Peru travel health
Required is not recommended: the first is what the border asks about, the second is what a clinic would suggest. Both, for Peru, then the number to dial and what care costs a visitor. Applies to every guide in Peru: Cusco & Machu Picchu, Lima, Arequipa, Lake Titicaca.
Required to enter
- Yellow fever certificate, but only if you are arriving from a country where yellow fever is present
Recommended
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
- Yellow fever if you are going to the Amazon
- Rabies for rural or long stays
Emergency number
116 for an ambulance, 105 for police
Care for visitors
Good but costly
Private clinics in Lima are good and reasonably priced; outside the capital and the main tourist towns, facilities thin out quickly. Insurance with evacuation cover is worth having if you are heading into the Andes or the Amazon.
Altitude sickness is the most common problem for visitors heading to Cusco (3,400m) — ascend slowly and do not fly straight to a trek. Do not drink the tap water.
The general rules — clinic timing, water, mosquitoes, insurance — are in travel health tips.
The guides in Peru
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