Peru travel tips for traveling with kids

Age group for kids

A good minimum age for kids would be 7 or 8 where they can walk on their own for long periods of time and don’t need to look for bathrooms at a short notice.  Most places, other than Lima, have either cobblestones or dirt paths which won’t work with strollers. We mostly saw teenagers but our 8 and 10 year old held up pretty well. Diaper changes for toddlers would have to be done in cars or on the road, which would be cleaner than the public bathroom floors.

Accessibility

Most of Peru would provide some challenge to people with mobility issues.  We were warned against bringing a wheel chair by our travel agent and rightly so.  I was lucky to have recovered enough to manage with a hiking stick. Any kind of scooter or a rolling device would be have been impossible to use.

There are some travel agents who provide mobility support and porters for even carrying people up the steps in Machu Picchu but those trips have to be fully planned in advance.

Drinking water

Its important to only drink bottled water or boiled water during your stay in Peru. Tap water is not always safe for consumption.  Bottled water is easy to come by and costs about 2 soles a bottle.  We bought a few large bottles of water each day to last us the day.

Sun protection

An absolute must for everywhere other than Lima.  We packed and kept up with sun screen all day and wore a broad brim hat to cover face and neck all day.

Layering

During the months of June, July and August, layering a long sleeved shirt with a fleece jacket and a warmer jacket kept  us comfortable all day long.

Altitude sickness

• We planned our itinerary to travel gradually from lower altitude towards higher over a period of days to allow the body to acclimatize gradually(Lima-Sacred Valley-Machu Picchu-Cusco-Puno, etc)
• Prescription altitude sickness pills – We took prescription medication and started taking them the day we landed Lima based on our doctor’s advice and only our youngest had minor symptoms for a day in Cusco
• Coca tea – Most hotels and restaurants have free serving of coca tea.  We had atleast one a day after leaving Lima
• Remember to walk slowly and avoid rushing around when first landing in Cusco.

Motion sickness

We had planned to travel by air, car, bus and boat over the duration of the trip and an over the counter motion sickness pills like Bonine and Dramamine went a long way in making it comfortable for some of us.

Vaccinations

Yellow fever shots are needed if traveling to the Amazon rain-forest. We did not need shots to visit the rest of Peru.

Toilets

Sewer system in Peru is not built to handle toilet paper.  Most places including hotels have a notice near the toilet asking guests to throw the toilet paper in the trash.  Flushing could cause jams which would not be pleasant for anyone. We did end up flushing a few random pieces of toilet paper thrown in by mistake and they did go down okay.

• Hotels and Restaurants – The bathrooms were extremely clean and in working order.
• Public – Most public restrooms need 1 or 2 soles for use so its good to keep coins handy for that.  Restrooms at city attractions looked more like the gas-station bathrooms in the US.  We packed these items in everyone’s day pack and didn’t have to worry about bathrooms after that.
  • Mighty Clean Baby Disposable Toilet Seat Covers – is very strong and does not get ripped or wet and is large enough to cover the whole surface
  • Small pack of antibacterial Wet Wipes
  • Portable Soap Slice Disposable Soap Paper
  • WaterWipes Sensitive Baby Wipes
• Door Hooks – Most bathrooms in hotel or public toilets don’t have hooks to hang clothes, bags, etc.  We took a few over door hooks to take care of this problem.

Laundry

Traveling to so many cities in 2 weeks made carrying a lot of luggage challenging.  Laundry is very convenient in Peru. It cost 3 soles for a kilo(about 2 lbs) of clothes and is returned the same day.  We took enough clothes for 6 days and laundry covered the rest.

Power outlets

Peru’s standard power outlet provides power at 220 V. To use a 110 V appliance, you will need a step-up transformer and an adapter.  We now keep a set of travel appliances that take 110 V – 240 V so we don’t need to take a transformer.  We just took the adapter for US to South American electrical outlets.  Even that was not needed in most places as most hotels had at-least one outlet that took US plugs.

Local transportation

Taxis in Peru don’t have meters and you have to negotiate the price either before leaving or after reaching the destination, most of the time in Spanish.  A great way to get around this problem was Uber.  We would connect to wifi at the hotel, restaurants, malls, etc. and call Uber taxi for a price that has already been agreed upon. Payment through Uber also helped with not worrying about a dollars/soles negotiation. Most places in Cusco would cost less than 5 soles and in Lima, it would cost about 35 soles to go from Lima to Miraflores which is about 30 minutes away.

Food

We loved trying new Peruvian food which tended to be very flavorful and not spicy at all.  Our kids, while willing to try new things, did not want to eat unfamiliar food all the time.  Most restaurants also had burgers, fries, roast chicken, etc. so we all got to eat what we wanted. We even found KFC in Cusco and Lima to our kids’ supreme happiness.

• Breakfast – Most hotels in Peru serve what is considered to be the typical continental breakfast. We were served eggs cooked to order, plentiful bread, butter, jelly and preserves, coffee, tea and freshly made juice, yogurt and cold cereal.
• Snack breaks – To avoid constantly looking for food and drinks for kids while going on all day trips, we took snacks like oreos, ritz crackers, all kinds of nuts in snack sized ziplock packs.  Every day, we would throw in a few snack packs in our bags, pack a bottle of water each and we never had to worry about finding a place to eat in the middle of nowhere because the kids were hungry.
• Lunch- This was our favorite time to experiment with food.  Some days, we had buffet lunch as part of our tour package.  These buffets had a huge variety and gave us an opportunity to try different things. Other days, we would try out local restaurants and go with some recommendations from our hosts.
• Dinner – Most days, dinner was not our favorite meal of the day because we would be exhausted after some especially longs days and the kids practically asleep by the time food showed up.  Some days we just did not have the energy to go out for dinner again.  It might be a good idea to get something packed to eat at the hotel later on those kinds of days.

Shoes

Hiking shoes are not required for any types of normal sightseeing in Peru unless you take Inca or other hiking trails.  I had taken ankle-high hiking Sketchers shoes which were amazingly comfortable for my ankle recovering from surgery.  The rest of our family took their sneakers in decent shape. It would be good to have some tread on the sole for a good grip on the smooth cobblestone roads and dirt tracks around the ruins near Cusco and Machu Picchu. We took an extra light weight pair of shoes for the kids and found it useful as Rianna’s shoe started letting in water in Aguas Calientes and looking for a new shoe in that tiny town would have been challenging.

Things we wish we had done differently:

• Shared tours – We took a shared city walking and bus tour in Cusco. It was a 3 and a half hour tour and was tough on the kids to keep up with adults, especially with Rianna getting some altitude sickness.  It would have been better to have gone on a private tour instead.

• Inca trail – There are two Inca trails to Machu Picchu, one is the historic 4 day trail and the other is a shorter 2 day trail. We would have loved to do the 2 day trail with the kids.  We met a family with kids our kids’ age and they had trained for a few months for it and came back with unforgettable memories of the hike.  Many groups end up stopping overnight in hotels and did not have to go through the inconvenience of primitive camping by the roadside if they don’t want to.

• Travel to and from Machu Picchu – We traveled to Machu Pichu from Ollantaytambo, stayed overnight in Aguas Calientes and traveled to Cusco from Machu Picchu directly.  The train to Aguas Calientes has restrictions on the size and number of bags allowed per person so we had to send some of our bags to Cusco ahead of of our trip to Machu Picchu. This turned out to be needlessly painful plan.
  • We had to rush back and pack up majority of our things while keeping only two small bags for the next two days.
  • Return from Aguas Calientes to Cusco is 4 hours vs the 2 hours to Ollantaytambo.
  • Maras and Moray fields are closer to Ollantaytambo than Cusco. Taking the trip from Cusco just added 2 hours to our drive and back.

A better option would have been to check out from Ollantaytambo hotel, Tunupa Lodge, leave the luggage with the hotel and come back to Ollantaytambo the next day.  Travel to Maras and Moray the next day from Ollantaytambo with all our bags and go back to Cusco from there directly.

Also see: Traveling to Peru with kids