Inca heritage and living Andean cultureTerraces still farmed, royal estates on cloud-forest ridges, and Quechua communities for whom none of this is history.See Inca heritage journeys
Alex.travel
I design journeys to places of power for those who want to travel deeper
Pacific Coast travel guide
Lima
Lima sits on a desert coast that almost never rains, fed by rivers off the Andes and by ocean fog. It holds the country's best restaurants, a colonial centre built on Inca foundations, and the museums that explain everything you will see inland.
Pacific Coast
Lima in brief
Lima, in short
Most travellers treat Lima as an airport with a city attached. That is a mistake, though an understandable one: the coastal fog that sits over the city for half the year hides it well.
Give it two days. The Larco and the Museo de Arte de Lima between them lay out four thousand years of coastal civilisation — the Moche, the Nazca, the Chimú — and once you have seen that, the Inca stop looking like the beginning of Peruvian history and start looking like its final chapter. The colonial centre is built directly on what came before, which is the point.
Then eat. Lima is the reason Peruvian cooking is taken seriously, and the range runs from tasting menus to the ceviche counters that close when the fish runs out at two in the afternoon.
Lima is one of the places I plan the rest of a Peru route around.
AlexJourney designerDesigner's note
How I use Lima
Lima earns its days on the route rather than being a box to tick.
Alex
Journey designer
I design private Peru journeys around altitude, season and the people who still farm the terraces.
- 01Lima - Arequipa - Colca - Titicaca
Build altitude as a gradient
Each stop on the route is a deliberate step upward, which is what makes the high days enjoyable rather than survivable.
- 02Valley first - Cusco after
Sleep low before you go high
The Sacred Valley sits 600 metres below Cusco. Sleeping there first is the single change that most improves how people feel on the high days.
- 03Permits - February closure
Let the permit calendar lead
Inca Trail permits are capped and sell out months ahead, and the trail closes every February. That one date fixes everything else.
When to go
Best time to visit Lima
May to September
The Andean dry season
High passes openCold, bright mornings above 3,000 metres and reliable trekking weather. This is the only dependable window for the high passes and the Inca Trail, and the reason most of the route is planned around it.
- Temp
- Near freezing at dawn to about 20 °C by day in the highlands
- Crowds
- Cusco and Machu Picchu busy
- Good places
- Cusco · Sacred Valley · Colca Canyon · Lake Titicaca
December to March
Highland rains, open coast
Inca Trail closed in FebruaryHeavy afternoon rain across the highlands makes the high roads unreliable and closes the Inca Trail every February. The desert coast and the Amazon stay workable, so the journey changes shape rather than stopping.
- Temp
- Mild but wet inland; warm and humid in the Amazon
- Crowds
- Quietest months inland
- Good places
- Lima · Arequipa
Lima questions
Short answers about Lima
Q01How long should I give Lima?
On the Epic Peru route Lima holds its own block of days; the exact number depends on the season and how the altitude is treating you.
Contact
Plan it with me
Every journey is planned individually; there is no fixed departure calendar.
Plan a Peru journey