Vacation To Peru For Around $1000

If you are looking for an awesome vacation to South America you are going to want check this out. A few years ago my friend and I decided that we wanted to take a trip through the Amazon Rain Forest and visit a few locations in Peru. We had talked about taking the trip for a few years, but always assumed it would cost way too much for a couple of single guys going to college. One day Jeremy and I were in front of the computer looking at pictures of Peru and wondering when we would ever be able to make this trip happen. We decided, just for fun, to look and see how much an airplane ticket would cost from Utah to Peru and found out that it would only be about $600. If we were going to make this trip happen we would both have to stay within our budget of about $1,000 each. Could someone really have a good time in Peru with only $400? Well, we started to investigate a little further into where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do so we could get a little better of an idea on how much money we were going to spend. Just so you know, some of you might not be willing to do what we did in order to have the vacation we had. We didn’t do anything illegal, I promise, but we did have to do some serious negotiating once we arrived to the great country of Peru. This is probably not the best idea for a family vacation but if you are single and have a few friends that want to travel then this might work out for you. On a side note, I would recommend you bring a friend or two that speak Spanish. You could do it without knowing any Spanish, but it is going to be a lot easier and a lot cheaper if you have someone in your group that speaks Spanish. You see, if you look like you are from the states then they will treat you like you have a lot of money. Most everything you buy can be negotiated in Peru and if you appear to have a lot of money, then they will take advantage of you by making you think that you are getting the best deal. They are amazing people and I love them, but you have to understand that they are just trying to make a living, just like you and me.

Let me outline our trip for you and if you still want to take the voyage after hearing where we went and what we did, you will not regret spending the $1,000. If you do some good budgeting and know how to bargain you should have no problem making this trip the best vacation of your life. First, you have to understand that for every dollar you have, you can exchange for around three soles (The sole is the Peruvian currency). So your $400 just turned into about 1,200 soles. Let’s do a little breakdown with these 1,200 soles.

You need to think about your housing. Everywhere in South America they have these little hotel-like places called hostales. You can Google “hostales en Peru” and you will be able to find one wherever you plan on traveling. They are like a really cheap motel. These usually come with two or three beds, a TV and a hot shower in each room. Most Peruvians do not every experience a hot shower, so consider yourself blessed to have a hot shower while you are there. These rooms usually run around 35 soles. For two weeks in Peru at 35 soles per night you have 360. Leaving you with 840 soles to travel and eat.

For a great meal anywhere in Peru you will probably spend around 5 soles per meal. For breakfast we had bread and avocados with some fruit or cereal with fruit; something simple like that. You can get bread and avocado the size of your open hand and just about any kind of fruit that grows in the jungle, all for 1 to 2 soles for the bundle. I promise guys, you can get 10 amazing bread rolls for 50 cents (in soles). On top of that you are able to bargain just about everything you buy, so if they tell you bread is 10 rolls for one sol, you just ask them if you can give them 50 cents. Most of the time, they will still give it to you.  You can eat lunch on the street or find a restaurant to eat. This will only cost you about 5 soles. It is about the same for dinner unless you want to go fancy. In that case, you will probably spend about 8 to 10 soles. Folks, this kind of restaurant is like you going to Chile’s or Applebee’s. In my opinion it is great food. You can survive and will still enjoy your food if you take my advice. Buy all of your breakfast food and take it to your hostal and eat it.  You can eat out for lunch and dinner and still keep it under 15 soles per day. 15 soles for 13 full days is 195 soles. That gives us a grand total of 745 soles left over for your travel.

You should all do your homework on which locations you want to visit. To get you started I have selected 3 of my favorite sites below. Each site will give you some ideas of where to visit while you are on your cheap vacation to Peru.

Here is a good page for tourist sites in Lima

Here is a good page for tourist sites in Huancayo

Here is a good page for tourist sites in Huánuco

For our travel we asked around and found a trustworthy cab driver and paid him about 200 soles each to take us from Lima to Huancayo, Huancayo to Huánuco, and then back to Lima. Unless you have contacts in Peru, I would recommend you take the bus and pay for cabs while you’re in town. It might be hard to find someone willing to take 10 days away from their family. Also, you will have to find someone who owns their taxi, because if they rent their car everyday they will not be allowed to take it outside of Lima. The alternative would be to buy a bus pass to Huancayo for about 60 soles. You can travel all around Huancayo and see all of the ruins and other tourist sites in a cab or by walking and only spend about 40 soles for 4 to 5 days in the city. You can go to Huánuco on the bus for about 40 soles. I would spend a little bit more on taxies while in Huánuco, because you are going to want to spend some time in the jungle while you are there. They usually give tours from Huánuco to the jungle for about 20 soles. For the rest of the ruins and traveling around the city you will spend another 30 soles. You will want to spend another 4 to 5 days in Huánuco, then take the bus back to Lima for another 60 soles. Take some time traveling around this beautiful city. You can travel all around Lima using taxies and check out all of the sites (I will list some good sites at the bottom of the post). This will cost you about 100 more soles. This brings your traveling expenses to a grand total of 320. Let’s add about 100 soles just in case you get lost or decide to travel more than we did. We also walked as much as we could, which saved us a lot of money. So our total travel expenses with the 320 plus 100 extra, for just in case, is 420. Let’s minus 420 from 745 you have 325. Some of the ruins and sites cost a little bit of money so we will take about another 100 soles for that. You now have about 225 soles that you can use to buy souvenirs or whatever you want.

If you take a friend most of your costs will be cut in half. This was one of the most memorable trips I have ever been on. You have to understand that we went during their winter time, which is the off season for travel. This helps you save on both airline tickets as well as sleeping expenses. If you try to go during any other time of the year you will pay a lot more than we did. I love Peru and can’t wait to go back and see the rest of the country. If you have 2 weeks and about $1,000 and are looking for an amazing vacation, go to Peru.