What a Private Trip to Peru Really Costs in 2026

Written in Cusco by the people who run the trips.

Most articles about the cost of Peru are written for someone travelling alone on fifty dollars a day. This one is not. I run a travel company in Cusco, and these are the prices we actually charge for private, tailor-made trips — plus what is not in them, and the decisions that quietly change what you get for the same money.

The real range

Per person, sharing a double or triple room, in US dollars. Comfort is 3-star hotels, Exclusive 4-star, Luxury 5-star. Every trip below is private: your guide, your vehicle, your dates.

Travelling alone costs more, because the vehicle, the guide and the room are not shared: in Comfort, a solo traveller pays between 1,709 and 6,049 depending on the trip.

Our Inca Trail treks are not priced here. Permits are limited, released by the government, and what you pay depends on what is available when you ask. The trail also closes every February for maintenance.

The trek is not a separate trip either. It is a piece we add to a longer itinerary — Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Lake Titicaca, the Amazon — and the route is built around it. Our advice, from years of watching how it goes: arrive in Cusco first, spend a few days in the Sacred Valley and the city, and start the trek after that. Landing in Cusco and walking two days later is how a good trek turns into a hard one. Tell us your dates and we will place the trail where it works inside your trip.

What the three tiers actually change

The hotel is the obvious part. The train is the part nobody mentions.

• Comfort travels on the Expedition train.
• Exclusive and Luxury travel on the Vistadome Observatory, with panoramic windows and an open-air car.

The Hiram Bingham, and what it really includes

The Hiram Bingham is not included in any of our trips, and it is the one upgrade worth explaining properly. It runs on its own schedule and its own itinerary, so we do not slot it in: we rebuild the day around it and quote it inside your programme as a whole, not as a ticket bought on the side.

It is not only a train ride. Depending on the leg you book, it includes:

• A meal on board — lunch on the way up, dinner on the way down, both if you travel round trip.
• A private bus charter between the town and the citadel for that leg.
• Afternoon tea at the Sanctuary Lodge, beside the entrance, on the return journey.
• When booked in advance, your afternoon entrance to Machu Picchu on Circuit 3.

Because it changes the shape of the day, we price it with the rest of your itinerary rather than quote it as a standalone fare. Ask us and we will tell you what it costs on your dates.

What is not included

• International flights, and domestic flights too. Peru's internal routes change price constantly, so we quote them separately instead of burying an out-of-date number inside a package price.
• Tips. Normal here, never obligatory. We tell you what is customary before you travel.
• Meals outside the itinerary. The meals written into your day are included; the dinners you choose on your own are not.

The season is not what moves the price

This surprises people. June to August, the busiest months, cost about the same as the quiet ones.

Prices do rise, by roughly eight to ten per cent, around the dates when the whole country is full: Inti Raymi in June, Semana Santa, Fiestas Patrias at the end of July, Christmas and New Year.

The rest of the year, what changes is not the price. It is what is left.

What booking early actually buys

Book early and we secure Circuit 2 at Machu Picchu at the best entry time, the train you want at the hour you want, and the good rooms — the ones with the view — in the hotels we trust.

Book late and the picture changes. Circuit 2 is gone, so you walk Circuit 1 or 3. Sometimes tickets have to be bought in Aguas Calientes the day before the visit, which is a gamble I would rather not take with anyone's trip. The hotels still work, but you take the rooms that are left.

Same trip. Same price. A completely different day.

Is this for you?

If you want to move independently, sleep in hostels and decide each morning where you are going, none of these numbers make sense for you, and you will still have a great trip.

If you want the logistics to be somebody else's problem, a private guide, and a trip built around your dates instead of a coach schedule, this is what it costs.