One Week in Cuzco: An Offbeat Itinerary

Seven days is the first length in this series with room for a proper trek before Machu Picchu instead of a single sample day bolted onto a city trip. This route spends three days on the offbeat side of Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and the Southern Valley, three more on a permit-free Salkantay sample that ends at the ruins themselves, and a final day doing almost nothing at all. If three trekking days sounds like too much, the same slot swaps cleanly for a straight train to Machu Picchu instead, no trekking required.

Shorter on time? The 2-day , 3-day , 4-day , 5-day and 6-day versions of this same offbeat route cover the city and valleys without the trek; the full Cuzco guide fills in whatever a week still leaves out.

Book these before you go:

Day Focus Rough daily cost (S/)
1 San Blas’s upper workshops, the Boleto Turistico, Qenqo, Puka Pukara, Tambomachay, the free Temple of the Moon S/80-140
2 Chinchero’s weavers on the same Boleto, then Moray and the Maras salt pans (not Boleto-covered) S/150-250
3 Tipon and Pikillacta on the same Boleto, plus Andahuaylillas’s painted church S/100-180
4-6, Salkantay sample Soraypampa, Humantay Lake, the trek’s high pass, Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu at dawn S/1,000-1,800+
4-6, Machu Picchu instead Train from Ollantaytambo, an Aguas Calientes night, dawn entry, no trekking S/750-1,500+
7 A Huchuy Qosqo hike, or a slow morning at San Pedro Market and in San Blas S/60-150

Day 1: San Blas’s Upper Workshops and the Ruins North of the City

Start high and slow. San Blas’s steep lanes above Plazoleta San Blas hold Cuzco’s actual silversmith, textile and woodcarving workshops, past the point where most visitors turn back for a photo of the view. Climbing them at Cuzco’s own altitude, roughly 3,400m/11,150ft, already counts as the day’s exercise, and soroche, altitude sickness, is real enough that UK health advisories name Cuzco specifically as a risk area, not a minor inconvenience to shrug off.

For the afternoon, take a taxi or short tour north to Qenqo, Puka Pukara and Tambomachay instead of stopping at Sacsayhuaman alone: a carved ceremonial outcrop, a small fortress-like checkpoint, and a set of stepped stone baths still channeling water after centuries. All three sit on the Boleto Turistico, the roughly S/130 ticket covering about 16 sites over 10 days (S/70 for students), so buying it today covers most of the week’s ruins in one purchase. A short, easy-to-miss spur off the Qenqo path leads to the Temple of the Moon, a free rock-cut shrine with none of the ticket booths of the bigger sites nearby.

Day 2: Chinchero’s Weavers, Moray and the Maras Salt Pans

Head to Chinchero first, a working weaving village where Quechua-speaking cooperatives dye wool with cochineal and plant dyes and demonstrate the process on backstrap looms, set above Inca terraces and a colonial church built directly over an Inca palace foundation. This Chinchero is the weaving town, not the long-delayed airport project nearby that still has not opened; Cuzco’s own airport (CUZ), reached via a connecting flight through Lima, remains the only way in by air. Chinchero the town is on the Boleto Turistico.

From there, continue to Moray, the unusual concentric terraces long thought to have been an Inca agricultural testing ground for different microclimates at each level, then the Maras salt pans nearby, thousands of small hand-worked evaporation pools fed by a natural saline spring and still worked today. Neither Moray nor Maras is covered by the Boleto Turistico, so carry cash for separate entry at both.

Day 3: Tipon, Pikillacta and Andahuaylillas in the Southern Valley

Trade the Sacred Valley’s tour buses for the Southern Valley, which gets a fraction of the traffic for sites just as substantial. Tipon is an Inca agricultural and hydraulic engineering site, terraces fed by stone channels that still carry water down the hillside, and it sits on the Boleto Turistico alongside Pikillacta, a Wari site built centuries before the Inca Empire existed, with long rectangular compounds instead of curved Inca terracing.

Save the afternoon for Andahuaylillas, a small town whose plain colonial exterior hides a fully painted, gilded church interior detailed enough that locals call it the Sistine Chapel of the Andes. It keeps its own ticket booth and its own photography rules inside, separate from the Boleto Turistico sites earlier in the day, so budget a little extra cash and expect a firm no-photos policy once you’re through the door.

Day 4: Onto the Salkantay Trail: Soraypampa and Humantay Lake

This is where the week earns its length. Drive from Cuzco to Mollepata, then on to Soraypampa, the usual starting point for the Salkantay trek, one of the standard permit-free alternatives to the Inca Trail. Unlike the Inca Trail, which requires a licensed operator and permits released each October that sell out fast for dry-season dates, Salkantay and Lares don’t run on a limited-permit system and stay bookable, including through the Inca Trail’s closed month of February.

Spend the afternoon on the side trip up to Humantay Lake, a turquoise glacial lake reached by a steep climb from the valley floor, before overnighting near Soraypampa ready for the trek’s hardest day. Would rather trek less? The same slot swaps for a train from Ollantaytambo straight to Aguas Calientes instead, with a night there ahead of a dawn Machu Picchu entry, no trekking involved.

Day 5: Over the High Pass and Down Into the Cloud Forest

Today covers the trek’s actual high point, well below Salkantay’s own 6,271m summit but still demanding the same acclimatisation you’ve spent the last four days building, the same caution the Classic Inca Trail’s 4,215m Dead Woman’s Pass requires. The trail drops fast on the far side, from bare high-altitude rock into cloud forest, with coffee and fruit growing where there was scree that morning.

Continue down toward the Aguas Calientes side of the route, reaching a lower overnight point in the cloud forest by evening. It’s a long day by any trekking standard, which is exactly what makes this a sample rather than the full multi-day Salkantay route: the classic version usually spreads this stretch over two days rather than one.

Day 6: Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu at Dawn

Finish the descent to Hidroeléctrica, then take the short walk or a local train alongside the tracks into Aguas Calientes itself, the base town for Machu Picchu. However you reached this point, trekking or by train from Ollantaytambo, the ticket works the same way: an advance, timed entry bought only through the government’s own tuboleto.cultura.pe portal, no walk-up option, sold against a named circuit and an hourly slot from 6am. Popular dates and named circuits do sell out weeks or months ahead in the June-to-August dry season, so this is the one booking on the whole week that has to happen long before you land in Cuzco.

Take the earliest slot you can get. Machu Picchu itself sits at 2,430m, genuinely lower than Cuzco, and standard visit time runs a capped couple of hours per ticket, so an early entry buys the best light and the thinnest crowds before the day-trip trains from Ollantaytambo arrive. Head back down to Aguas Calientes afterward for the train toward Ollantaytambo and on to Cuzco, or break the return with a night in the Sacred Valley if the week has room.

Day 7: The Quiet Finale: Huchuy Qosqo or a Slow Cuzco Week-Ender

After six days of ruins, valleys and a trek, the last day is deliberately empty. Huchuy Qosqo, a lesser Inca site reached by a half-day hike from Lamay in the Sacred Valley, sees a fraction of the Sacred Valley’s usual traffic and rewards the effort with terraces and a view over the Urubamba river with nobody else on them.

If a hike sounds like one trek too many, spend the morning at San Pedro Market instead, buying fruit and fresh-pressed juice before the tour groups arrive, then wander back through San Blas at whatever pace altitude and six days of walking leave you with. Either way, resist booking one more ruin; the point of this day is that there isn’t one.

Do You Need an Inca Trail Permit for This Route?

No. This route runs on Salkantay, one of the two standard permit-free alternatives to the Classic Inca Trail (Lares is the other), so it skips the Inca Trail’s capped 500 permits a day, its October release date, and its high-season sellouts entirely. It also stays bookable through February, the one month the Inca Trail itself closes completely for maintenance.

How Much Does a Full Week Change Your Altitude Plan?

Genuinely, a lot. Three full days around Cuzco and the valleys before the trek gives soroche, which typically hits within the first 24 to 48 hours at 3,400m, time to resolve before you attempt the trek’s high pass or Rainbow Mountain’s 5,036m summit, neither of which forgives a rushed first day the way a short weekend trip sometimes has to.

Is Machu Picchu Still Worth Booking Separately If You Skip the Trek?

Yes, and it works the same way regardless of how you arrive. Book the timed entry ticket through tuboleto.cultura.pe as early as you can, especially for June-to-August dates, then arrange the PeruRail or IncaRail train from Ollantaytambo and the shuttle bus up from Aguas Calientes separately. Skipping the trek changes the days beforehand, not the ticket itself.

Practical Notes for a Week in Cuzco

Peru’s currency is the Peruvian Sol (PEN, S/); cards work at hotels and established restaurants, but markets, colectivos and small vendors along this route want cash. Tap water is not safe to drink anywhere on this itinerary, trek included, so carry treated or bottled water throughout. Spanish is the practical language everywhere; Quechua, the source of the city’s own name, Qosqo, is still widely spoken, especially outside the tourist core and along the Southern Valley and trek route. Most US, UK, EU, Australian and Canadian passport holders travel to Peru visa-free for tourism, though the exact permitted stay varies by nationality; check peru.travel or the FCDO’s Peru entry requirements before booking flights. Both the City of Cuzco and the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu carry UNESCO World Heritage status, inscribed the same year, 1983, Machu Picchu uniquely as a mixed cultural and natural site. Dry season, roughly April to October, suits this route best, though the Inti Raymi festival on 24 June draws the year’s biggest crowds to exactly the sites Day 1 covers. Only ever take a taxi that isn’t already carrying another passenger, and build a spare day into the schedule in case a protest or rail disruption near Machu Picchu threatens a tight flight home.

One concrete tip: buy the Boleto Turistico on Day 1 and book the Machu Picchu ticket before you book anything else on this list, since the ticket’s own calendar, not your itinerary, decides which week this actually ends up being.