Machu Picchu Solo: How to Tackle Machu Picchu Without a Guide

How to do Machu Picchu Solo, Without a Guide and on a budget

Is it possible to reach Machu Picchu without a guide? Absolutely! If you are on a budget or just prefer a self-directed journey to this wonder, you can easily access Machu Picchu without tours or expensive guides.

To get to Machu Picchu solo, you will need to do some planning, but it is generally pretty straightforward.

Quick Tips for Machu Picchu Solo

Machu Picchu is still very much accessible without a guide or arranged tour for less than $100.

• Drive: from Cusco to the Central Hydroelectrica outside Santa Theresa. If you don’t hit any roadblocks or accidents on these notorious roads, it will take about 6 hours. Alternatively, you can catch a local bus or ‘colectivo’ from Calle Inca, Cusco, to Santa Maria, another bus on to Santa Theresa, and finally, a taxi to the Hidroelectrica, all for less than $15 USD.

• Walk: From the Hidroelectrica, you will need to walk 3 hours to Agua Calientes. Hostels in Agua Calientes start from about $10 USD per night.
• Train: If you don’t want to walk, you can take the train. Check out the timetable on Bookaway.
• Tickets: Purchase a Machu Picchu Ticket ($45 USD) from the cultural center in Agua Calientes.
• Hike: Access Machu Picchu by hiking up the mountain or taking the bus ($19 USD one way or $29 USD return).
• Acclimatize: Machu Picchu is 2,430 m above sea level putting it high enough to cause altitude sickness. It’s important to allocate a few days in Cusco or the Sacred Valley for acclimatization before planning any hikes in the region such as Machu Picchu.
• Break Up the Trip: Consider breaking up the drive from Cusco to Santa Theresa, stopping overnight in Agua Calientes, or exploring some of the other mystic experiences of the Sacred Valley before you head to Machu Picchu.

Machu Picchu On a Budget

While Kelli went off to complete the Salkantay trail hike to Machu Picchu with her mom, I was camped in the hills above Cusco, exploring the Incan ruins and making friends with some other vanabonds who had been camped out there for a few weeks.

After a couple of days, I got restless and decided to drive to Machu Picchu alone and hike to the ancient Incan citadel myself. I wanted to discover if it was possible to see Macchu Picchu alone and how my experience would stack up to Kelli’s all-inclusive hiking package.

It seemed relatively straightforward: drive six hours from Cusco to Santa Theresa, hike to the tourist town of Agua Calientes, purchase an entry ticket to Machu Picchu for about $50, and hike up to the famous Incan ruins. I went to bed that evening, certain that this would make a great weekend hike, and resolved to set off at a reasonable hour the next morning.

Over the course of the weekend, I discovered that:

1. It is absolutely possible to get to Machu Picchu solo.
2. It is absolutely worth doing Machu Picchu on a budget
3. I managed to do EVERYTHING wrong on my Machu Picchu solo trip.

Driving from Cusco to Machu Picchu

Can you Drive to Machu Picchu?

Almost! You can drive as far as Santa Theresa.

Most people will set out for Machu Picchu from Cusco. You can take a collectivo (collectivos leave from Calle Inca in Cusco) or a private transfer, or you can drive yourself. The journey is only about 200 kilometers, but the winding mountain roads are slow going. The drive takes 5 or 6 hours, taking you as high as 4,300 meters into the Andes.

When you reach the town of Sant Maria, paved roads give way to narrow dirt tracks that skirt high cliffs. The saving grace is that as you drive toward Santa Theresa, you stick to the right-hand side of the road, away from the sheer drop on the left.

You can stay overnight in Santa Theresa or continue on foot or by train to Agua Calientes, the town at the base of Montaña Machu Picchu.

In most cases, it should be quite a straightforward drive. I managed to make it quite difficult.

My Experience Driving to Machu Picchu

On the Friday before I embarked on my drive to Machu Picchu, I found the cheapest fried chicken dinner of my life in the bustling Mercardo San Pedro in central Cusco. I took a seat next to another couple of oblivious gringos.

Sometime during the night, I awoke, shivering uncontrollably, my stomach churning angrily. The cheap fried chicken in the San Pedro Market had, predictably, betrayed me. I vomited the entirety of my dinner onto the floor beside me. After a hasty cleanup, I spent the rest of the night shivering and sweating my way through a horrible fever.

By 8:00 am, I was awake. My stomach had settled, but the fever had not broken, and I was weak and muddled. I slowly packed up the van and forced down some eggs and coffee. If I was going to be sick, I might as well be sick on the drive to one of the world’s new seven wonders. I didn’t set off until 10:00 am. By midday, I was too sick to drive any further so I pulled over and crawled into the back of the van to sleep.

I woke a couple of hours later and pressed on. The fever hadn’t broken yet. I continued on, unable to eat or drink because of my extreme lack of appetite. Eventually reaching the cordillera, little Pablo Van Go took me up to 4000m. I began to feel lightheaded and delirious as the fever, combined with the altitude and the fact that I hadn’t eaten or drank enough during the day, started to affect me. After a couple of hours, the winding road began to descend again. As I dropped, I began to feel a little better, and finally, the fever began to recede.

As the sun disappeared behind the encompassing mountain range and the night began to settle, several cars banked up a little way up the road. It seemed a large tree had fallen over the road. After 30 minutes, some locals cleared the way, and the convoy of cars continued on.

With my late start, the break I had taken to rest, and this latest hold-up, it was around 6:00 pm. I thought I could still make it to the Hidroelectrica outside Santa Theresa (the closest you can get by road to Machu Picchu) by 8:00 pm, walk to Agua Calientes by 11:00 pm, get a bed in a hostel and be up at 4:00 am to climb Machu Picchu for sunrise.

Thirty minutes up the way and traffic came to a halt again It started to dawn on me that this was not another tree coincidentally fallen on the road, but a protest demonstration, the favored method of political discourse in the region, that would likely go on for many more miles.

After waiting 40 minutes for this one to clear with no evidence that it would and feeling sick, I crawled into the back of the van and immediately fell asleep. I woke to the sound of traffic going past at about 11:00 pm and clambered into the front. I certainly wouldn’t make Agua Calientes tonight, but I could at least get as close to the start of the trail as I could.

It was slow going as I hit two more protests and plenty more obstacles that had been dragged onto the road. At 3:00 am, past Santa Maria but still half an hour outside Santa Teresa, I pulled off the road and fell asleep, once more exhausted.

I had unwittingly forced my vehicle down a one-way road as a series of makeshift blockades and angry protestors closed it off behind me. I didn’t realize at the time what a serious mistake this would be. A prolonged strike by local farmers over coca prices would escalate into protests and blockades that would cut off access to Santa Teresa for two weeks.

Hiking to Machu Picchu

Again, assuming you aren’t sick or caught up in a region-wide strike, you should awake refreshed in a hostel in Agua Calientes and ready for the hike up to the ancient citadel.

For me, not so much.

I awoke at about 9:00 am, drenched in sweat. My appetite hadn’t returned in the slightest, but I choked down some cereal. It was going to be a long day. I had to continue driving to the Hidroeléctrica at Santa Theresa.

From Hidroeléctrica, I walked 13km to Agua Calientes along train tracks. It is a relatively simple and beautiful walk in the shadow of the Montaña Machu Picchu, but it felt like a slog in my weakened condition. There were plenty of other people making there way along the train tracks though

In Agua Calientes, I purchased a ticket to Machu Picchu for 152 Sols (about $45 USD) and took a break for lunch.

The walking hadn’t coaxed my appetite or thirst back, but I forced down some overpriced pizza and lemonade. At 2:30 pm, I backtracked to the base of the Machu Picchu Mountain; pizza and lemonade now seemed like a poor choice. The ascent took about an hour, draining the last of my energy.

At the top, as I entered the site, I felt revitalized, the wonder was incredible, and I was able to get a sense of the magnitude and magnificence of the original citadel amongst the mountain despite the hoards of tourists and preened llamas scurrying over the crumbling ruins.

At about 4:45 pm, I began to descend the mountain, and I was back on the train tracks leading me back to the van at Hidroelectrica just after 5:00 pm. As the sun began to set and the last of the stragglers passed me by in the opposite direction on their way to Agua Calientes, I felt both lucky and stupid.

Exhausted from sickness, not enough sleep, not eating or drinking, and yet without the slightest appetite or thirst, I cursed myself for putting myself in this position. I had to work at 4:00 am the next morning, and a 2-hour walk in the dark was still ahead of me. Still, as the sunset and the full moon rose, filtering through the clouds to throw up stark silhouettes of the mighty Urubamba Valley towering above me, and with just the fireflies to guide me along the train tracks home, I felt like I was experiencing something very special.

Getting Back

I arrived at the van and drove back into Santa Theresa to find a camp. I fell asleep exhausted but secure in the knowledge that my difficulties had come to an end and that tomorrow I would drive back to Cusco.

When I woke up I completed the perilous 1-hour trip back toward Santa Maria, this time forced to keep to the side closest to the sheer cliff face the road hugs. Luckily (or so it seemed at the time), there were very few cars coming the other way. When I got into Santa Maria, my heart sank.

The isolated protests I had encountered on my drive here had escalated. Hundreds of farmers had amassed in town to shut down the roads out of Santa Maria. Exploring all three roads out of town, I found nothing but jeering, angry protesters, hitting my car, and yelling angrily. Despite my limited Spanish, one thing was clear, no pasaje, no way through!

This was very upsetting. The locals I spoke to were unable to give any estimate of how long protests might go on. Some thinking days, some shrieking excitedly that it could be a month or more. I was shattered.

I decided that there must be another way, and after careful scrutiny of the map, I decided it might be possible to drive out of the valley on a dirt trail labeled 109. I spent the entire day ferreting out my way over some of the worst roads I have ever seen. I was taken high on mountain ridges and dropped right back down to the river again. Time and time again, roads and offshoots turned into dead ends or goat tracks.

After a full day of exploration in which I managed to shake every single thing that wasn’t tied down loose from the van, I returned to Santa Theresa, utterly defeated and dejected. There was no way out for me and my little van. Tuesday passed with the limited information filtering through Peruvian news services that the situation was not improving. I was restless, bored, and fed up with the whole scenario.

On Tuesday evening, I was able to talk to Kelli, who had arrived in Agua Calientes and now had reception. We decided to wait until the following morning before deciding on a course of action.

On Wednesday, I heard back from the iPeru national tourism agency and the Australian consulate, both of whom suggested that the situation with the protesters had not abated and there was no way of knowing how long it might continue; the only way out was by taking the train. I decided to bite the bullet, buy a $70 USD train ticket to Cusco, and abandon poor Pablo-Van-Go, promising I would return for him when the situation settled.

Of course, when I went to buy the train ticket online, I realized I had lost my wallet, but after turning the van upside down, I could not fathom where. Either it had fallen somewhere deep out of sight within the van, or someone had nicked it. I cursed loudly at my luck. Weeks later, I would recover the wallet from the very secure place I had hidden it for safekeeping.

Thankfully Kelli was able to buy a ticket online and email it to me. I stuffed what I could into my pack and set off once more for Agua Calientes and the train that would deliver me from this nightmare.

The Train From Machu Picchu to Cusco

I met up with Kelli in Agua Calientes and we hopped on the train back to Cusco.

It could have been the hellish days that preceded it, but the train ride back to Cusco was a wonderful experience. The train may be expensive by Peruvian standards, but it is an awesome trip through the striking valleys with panoramic views, onboard dining (sandwiches), and even a dance performance inspired by Andes culture.

Final Thoughts on Machu Picchu Solo

You Can Camp Amongst Incan Ruins Above Cusco for Free!

Camping here above Cusco was beautiful and peaceful, and I was able to spend my days trekking amongst Incan ruins, waterfalls, and caves for free and without hordes of tourists. Aquaducts, presumably remnants from ancient architecture, still carry freshwater (filter or purify before drinking) from the head of the valley. I met some other overlanders here, and together we visited the local farms for fresh dairy and explored the local countryside.

Sure these ruins aren’t as impressive as Machu Picchu, but you will likely have them all to yourself.

Avoid the San Pedro Market

San Pedro Market is a great place for fruit, veg, grains, flours, bric-a-brac, and souvenirs, but avoid buying meat from markets in general and from my own personal hellish experience (and later from many other reports) avoid the food court here.

Watch Out for Protests and Road Blocks Driving in Peru

Like many places in South America, much of Peru’s political discourse between the government and the governed takes place through protest. Protests can take the form of marches, strikes, and commonly roadblocks which can happen without notice and last indefinitely. Be prepared for anything, and if you do see roads getting closed down, it may be better to turn back before you get trapped, as I did. Never try to cross roadblocks without permission, monitor local news agencies, local tourism agencies, and providers, and reach out to your consulate if in trouble.