Walk the classic four-day Inca Trail through cloud forest and stone gateways to reach Machu Picchu at first light.
The Inca Trail is the original approach to Machu Picchu, and still the best. This is the classic 43-kilometre route the Incas built, threading past ruins at Llaqtapata and Wiñay Wayna, over the 4,215-metre Dead Woman's Pass, and down through cloud forest to the Sun Gate for a first sunrise view of the citadel below. It suits fit walkers who want the payoff of arriving on foot rather than by train.
You'll camp three nights with a full support crew — porters, cook, and an English-speaking guide who threads the history of the Inca road system through each day's walk. Group size is capped and permits are limited, so trail dates fill early. The reward is arriving at Machu Picchu through the Sun Gate at dawn, ahead of the day-trip crowds, with the citadel and Huayna Picchu unfolding in the early light exactly as Hiram Bingham first saw it in 1911.
