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

There has been much ado about quinua this year, and whether the rising popularity of the highly nutritive grain will actually benefit the poorer Andean communities in which it's grown. Yet if the intensive Bolivian efforts to popularize quinua worldwide are any indication, Bolivia expects to benefit greatly from the grain's rising profile.

Following the exciting announcement that the world longest auto race, the Dakar Rally, will pass through Bolivian territory for the first time next year, Bolivian authorities began a flurry of preparations this week. President Evo Morales has promised millions in investments to provide electricity, potable water, and 4G mobile telephony for communities along the route and formed a committee to coordinate logistics.

Permits for the Classic 4-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu have sold out through mid-July. In the face of the overwhelming demand for the Inca Trail, a variety of alternative treks are growing in popularity. Although they are not as well-known, and thus lack some of the cache of the Inca Trail, these more affordable options can be booked with less notice, cost less, and are less trafficked...

10% of Peru's territory is protected in national parks, natural reserves, and historic sanctuaries. The 35 zones managed by the SERNANP state agency were visited by record numbers last year- 150,000 more than the previous year. Some of the top sites, such as Machu Picchu Historical Sanctuary and Titicaca National Reserve, were expected; others were surprises, such as Huascarán National Park, and still others, especially in the Amazon, surprises by their absence...

Archeologists in Peru announced the discovery of an ancient temple at El Paraiso Archeological Complex in the Chillon valley just northeast of Lima. Dating back 5,000 years, the newly discovered temple (dubbed the Temple of Fire) will provide invaluable insight into one of the Americas' oldest populated sites.

The shipbuilding residents of the small island of Suriqui on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca are planning a new and ambitious undertaking: the construction of a totora reed ship, built only with the same pre-Columbian methods these Aymara descendents have been using for the last thousand years, to sail on a trans-oceanic excursion from New York to Spain via the Canary Islands in May or June of 2014.