What Cusco Guides Actually Know About Machu Picchu
Spend long enough around the guides and train staff who run the Machu Picchu route every week, and you start to hear the same advice on repeat. Not the brochure version — the real one. The shortcuts, the small mistakes that cost people their morning, the things that separate a smooth visit from a stressed one. Here's what the people who do this for a living will tell you, if you ask.
On the circuit: book Circuit 2 if you want the postcard
Ask anyone in Cusco which circuit to book and they'll say the same thing — it depends what you came for, but most people came for . Movement inside the site is , and you can't backtrack. The classic upper viewpoint near the lives on . Book that one unless you have a specific reason not to. Guides watch people book a random circuit online, arrive, and realize the famous angle isn't on their route. By then it's too late.
the view
one-way along your assigned circuit
Guardian's House
Circuit 2
On timing: first bus, not the popular one
Guides will tell you the worst time to be at Machu Picchu is mid-to-late morning, when the day trains from Cusco dump their crowds at the gate all at once. Book the earliest timed-entry slot you can get and catch one of the first buses up from Aguas Calientes. You'll have the upper terraces nearly to yourself while the mist is still lifting. Wait for the "convenient" mid-morning entry and you'll share every viewpoint with three tour groups.
On altitude: the coca tea is real, and so is going slow
Every guide says it because they've seen it go wrong: Cusco at 3,400 metres is higher than Machu Picchu, so the soroche (altitude sickness) hits you in the city, not at the ruins. Spend two or three days acclimatizing in Cusco or the lower Sacred Valley before any trek. Drink mate de coca — coca tea, in every hotel lobby — go easy on water and hard on hydration, and skip the alcohol for the first day or two. The pisco sour will still be there later. Machu Picchu itself, at 2,430 metres, will feel like a relief by comparison.
On the train: Vistadome is worth it, the cheapest seat isn't
There's no road to the citadel — you take a train (PeruRail or Inca Rail) from Ollantaytambo or Poroy to Aguas Calientes, roughly 1.5–3.5 hours, US$60–150 each way. Guides who ride it constantly will tell you the Vistadome class, with its panoramic windows, is the one upgrade actually worth paying for. The gorge scenery is half the experience. The bare-bones Expedition seats get you there fine, but you'll spend the ride wishing you could see more. Splurge here.
On the bus: don't try to walk it to save money
From Aguas Calientes it's a 25-minute shuttle bus up eight kilometres of switchbacks (~US$24 round trip). Some travellers try walking up to save the fare. Guides quietly suggest you don't — it's a steep, sweaty 90-minute climb that leaves you depleted before you've even entered the site. Buy the bus ticket at the riverside office, go early to beat the queue, and save your legs for the citadel and the Sun Gate.
On where to actually eat in Aguas Calientes
Guides will steer you off the main drag. The restaurants right at the railway and the plaza, with touts waving laminated menus, charge tourist prices for tired food. Walk a few streets back toward the river or up the side lanes for better trout, better lomo saltado, and a bill that won't sting. And eat a real dinner the night before your visit — you'll be up before dawn with no time for breakfast.
On the peaks: skip Huayna Picchu if heights scare you
The iconic peak behind the ruins, Huayna Picchu, is climbed via steep exposed Inca stairs locals call the escaleras de la muerte — the stairs of death. It needs a combined ticket (~US$55), there's a fixed entry time, and only about 400 climbers a day get permits, so it books out months ahead. Guides love it. But they'll also tell vertigo sufferers the honest truth: skip Huayna Picchu and climb Machu Picchu Mountain instead — the taller summit on the opposite side, same ticket price, a steadier staircase, and a wider panorama over the whole sanctuary. Better view, less terror.
On the Sun Gate: go early, go free
Inti Punku, the Sun Gate, is the original Inca Trail entrance — a stone gateway aligned to the solstice where trekkers get their first dawn view of the city. It's about a one-hour uphill walk from the citadel, included on certain circuit tickets, and free with a valid ticket. Guides will tell you to go early, before the path clouds over, for the clearest light back over the whole sanctuary. It's one of the best things at the site, and it costs nothing extra.
On the tickets: this is the reservation that matters
The single thing guides wish every visitor understood: there's no visa hurdle for Machu Picchu — the ticket is the bottleneck. Most tourists (US, Canadian, EU, UK, Australian) get visa-free entry to Peru for up to 183 days. But the citadel runs on timed entry by fixed circuit, capped daily, booked in advance through the official government portal. Trains and any Huayna Picchu permit must be reserved well ahead too, especially in dry season (May–September). Guides watch heartbroken travellers arrive in Cusco assuming they can buy a ticket on the day. They often can't. Book everything before you fly.
On the budget route: the Hidroeléctrica trek is real
Guides know the money-saving secret too. Skip the pricey train for part of the journey via the Hidroeléctrica route — a bus or colectivo from Cusco to the hydroelectric station, then a scenic 2–3 hour walk along the railway tracks to Aguas Calientes. It's a fraction of the train fare and popular with budget travellers. The honest caveat: it adds a full day each way, so it's a trade of time for money. If you've got the days and not the budget, it's a genuinely good option.
On respect: this is a sacred site, not a film set
Guides care about this one. Large backpacks, tripods, drones, food, walking poles without rubber tips, and single-use plastics are restricted inside the site — lockers are available at the entrance. Don't climb on the walls, don't touch the carved stones like the Intihuatana, and give the llamas room. Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, and it's held sacred by Quechua communities to this day. Treat it that way and the guides will warm to you fast.
What visitors get wrong most often
If you boil down everything the guides repeat, it comes to this: people rush it. They do the same-day dash from Cusco, breathless and altitude-sick, race through a circuit they didn't research, miss the Sun Gate because they ran out of time, and leave feeling they saw a famous place without quite being there. The fix is the opposite of complicated, and we map it out day by day in our four-day Cusco-to-citadel plan. Acclimatize properly. Sleep in Aguas Calientes. Book Circuit 2 and the first entry slot. Take the Vistadome. Hire a guide at the gate (~80–120 PEN). Then slow down and let one of the great places on earth do what it does. The people who run this route every week will tell you it's never the visitors who plan ahead who leave disappointed.
