The days
The shape of the 3 days
Hours of planned activity. A day beyond the city counts door to door.
- City dayThe historic center and San Blas4.5 h
- Beyond the cityMachu Picchu12 h
- City daySacsayhuamán and the Inca sites7–7.5 h
A typical route. Yours follows your dates, pace, and interests.
Why this order
- The first day stays lowThe first day carries nothing long or strenuous, and at this altitude that is structure rather than courtesy.
- Heavy days stay apartThe one twelve-hour day never touches another, and the day on each side of it asks little of you.
- The mountain takes the middle dayIn every route we build, Machu Picchu lands on day two, the only day with a light day on each side of it.
- Closed days are shownVerified closed days are shown with the place, so you can match the route to your actual dates before booking.
- Road time countsTime on the road is counted as time, not as a footnote.
Pages from a Cusco edition
The full Cusco guide, page by page
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See a real Cusco guideOne day belongs to the mountain. The other two belong to the altitude and the city.
Three days is the shortest trip this route will build, and it is the one length where there is almost nothing to decide. Machu Picchu takes a whole day and leaves in the dark. Around it there are two days, and both of them have a job.
City day4.5 h
The historic center and San Blas
The first day stays low on purpose
The first day carries nothing long, and at this altitude that is structure rather than courtesy. The mountain day starts at four in the morning, and a body that spent today climbing is not the body you want on it.
What fits is the old town on foot. The walk reaches Hatun Rumiyoc, where the twelve-angled stone sits in the wall of Inca Roca's palace, each of its corners locked into a neighboring block without mortar.
Beyond the city12 h
Machu Picchu
Twelve hours, door to door, starting at four
Machu Picchu is roughly two hundred structures, built in the fifteenth century on a ridge between two peaks. When Hiram Bingham arrived in 1911 he found a name already written in charcoal on a temple window: A. Lizárraga, 1902.
It goes second because it can go nowhere else. It needs the day before it for the altitude and the day after it for recovery, and at three days there is exactly one day that has both.
With Signature, this day carries an original audio guide of its own, saved before you go and playing without a signal.
Before you book, read how to buy the tickets and which circuit to choose.
City day7–7.5 h
Sacsayhuamán and the Inca sites
The day the city gets back
The day after a twelve-hour day is never another one. It carries shorter pieces, chosen from what you said you came for, and it is the only day of the three your answers really move.
Sacsayhuamán stands above the town: stones weighing more than a hundred tonnes, no two of them the same shape, each cut to meet the ones already set beside it.
Or swap for
- A chocolate workshop where the tasting sorts one growing region from the next
- An Andean dinner and the charango, once built on an armadillo shell
When to go
Dry season · Apr–Oct
- Jan19°150
- Feb19°140
- Mar20°110
- Apr18°50
- May20°15
- Jun18°10
- Jul18°10
- Aug19°11
- Sep20°25
- Oct21°60
- Nov21°80
- Dec20°130
Day °CRain mm
The difference
Your 3 days in Cusco. Built around you.
This is the shape. Build the route that fits inside it.
Complete guides from $1930-day money-back guarantee · One-time purchase
| What you get | This page | Yours |
|---|---|---|
| A typical route, day by day | ||
| Matched to your dates, pace, and interests | ||
| Up to 15 activities, by trip length | ||
| Up to 12 hotels and 12 restaurants | ||
| A PDF of up to 13 pages and a web guide | ||
| Audio guides at up to four highlights | Signature |
What changes, and what stays fixed
Pace
Pace changes nothing about the shape at this length. One long day, at every pace.
Last day
Your answers move the third day and very little else.
Opening days
Where a place has verified closed days, they are shown with it, to check against your dates.
Travel party
Who you travel with changes what the last day offers, never the shape of the trip.
What three days give up
Two of the things people come to Cusco for do not fit beside Machu Picchu in three days, and neither is a near miss. The Sacred Valley is its own twelve-hour day, through Pisac and Ollantaytambo and the terraces between them. Rainbow Mountain is another full day, climbing above five thousand meters. It can be visited year-round, although weather and visibility vary sharply with the season.
Five days hold the valley at most paces. Seven hold it always, and the mountain at an active pace. Three days hold neither, and a page that implied otherwise would be selling you days you did not buy.
Questions, answered
Does the route assume I have already arrived?
Is three days enough for Cusco?
Why does the first day have to be gentle?
Can the Sacred Valley fit into three days?
What changes if I choose a slow pace?
Before you go
