Machu Picchu now operates on a capped, timed-entry system with numbered one-way routes through the site. It is no longer possible to buy a ticket at the gate, wander at will, or go back for a second look at something.
Getting the booking wrong has a specific and painful consequence: you arrive holding a valid ticket that does not include the view you came for, and there is nothing anyone can do about it on the day. This guide is organised in the order you need to do things, because the order is the part people get wrong.
Book in this order
- Decide your date, allowing at least two nights of acclimatisation in the Sacred Valley before it.
- Buy the entry ticket from the official Peruvian government portal, choosing a circuit and an entry time.
- Book the train from Ollantaytambo or Cusco to Aguas Calientes to match that entry time.
- Book the bus up from Aguas Calientes to the gate, or plan around ninety minutes to walk it.
- Book accommodation in Aguas Calientes if your entry time is early, or in Ollantaytambo if it is not.
The entry ticket first, always. The trains and buses run frequently; the entry slots do not, and the good ones for popular dates go months ahead in high season.
Which circuit
The site is divided into numbered circuits covering different areas, and they are one-way. You cannot move between them, you cannot re-enter, and you cannot walk back up to something you passed.
Broadly, the upper routes take you along the agricultural terraces to the classic viewpoint — the one with the whole city laid out below and Huayna Picchu rising behind it. The lower routes take you through the urban sector at close range, past the Temple of the Sun, the Sacred Rock and the residential quarters, without the postcard panorama.
If you want the photograph, confirm before purchasing that your circuit includes the upper terrace viewpoint. This is the single most common and most upsetting mistake. Circuit numbering and coverage have been revised more than once, so check the description on the official site at the time you book rather than relying on a blog post or a summary — including this one.
If you can only do one, the upper route is the better first visit. The lower route rewards a second visit or a strong interest in Inca masonry.
The mountain add-ons
Two separate peaks can be climbed, each requiring its own permit sold in limited daily numbers alongside a specific circuit. They sell out first.
Huayna Picchu is the steep, narrow peak directly behind the ruins in every photograph. It is a short, very steep climb on Inca steps with cables in places, exposed in sections, and unsuitable for anyone uneasy with heights. It takes around two hours return and the view down onto the site is the reason people do it.
Machu Picchu Mountain is higher, longer, considerably less exposed and much less oversubscribed. Around three hours return, a steady climb on a wide path, and the view is from further away and higher up — the whole valley rather than just the site.
Huchuy Picchu is a short third option, and the Inca Bridge is a flat walk from within the site included on some circuits.
Book these at the same time as the entry ticket. They cannot be added later.
Altitude first
This is the advice people skip and then regret.
Cusco sits at around 3,400m. Aguas Calientes, below Machu Picchu, sits at around 2,040m — the site itself is lower than the city you flew into, which surprises almost everyone.
Flying into Cusco and going straight up to walk around at altitude is common and frequently unpleasant. The pattern that works: fly into Cusco, leave the city the same day and go down to the Sacred Valley — Urubamba, Ollantaytambo or Pisac, all around 2,800m — for two nights. Acclimatise there, visit Machu Picchu, and save Cusco itself for the end of the trip when your body has adjusted.
Symptoms of mild altitude sickness are headache, nausea, breathlessness and poor sleep, and they usually resolve in a day or two. Drink considerably more water than feels necessary, eat lightly, avoid alcohol on the first night, and do not treat coca tea as a substitute for acclimatising. If symptoms worsen rather than settle, descending is the treatment.
Getting there
The train is the only public way in. Two operators run services from Cusco (Poroy, when operating) and from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, in several classes from basic to panoramic-windowed. Ollantaytambo is the more common departure point and the journey takes around ninety minutes.
Book the train after the entry ticket and match it to your slot with a margin — allow at least two hours between arriving in Aguas Calientes and your entry time, more if you have not pre-bought the bus.
The bus from Aguas Calientes to the gate takes around half an hour up a switchback road. Tickets are sold in town and online; the queue in the early morning is long and starts before dawn. Walking up is possible on a steep stepped path and takes most people about ninety minutes.
The alternative approach, for those avoiding the train, is the Hidroeléctrica route — a long bus journey from Cusco followed by a two to three hour walk along the railway line into Aguas Calientes. It is much cheaper, much longer, and genuinely tiring.
The Inca Trail and the alternatives
The classic four-day Inca Trail requires a licensed operator and a permit. Permits are limited daily, sell out for the June to August window well in advance — often by January — and the trail closes each February for maintenance. You cannot walk it independently.
If the permits are gone, the alternatives are not consolation prizes:
Salkantay — around five days, higher, wilder, over a pass beneath a glaciated peak and down into cloud forest. More physically demanding than the Inca Trail and with far better availability.
Lares — a shorter cultural route through weaving villages and high pasture, with hot springs, and much less trafficked.
Choquequirao — a hard four to nine day trek to a site comparable in scale to Machu Picchu that receives a tiny fraction of the visitors, because there is no train and no road. For anyone whose objection to Machu Picchu is the crowd, this is the answer.
All of them finish with a conventional entry ticket to Machu Picchu, which your operator arranges.
Around the site
Do not fly in, see the ruins and fly out. The Sacred Valley is the better part of the trip for a lot of people and it is where you should be acclimatising anyway.
Ollantaytambo is a living Inca town — the street grid, the water channels and many of the wall foundations are original — with a large terraced temple complex above it that most people climb at the wrong time of day. Go at opening.
The Maras salt pans, thousands of small evaporation terraces fed by a saline spring and worked by families for centuries, are unlike anything else in the region.
Moray, nearby, is a set of concentric circular terraces of debated purpose, most commonly interpreted as an agricultural experiment in microclimates.
Pisac has both a market and a substantial hilltop site with an extensive cemetery in the cliffs opposite.
Practical notes
Bring your passport. It is checked at the entrance and must match the ticket exactly, including the number. There is a stamp at the gate if you want one.
What is not allowed inside: large backpacks, tripods, drones, umbrellas, and food. There is a bag store at the entrance. Walking poles are permitted only with rubber tips and generally only for those who need them.
There are no toilets inside the site. Use the ones at the entrance before going in.
Weather. The dry season runs roughly May to September and is the busiest and clearest. The wet season, November to March, brings afternoon rain, cloud that frequently obscures the site in the morning and then lifts, far fewer people and lower prices. Cloud clearing off the ruins is one of the better things you will see, so a wet-season morning is not a loss.
Guides are required on some circuits and are worth taking regardless. Licensed guides are available at the entrance as well as pre-booked.
For the wider region, see the Cusco and Sacred Valley guide.
