Peru

[Anonymous]

Considering a trip to Peru in the next 18 months, bringing our two kids, who will then be 5.5-8 years old. I'm doing research on my own, but wanted to throw it out here too ... best itineraries, time of year to visit, must-sees? Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Tripadviser peru forum has a lot of information. We planned our whole trip from the boards there.

[Anonymous]

We used gotoperu to help us out. They were fantastic. I sent them a list of "must sees" and a description of the travelers/things we were interested in, and they put together a great itinerary. As the things we wanted to see involved multiple in-country flights, it was SO nice not to have to coordinate the logistics of it all on our own.

We had a great guy pick us up and make sure we got to where we needed to be each day. Some days were completely on our own, some were fully guided, most were a mix of both. We met a bunch of people who did everything on their own, and when comparing budgets it really seemed to come out equally. I think the companies get discounts from the tour providers (where they get their money), so we didn't pay anything extra for the fees of the service.

We did a couple days in Cuzco, then drove through the sacred valley to Machu Picchu for a night, back to Cuzco where we white water rafted for a day, and then off to the rain forest for 3 nights. We did one night in Lima on our way home due to flight times, but really there's nothing I needed to see there--it's just a city. It was a great itinerary. The rain forest was amazing, but I'm really glad we put it at the end of the trip--the bug bites at the end of it were enough to make me want to come home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We used gotoperu to help us out. They were fantastic. I sent them a list of "must sees" and a description of the travelers/things we were interested in, and they put together a great itinerary. As the things we wanted to see involved multiple in-country flights, it was SO nice not to have to coordinate the logistics of it all on our own.

We had a great guy pick us up and make sure we got to where we needed to be each day. Some days were completely on our own, some were fully guided, most were a mix of both. We met a bunch of people who did everything on their own, and when comparing budgets it really seemed to come out equally. I think the companies get discounts from the tour providers (where they get their money), so we didn't pay anything extra for the fees of the service.

We did a couple days in Cuzco, then drove through the sacred valley to Machu Picchu for a night, back to Cuzco where we white water rafted for a day, and then off to the rain forest for 3 nights. We did one night in Lima on our way home due to flight times, but really there's nothing I needed to see there--it's just a city. It was a great itinerary. The rain forest was amazing, but I'm really glad we put it at the end of the trip--the bug bites at the end of it were enough to make me want to come home.

We did something very similar to this and had a great time.