Peru: Ten Attractions and Natural Wonders

The heartland of the Inca Empire

Peru holds one of the most complete records of pre-Columbian civilisation anywhere in the Americas — the Inca Empire at its height, and cultures that came centuries before it, left behind cities, engineering, and art that still draw visitors from around the world. It is also a country of extreme geographic range: Pacific desert coast, the high Andes, and a substantial share of the Amazon rainforest, all within a single nation.

The ten below run from the Andes and Cusco region to the desert coast, the Amazon, and Lima. The dry season in the highlands (roughly May to September) is by far the most popular time to visit; the coast and Amazon have their own, different seasonal patterns.

1. Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu, built in the 15th century as a royal estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti and abandoned a century later during the Spanish conquest, remained unknown to the outside world until its 1911 rediscovery by Hiram Bingham. Its terraces, temples, and dry-stone masonry, set on a ridge between two peaks high above the Urubamba River, make it one of the most recognisable archaeological sites on earth and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Visitor numbers are capped by timed entry tickets; booking well in advance is essential, especially for the Inca Trail.

2. The Nazca Lines

The Nazca Lines, enormous geoglyphs of animals, plants, and geometric shapes etched into the desert floor by the Nazca culture roughly 2,000 years ago, are so large that many are only fully legible from the air — their exact purpose (astronomical calendar, ritual pathway, offering to deities) remains debated by archaeologists. Small overflight planes from the town of Nazca are the standard way to see them.

3. Cusco

Cusco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site where colonial Spanish churches and buildings sit directly atop massive, precisely fitted Inca stone walls, most famously at the Qorikancha (Temple of the Sun) and the fortress of Sacsayhuamán above the city. Its high altitude (over 3,300 metres) means most visitors spend a day or two acclimatising here before heading into the Sacred Valley or onward to Machu Picchu.

4. Lake Titicaca and the Uros islands

Lake Titicaca, the highest large navigable lake in the world and shared with Bolivia, is home to the Uros people, who have built and continuously maintained dozens of artificial islands entirely from bundled totora reeds for centuries, originally as a defensive strategy that allowed islands to be moved or dismantled if threatened. Visitors can walk on the springy reed surface and see traditional reed boats built the same way.

5. Rainbow Mountain (Vinicunca)

Vinicunca, popularly known as Rainbow Mountain, displays vivid stripes of red, gold, turquoise, and lavender produced by different mineral sediments exposed as glacial ice retreated in recent decades — a relatively recent addition to Peru's tourist circuit, only becoming widely known and accessible around 2015. The hike to the viewpoint, at over 5,000 metres altitude, is short in distance but genuinely demanding given the thin air.

6. The Peruvian Amazon

Peru holds a substantial share of the Amazon basin, reached most commonly through Iquitos (accessible only by river or air) or Puerto Maldonado near Manu and Tambopata national parks — both regions offer lodge-based wildlife viewing for pink river dolphins, macaws, monkeys, and caimans, and the chance to visit Indigenous and mestizo riverine communities along the way.

7. Colca Canyon

Colca Canyon, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in places, is best known for the Cruz del Cóndor viewpoint, where Andean condors — among the largest flying birds in the world — ride the morning thermals rising from the canyon floor, often at close range to observers. The surrounding valley holds pre-Inca agricultural terraces still farmed today and traditional villages known for distinctive embroidered dress.

8. Lima

Lima, Peru's capital and the base for most international arrivals, mixes a UNESCO-listed colonial centre with the modern coastal districts of Miraflores and Barranco, and a food scene now internationally regarded as among the best in the world, built on Peru's fusion of Indigenous, Spanish, African, and Asian culinary traditions. It is worth a stop of its own, not just a transit point.

9. Kuelap

Kuelap, built by the pre-Inca Chachapoyas ("Cloud People") culture from around the 6th century, is a walled hilltop citadel enclosing hundreds of circular stone buildings — larger in stone volume than Machu Picchu, though far less visited given its remote location in Peru's northern cloud forest. A cable car opened in 2017 cut the approach from a full day's hike to a 20-minute ride.

It makes a strong case as Peru's "other" lost city for travellers with time to reach the north.

10. The Ballestas Islands and Paracas

The Ballestas Islands, reached by boat from the desert town of Paracas, are sometimes called a "poor man's Galápagos" for the sheer density of wildlife packed onto their bare rock — sea lion colonies, Humboldt penguins, and vast numbers of cormorants, pelicans, and boobies, drawn by the cold, nutrient-rich Humboldt Current offshore. En route, boats pass the Paracas Candelabra, a giant geoglyph of uncertain age and purpose cut into a coastal hillside.

The neighbouring Paracas National Reserve adds stark desert-meets-ocean scenery and further birdlife on land.

Peru rewards at least two weeks for a first visit: Lima, Cusco and the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, and one further region (Titicaca, the Amazon, or Colca Canyon) together make a well-rounded introduction to the country's range.