The Inca Trail, located high in the Andes Mountains of Peru, is one of the most epic adventures that you can have in South America. This iconic trek takes you past dozens of ancient Inca ruins and some of the most breathtaking vistas of the Andes Mountains and culminates at Machu Picchu, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. However, hiking the trail doesn’t come cheap—in fact, it’s the most expensive trek that my husband, Justin, and I have ever completed. If you’re wanting to plan this incredible trek for yourself, here’s exactly how much the Inca Trail cost us, from the hike itself to some of the smaller items we would have never thought about.
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How much the Inca Trail cost us
In this article, I’m going to outline all of the line items that Justin and I paid per person in completing the Inca Trail. I’m sure you could either spend a bit less or WAY more than we did—this is just an example of costs that you should consider when budgeting for your trek.
Inca Trail Guided Tour: $826
One of my favorite aspects of hiking is that, outside of buying hiking boots and a water bottle, it’s pretty much free! But that’s definitely not the case with the Inca Trail.
Since 2001, you’ve been legally required to hike the Inca Trail with a certified guide. And, in order to book a guide, you generally need to book through a tour operator.
These tour operators do not just offer a guide, though—Inca Trail tours typically include basically all of your camping gear, your permit for the Inca Trail, your entrance fee to Machu Picchu, transportation to and from Cusco, food, water, and an entire team of people to help you on the trail, including a cook and porters.
Justin and I hiked with a group of four hikers (the two of us, Justin’s cousin and his wife)—for the four of us, we had a team of ten(!!) porters, a cook, and our guide.
After doing a TON of research during the booking process, we decided to go with this tour with Salkantay Trekking, due to their stellar reviews, the fact that they’re one of two 100% locally owned companies that offer the Inca Trail trek, and their reported fair treatment of their porters.
Before our trek, I thought the tour was kind of absurdly pricey, but, after going on it—I get it.
We had three generous and DELICIOUS meals every day (with lunch and dinner consisting of at least three courses) AND an afternoon tea time; had 7.5 kg of our personal items carried by the porters; had cold, drinkable water prepared for us each morning—pretty much any kind of luxury that you can imagine camping, we had it.
Justin and I have done plenty of multi-day backpacking trips and this was the first time we had ever had anyone carry stuff, prepare meals, or do anything for us on the trail. So, we definitely don’t feel like we NEED a three course dinner or tea time while hiking.
However, all of the reputable Inca Trail trekking companies provide these kinds of luxuries on their tours—I searched around and couldn’t find any operators that offer more significantly more pared down offerings.
For what it’s worth, I suspect a lot of people that the Inca Trail may be many people’s first experience backpacking—so they very well may appreciate these luxuries.
Almost all Inca Trail tours will cost somewhere around $800 per person. If you find a tour that’s significantly cheaper than that, I’d recommend being extremely wary and doing a TON of research before booking. You usually get what you pay for and, oftentimes, a cheaper tour will mean that an operator is cutting corners with porters, either by grossly underpaying the ones they have or hiring less porters and forcing them to carry more weight.
Tip for crew: $125 USD
You’ll find all kinds of conflicting information online about how much to tip which members of the crew at the end of our trek, but, out of all of the guidance that we read, we generally thought that 15% of the price of our tour was a good rule of thumb.
So, we each wound up tipping about $58 for the porters, $25 for the cook, and $42 for our guide.
There’s obviously no ATMs along the trail, so be sure to take out enough Peruvian soles in Cusco to tip your crew at the end of your trek (pssst… not sure what else to bring along on your hike? Be sure to check out our packing list for the Inca Trail!).
Gear rental: $11 USD
Most Inca Trail tours, including our own, include pretty much all of the gear that you need, but for sleeping bags and trekking poles.
We each paid about $9 USD to rent a sleeping bag and I paid a couple dollars extra to rent a hiking backpack for the duration of the trek from Saywa Peru Explore in the Old Town of Cusco. We already had purchased cheap trekking poles from a street vendor in Arequipa, Peru, but if you don’t already own some, I’d DEFINITELY recommend renting some for the Inca Trail—trust me, your knees will thank you!
There’s plenty of outfitters in Cusco with affordable gear rentals, but, if you can swing it, I’d suggest bringing your own gear from home, at least with respect to your sleeping bag. Most of the sleeping bags we found in gear shops were pretty low quality, which isn’t exactly what you want when you’re camping at almost 12,000 feet over sea level.
If you bring your own, I’d recommend packing a four-season sleeping bag—i.e., one that’s rated for -10°C (14°F). I was absolutely FREEZING one of the nights in my cheap rental sleeping bag and we weren’t even visiting during the coldest months!
Drinks and bathrooms along the trail: $8 USD
On the first day of the Inca Trail, you will spend the day hiking through tiny Quechua villages along the Rio Urubamba. In each of these villages, there’s locals that sell drinks, like Gatorade, tiny bottles of rum, or chicha (a fermented corn beer); snacks; and access to their bathrooms.
So, during the first day on the trail, we tried a couple glasses of chicha (if you’re like me and a big fan of fermented things, you gotta try it!), had a beer with our dinner, and used the bathroom a couple of times. Remember to bring along some Peruvian soles to buy some snacks or drinks here—tourism is basically the only thing that these tiny communities exist on!
Food in Aguas Calientes after the hike: $11 USD
In general, Inca Trail tours typically include all of your meals, except for lunch in the neighboring town of Aguas Calientes after you’ve finished the Inca Trail and are waiting for the train that will take you back towards Cusco.
Aguas Calientes is definitely on the pricier side for Peru—most lunches at touristy restaurants cost $15 USD (and up!). If you’re on a budget, though, you can definitely find cheaper places to eat—we found a pizza place, where we were able to split a pizza for around $10 USD.
Total Inca Trail Cost: $981 USD
So, yeah, like I said… not exactly cheap.
Still, our time on the Inca Trail was absolutely EPIC—exploring ancient ruins that few people ever get to see, sleeping under the stars, and entering Machu Picchu through the Sungate, just as the Incas once did.
It was absolutely worth every penny for us!
Other costs for hiking the Inca Trail
In the section above, I’ve categorized all of Justin’s and my costs that I attribute solely to our Inca Trail trek. However, there’s definitely other items that you should consider if you’re trying to budget for this hike.
Getting to Cusco
Almost all travelers use the town of Cusco as their springboard to hike the Inca Trail and explore the rest of the Sacred Valley. Generally, your Inca Trail tour will include pick-up from any hotel in Cusco to the trailhead.
Obviously, depending on where you’re coming from, getting to Cusco, in southeastern Peru, might be time consuming and expensive. You’ll generally first need to fly into Peru’s capital city of Lima and then take a connecting flight to Cusco.
Justin and I were on a massive seven month adventure around South America, so our bus between the beautiful colonial city of Arequipa and Cusco cost about $28 USD. But, if you’re coming from someplace else, you’ll obviously need to budget a bit more money for actually getting to Peru in the first place. For example, it costs around $1,100, on the lower end of average, to fly from Chicago to Cusco roundtrip during the busy season here.
Acclimation days in Cusco
The Inca Trail starts at over 8,800 feet and climbs to almost 14,000 feet above sea level. Accordingly, you should ideally arrive in Cusco, which sits at over 11,000 feet above sea level, at least two days before starting the Inca Trail to acclimate to the higher elevation.
During this timeframe, you’ll need to eat, drink, stay in some kind of accommodation, and keep yourself entertained.
If you’re on a budget, great news! Cusco is VERY affordable—you can stay in a hostel dorm for about $10 USD a night and buy a menu del dia lunch from the Mercado Central for about $3 USD. Of course, there’s also super swanky four star hotels, fancy restaurants, and pricey activities here, if you’re someone who likes to ball out.
For context, Justin and I generally travel on a midrange budget and spent about $50 USD per person per day in Cusco.
Insider tip: When booking a hotel in Cusco, I’d suggest reserving one that has a free luggage storage service for when you’re off hiking the Inca Trail.
We stayed in Cusco for a few weeks, so we booked a long-term Airbnb that didn’t have luggage services—and wound up having to book extra nights while we were on the Inca Trail to have a safe place to store our luggage. Some hotels that have free luggage storage services include Casa San Blas in the adorable and artsy San Blas neighborhood or Tierra Viva in the heart of Cusco’s Old Town.
Travel insurance
Given the price point of the Inca Trail trek, I’d highly recommend buying travel insurance for your trip. It would REALLY suck to spend thousands of dollars on getting to Cusco and booking an Inca Trail trek, just to break a leg or come down with a nasty flu right before you’re supposed to fly out.
It’s also a good idea to have travel insurance, just in case something terrible happens along the trail (e.g., you struggle with altitude sickness or slip and hurt yourself on the trail). Getting injured while you’re traveling is never fun, but it’s especially not fun if you’re worried about how much said injury is going to cost you in a foreign country.
We’ve used World Nomads in the past for trips we wanted coverage for and have been happy with their services. For a two week trip, I’d expect to spend between $150-300 on insurance.
Gear
As mentioned above, you don’t really need too much of your own hiking or camping gear to complete the Inca Trail, other than hiking boots, a backpack, a refillable water bottle, trekking poles, and a sleeping bag (and you can rent pretty much everything other than the boots and the water bottle in a pinch!).
Still, decent hiking boots can be on the pricier side if you don’t already have them—Justin has used these boots for years and these are the ones that I have and love, both of which cost over $180 USD.
There you have it—exactly how much the Inca Trail cost us! Do you have any questions about any of the expenses that might arise along the trail?
