog post), but it requires A LOT of walking! A good alternative is to join a tour like this super popular one.

Huchuy Cosqo // One of our very favourite hikes not just in Cusco, but in all of Peru. Your can find full details on how to get there and what to expect in our guide to Huchuy Cosqo.

Note that if you are planning on hanging around in Cusco for 4+ days, then the city also has a number of yoga classes available as well as several Spanish schools.