Simply Peru

We had a fantastic trip to Peru and the Amazon Jungle. Our guide in Peru, Lyss, was amazing. So helpful and very knowledgeable. There were no questions she could not answer. Also there were problems with some flights and lost luggage and Lyss kept in touch and helped sort out all the issues for everyone in a very efficient and effective way. I would absolutely recommend Lyss as a fantastic and lovely guide.

Our trip to Peru was absolutely wonderful and full of unforgettable moments. A true highlight was visiting Lake Titicaca, exploring the floating Uros Islands, and meeting the Taquile Island community — a magical and authentic experience. Everything ran smoothly overall, though travel logistics could be improved slightly with a little less reliance on public transport. Our leader, Lyss, was exceptional from start to finish — warm, attentive, and always ready to help. She truly went above and beyond to make sure everyone had the best experience possible. Accommodation was good throughout. Explore usually chooses charming, locally run hotels full of character, which I really appreciate. While the Hilton was perfectly fine, it didn’t have quite the same local feel I’ve come to love on Explore trips. Overall, a great trip that I would highly recommend.

Our guide Lyss Torres was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. She made the trip so wonderful. She went out of her way to help when things went wrong, lost luggage on arrival at Lima. We couldn’t have managed without her help as LATAM airlines were very unhelpful. There were long journeys but we were prepared and they were broken down into acceptable sections. The overnight bus was perfectly okay and I slept most of it. Overall an amazing experience and I would recommend it, just read the itinerary in detail.

A really comprehensive, interesting tour of Peru but a bit rushed in places and exhausting. In particular, we had no time at all in Lima and not enough time in Nazca. Flights to Peru with Avianca are often delayed (ours was by 24 hours) so I'd advise scheduling an extra day at least at the beginning of this trip to relax and see something of Lima.

Big Shoutout to Our Leader- Lyss who was just amazing. She was right there for everything and was very knowledgeable about all the places that we visited. She made my first explore experience amazing. Really loved this trip and would definitely recommend it to a friend 100%.

I wanted to love this trip and Peru, but unfortunately, that didn't happen. One of Explore's mottos is "Your wellbeing comes first". They don't really mean it. On this trip temperatures dropped into single digits and multiple hotels didn't have heat and/or the heat didn't work. This caused me to get sick, and many others also didn't feel well. After three days of being sick, the guide helped me get a doctor's appointment, but the doctor didn't speak English, and the guide didn't accompany me to translate. My symptoms were either ignored or misunderstand so I wasn't properly diagnosed. This obviously had a major impact on my enjoyment of the trip. Additionally, the guide wasted several hours a day on making plans instead of making plans during travel time. Since time was limited in each location, losing time to meetings in hotel lobbies was very disappointing. Explore charged me extra for my Machu Picchu ticket (which they shouldn't have and did refund after I complained after the trip), failed to book Puno to Cusco train tickets for a family even though they were requested a year in advance, and failed to book a Machu Picchu mountain ticket for another guest. Hotels on the surface seemed ok, but many were quite loud. Additionally, the pre-travel information (preferred name, medical information, travel insurance information, etc) I provided on the Explore website apparently wasn't reviewed or received by Explore so they were not aware of a medical condition. In spite of all of these issues, Explore told me that "this trip did run within our expectations". A wholly unsatisfactory response for a terribly mismanaged trip.

Fabulous trip - lots of travelling, but done comfortably and this enabled us to see so much of the country!

This was a really great tour which hit all of the highlights of the amazing country that is Peru. The tour leader was excellent and had a wealth of knowledge and experience and was very happy to field all of our random questions. He was also endlessly patient with sorting out any minor issues and advising how to handle the altitude sickness. We had some excellent local tour guides as well who provided even more in depth knowledge about the highlands and Lake Titicaca. The tour covered a lot of ground and was very well paced, with plenty to see and do when travelling from one destination to the next. Would highly recommend.