What a visitor's money does in Peru: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Peruvian Sol (PEN) · 1 EUR = 3.9 PEN · 1 USD = 3.4 PEN
Cambistas on Avenida El Sol give better rates than the banks and are licensed — look for the vest and the ID. Dollars are widely accepted but at a poor built-in rate. Break large notes early; nobody in Aguas Calientes has change for a 200.
Avoid: Globalnet machines in shops and hostels, anything in Aguas Calientes
Use: BCP, Interbank, BBVA, Scotiabank
Withdraw in Cusco before the train. Aguas Calientes has almost no card acceptance and the machines there charge the most in Peru.
A short ride in Cusco & Machu Picchu: S/ 8–20 across town — cheap
Much cheaper than a street taxi, and much safer than one hailed outside an airport — which is the standing advice countrywide.
Arequipa claims the best food in Peru and will argue about it. Rocoto relleno is a stuffed pepper hot enough to matter, adobo is a Sunday pork stew, and chupe de camarones is a river-prawn chowder. Eat in a picantería — the old ones have been there a century.
Trucha — lake trout, farmed and grilled — is on every menu and is the thing. Quinoa soup before it, and if you are offered chuño, freeze-dried potato made by leaving them out on Andean nights, it is older than the Inca and an acquired texture.
Eat the menú del día at lunch — soup, main and drink for 15-25 soles. Try cuy if you are curious, alpaca if you are hungry, and chicha morada with everything.
Lima is a genuine global food capital. Ceviche is eaten at lunch, never dinner — the fish is that morning’s catch. Try it at a cevichería, then work through lomo saltado, causa and anticuchos.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
Cusco & Machu PicchuPeruAn Inca capital at 3,400m, and the citadel below it
LimaPeruCliffs above the Pacific and South America’s best food scene
ArequipaPeruA white volcanic-stone city under three volcanoes, and the deepest canyon most people have never heard of
Lake TiticacaPeruThe highest navigable lake on earth, with islands of woven reed and villages that still weave their own history