Peru & Bolivia Travel Blog: Expert Guides & Insider Tips 2026

Travelers in the Peruvian Amazon's largest city, Iquitos, have plenty of opportunities to immerse themselves in the local culture, history, and wildlife:

Arequipa is considered Peru's 'second city', after the country's capital Lima, but it is actually considered a trip highlight by most travelers, who are wooed by the city's distinct architecture, savory dishes, and an outsized landscape boasting numerous volcanoes and the deepest canyons in the world…

If you want to explore the sights of Cusco and its surrounding Sacred Valley, you're probably going to need a partial or full tourist ticket, the boleto turístico. This ticket is valid for 1-10 days and offers access to a range of museums and archeological sites that you cannot visit otherwise. Read on for all you need to know.

Machu Picchu is the Peru's main tourist destination, attracting 2,700 to 3,000 visitors each day. 90% of these enter around 6am and leave by midday, while only 10% visit in the afternoon and stay until 4:30pm- a disparity that accelerates the wear and tear on the site, which is literally sinking under the weight. To incentivize afternoon visits, from this month onwards tickets will be sold in shifts (8am-1pm; 1pm-8pm), with 2nd shift tickets being cheaper.

The Gothenburg Shroud is one of the latest successes in a string of victorious attempts to reclaim Peruvian artifacts smuggled out of the country over the last centuries, and the first in a series of shipments from Gothenurg's Museum of World Culture in Sweden. According to chemical tests, it dates back 2,000 years to the Paracas, a pre-Incan culture known for having created impressively intricate textiles.

Grave robbers have tunneled into the massive El Castillo de Huarmey hill four hours outside of Lima for centuries, and yet, to the surprise of everyone, it is the site of one of the most important archeological discoveries in years: an untouched royal Wari tomb housing the bodies of queens and princes, other elites, and human sacrifices. Looters came very close, but found neither the entrance nor the thousand fine artifacts of silver, gold, and more  tucked away inside....