We knew that Peru was going to be our vacation destination this year since January of 2019. That is when we did an extensive plane ticket search and eventually bought our flights. And that was it for many weeks to come. Somehow we couldn’t get around to planning the rest of the trip beyond landing and taking off from Lima.
Until one evening during dinner with friends, a lightbulb moment occurred when they asked us “so you’re leaving in a month and don’t have anything planned yet?”

It wasn’t necessarily an oh-shit kind of a thing. But it was enough of a push to spend six hours the very next day planning out our entire trip.

The itinerary was as follows:
Sunday – Berlin flight in the morning, Lima landing in the evening
Monday – all day – Lima walking and getting used to Peru
Tuesday – morning in Lima – afternoon transfer to a bus for Arequipa
Wednesday – morning arrival in Arequipa – find our hotel, start touring the city
Thursday – take a trip to Colca Canyon
Friday – no plans yet, figure it out, day in Arequipa or somewhere nearby
Saturday – morning flight to Cuzco, find our hotel, start touring the city, buy Machu Picchu tickets
Sunday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday – Cuzco – find something to do, Machu Picchu for sure one full day
Thursday – morning flight back to Lima – find a hotel
Friday/Saturday – Lima sightseeing
Sunday – morning for packing, evening flight back to Europe
Monday – evening arrival in Berlin, four-hour drive home

Once we kind of mapped out the above schedule on a whiteboard, we plugged in the holes with hotels, Airbnb’s, bus tickets, and flights. We used several travel blogs and websites to get an idea of where to go and what to do there, as well as two official Peru travel guides we physically bought at a book store.

The next few posts will reflect our Peruvian vacation.