Peru

Peru is the rare country where the most famous attraction actually delivers. Machu Picchu is not overrated. It cannot be. You round that final corner on the Inca Trail or step through the Sun Gate at dawn, and the city appears below you — stone terraces cascading down a ridge between two peaks, cloud forest falling away in every direction, condors riding thermals above — and whatever cynicism you brought with you simply evaporates. It is one of the great human achievements, and the setting is one of the great geological ones. Together, they are unanswerable.

But Peru is far more than its most photographed ruin. Lima has become one of the great food cities of the world, a claim that would have seemed absurd twenty years ago and now feels like understatement. The ceviche alone — bright, acidic, built on the freshest seafood the Humboldt Current delivers — is worth the flight. The Nikkei tradition, blending Japanese technique with Peruvian ingredients, produces food of startling originality. And the neighbourhood restaurants of Barranco and Miraflores offer a quality-to-price ratio that makes other food capitals feel like extortion.

The Sacred Valley between Cusco and Machu Picchu deserves more than a transit stop. Ollantaytambo’s Incan stonework is astonishing. The salt terraces of Maras look like an Escher drawing carved into a mountainside. And the light in the high Andes — thin, golden, impossibly clear — makes everything appear as if lit by a Renaissance painter who had access to better colours.

When to go: May through September is dry season in the Andes and the best window for trekking and Machu Picchu. Lima is overcast from May to November but pleasant year-round. The Amazon is always wet, but the dry-ish season (June to October) makes wildlife viewing easier as animals gather near shrinking water sources.

What most guides get wrong: They skip acclimatization. Cusco sits at 3,400 metres, and altitude sickness is real and indiscriminate. Spend at least two days adjusting before any serious activity. The Sacred Valley is lower and makes a better first stop than Cusco itself — a trick experienced travellers have known for years.