2 Month Travel Itinerary in Peru

We took two months to see Peru, and it became very clear, we will need to go back. While we will visit again someday, we wouldn't change much of our original itinerary. In this post we will summarize our travel route, possible adjustments we would have made, what we would recommend for a shorter amount of time, what we would have wanted to see but didn't and a recommendation for solo travelers.

(White starting dot)

We started our trip in Lima and flew to Chachapoyas where we spent 4 nights.

(A)

We took a night bus from Chachapoyas to Leymebamba and stayed 1 night. From there we took a night bus to Celendin and another bus the next morning to Cajamarca. We spent 2 nights in Cajamarca.

(B)

From Cajamarca we took a bus to Chiclayo and spent 4 nights in Chiclayo.

We would have been there for 3 nights but stayed an extra day due to museums being closed on Mondays.

(C)

We took another bus from Chiclayo to Trujillo and spent 2 nights in Trujillo.

(D)

From Trujillo to Huarez we took a night bus (be wary of car sickness on this ride) and spent a week in Huarez.

We could have spent more time in Huarez, stay for at least 4 days if you like hiking and upwards of a week to go backpacking.

(E)

From Huarez we took a bus to Lima and spent about a week in Lima.

(F)

From Lima we took a bus to Paracas and stayed there for 2 nights.

We spent a full day traveling by bus to see the Nazca Lines and bused to Huacachina. We stayed in Huacachina for 3 nights.

We don't recommend staying in Nazca for a night unless there are no night bus to Cusco.

(G)

From Huacachina or Nazca, we recommend busing to Cusco. We stayed a week and a half in Cusco and the Inca Trail.

We actually went back to Lima to fly home for a wedding, but if we didn't have the wedding we would have bused to Cusco instead of flying.

We could have stayed longer in Cusco between adapting to high altitude and wanting to see more ruins.

(H)

We bused to a tiny town called Checacupe where we spent 1 night to do rainbow mountain.

(I)

From Checacupe we spent 4 nights in Puno and on the reed islands.

If we had a few extra days we most likely would have gone to Arequipa after Puno and this was a place we really wanted to see.

For solo travelers we met some people who were doing red bus tours which is basically a bus that takes you along the gringo trail. People said they would meet other backpackers on the bus and stay in the same hostels because the bus only picks up from certain places. We think this would be a cool way for solo travelers to get around Peru.

If we had more time, we would have done a whole section of the Amazon, probably going farther north and take a boat up to Iquitos.

For people with less time we recommend checking out our posts from Lima, Cusco, Lake Titicaca, and either Huacachina (for a party) or Huarez (for hikes).