We are palnning on a 18 day trip to Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca and the Galapagos Islands. We usually travel independently and make all hotel/flight/tour arrangements by ourselves. For this itinerary we priced independent packages at a travel agent. The travel agent has provied us with three different quotes for land only arrangements, the cheapest is USD7,500 per person. The package includes local tours (mostly private tours), flights within Ecuador (Quito to the Galapogas Islands) and Peru (Lima to Cuzco/Julica to Lima) in economy class, the Hiram Bingham Train to Machu Pichu, the Andean Explorer train from Cuzco to Puno, a 4 night Galapogas cruise on the MV Santa Cruz or MV Legend, airport transfers and the following hotels:-

Quito, 2 nights at the Hilton Colon,

Lima, 3 nights at the Park Plaza Hotel,

Cuzco, 3 nights at the Monsterio,

Machu Pichu, 1 night at the Santuary Lodge, and

Puno, 3 nights at the Liberator Hotel.

We're stunned at the cost. I know that packages like these always cost more than if we arranged everything ourselves. Could fodorites please comment. Are we better off making arrangement ourselves. We are wondering if we are being charged more because we have choosen the more expensive hotels in each location. Maybe we made a mistake telling the travel agent we wanted the hotels in Machu Pichu and Cuzco. I have read many posts about Peru on the this board, and I and debating what to do.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Sorry, when I posted this earlier I should have said I'd like to know what tours and airport transfers cost in Peru and Ecuador. I have looked up prices for the hotels, (on expedia and travelocity), airfares (on LAN and Aerogal), and train tickets (Peru Rail).

Could fodorites who have been to Peru and Ecuador please let me know what prices are for tours/transfers/etc.

We were considering a pre arranged package for convience, we are still trying to deceide what to do.

Thanks.

I just returned from a Dec trip to Peru and Galpagos. Originally I priced it through a travel agency, then (and with alot of work) did it all myself, for 1/3 of the price!

We stayed at Monasterio for 2 nights, we did the Vistadome train over the Hiram Bingham, and stayed at Inkaterra Pueblo over the Sanctuary (Which my opinion, was far superior-especially for the money.) We stayed at Hilton Colon, and did the 4 day Legend Cruise. Including ALL the air, and we did not do the Amazon, and only went for 11 days total instead of 18-so I don't if your trip is reasonable or not. also don't know what time of year-if it's peak season or not.

blamona, thank you for your feedback.

When I did a search of Peru threads yesterday I came across a thread with links to your photos, the photos are great.

Did you use the glass bottom boat on the Legend?

How was th Hilton Colon? Was in safe to walk around near the hotel?

We are considering the Santuary Lodge mainly because of the location.

We certainly do not mind taking the Vistadom train instead of the Hiram Bingham.

We are planning the trip for late May or June. Our travel agent has provided prices for low season and high season, there is a $300 difference between the two. (Low season is $7500 and high season is $ 7800).

blamona, I hope you don't mind me asking what your trip cost.

Any information/help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

I've been looking at dive boats - I can tell you that Peter Hughes/Ecoventura quotes rates ranging $315-$407 for round trip air transfer on Aerogal from Quito/Guayaquil to the Galapagos.

The question about the Hilton Colon in Quito should read:- Was it safe to walk around near the hotel.

I have reviewed the itinerary if we take the Vistadome train instead of the Hiram Bingham the package is $7100 per person in low season and $7400 per person in high season.

I have calculated the rates for hotels (Quito - Hilton Colon, Lima- Park Plaza, Cuzco - Monesterio, Machu Pichu - Santuary Lodge, Puno -Liberator), airline tickets (from Quito to the Galapagos, Quito to Lima, Lima to Cuczo, and Julica to Lima), the 5 day cruise on the MV Legend and train tickets (Vistadome and Andean Express), these add up to $8700 if I book them separately. The tour operator wants $14200 ($7100 x 2). Therefore, we are being charged $5500 ($14200 - $8700) for tours and transfers by the tour operator.

Which company can I use for transfers and tours in Quito, Lima, Cuzco and Puno?

Thanks again.

I felt very safe around Hilton Colon. There is a square in front, with tons of market venders. You can easily get a taxi to Old City, and can easily find a taxi back.

As for transfers, at the airport in Cusco, Monasterio has an "office", and they will call a taxi for you. If I remember correctly, it was $5-$7 for the transfer. Maybe $5 for taxi back and forth from Monasterio to train station. In Cusco, we used Dos Manos-it was $20 per person for all day Sacred Valley Tour-Pisac, lunch at Ullambra, Ollataytabo, and Chincheros. (not including lunch, that was about $10 more) and $15 for the Cusco city tour which also included 3 different ruins outside of Cusco.

We stayed at Inkaterra Pueblo-and at the train station at Aguas Calientes, they take your luggage for you, you can walk to the resort. I highly recommend Inkaterra over Sanctuary (you'll save 2/3 money too!) Inkaterra is at the edge of town, so you can walk around, go through the markets, and hang out in square or restaurants in evening-it's actually kinda fun to take the bus up, and Inkaterra is gorgeous! All meals are included, and they are terrific-I cannot rave enough about how special it is.

Hilton Colon has transfers-if I remember correctly, it was around $5 for 2 of us.

You have to get your Galapagos air tickets with the cruise, it's not garuanteed without getting them together-and you're not going to save-air costs the same. Transfers in Galapagos are included. What's not included is $100 Park fee.

Maybe the agent also included the $40 entrance MP tickets, and the $12 bus rides? It seemed to me the commissions seemed to be about 30%.

We only took a 3 night(4 day) tour on Galapagos, so we saved there too.

We did not stay in Lima, so saved money there too.

Blamona, was your $20 tour a private tour or a shared bus? We are receiving much higher prices to tour and were thinking of just showing up at the ruins and finding a local guide. Was this a tour leaving Cusco and going into Sacred Valley? Or were you in SV and hired someone to take you around?
Thanks for the help! Cc

$20 was a shared bus. when they picked people up, it seemed like 40 people, but then they split us up in 2 buses-so around 15-20 people each. A private tour we were quoted around $50-$60 for 2-which actually is not that much, and I would highly recommend it. I received alot of information from calling the hotels and asking around.

The tours left from Cusco. SV was all day-we had the most amazing day. It was 70's and sunny. At the end, in Chincheros, the sky got black-like I've never seen before, and loud thunder. If you ever have heard lightning on top of mountains-it's so much more dramatic than anywhere else. Then it started to hail, and it looked like 3 inches of snow on the ground. Then there where double rainbows everywhere. It was really surreal.

The city Cusco tour also left from Cusco-went through the churchs (gorgeous!) and 3 ruins outside of cusco. this was also a group tour.

you did nt say what month you were travelling which can influence costs. We travel indpendently and occasionally splurge as we did with mp and galapagos. But it sounds like you are getting quite a bit for your 7.5K pp. By comparison, last year we(2) spent 12 days in peru, including 2 at mp (MP Pueblo Lodge), went to arequipa, colca canyon, ollyataytambo/sacred valley, puno/lake t, including the Hiram Bingham and the Andes train, with arrangements thru condor travel, the 2 nd largest travel broker in peru-they basically shepherded us from 1 place to another, got us to the airports and trains, got us to quality day+ guided city or other tours, etc so it was semi-independent with fari amounts of free time to do our thing and we did nt have to worry that much about language concerns at the train stations and airports, with 3-5 star hotels, mostly casa andina, holiday inn in lima, and libertador in cuzco, including breakfeasts at hotels and some dinners --total trip cost with air and insurance around $5-6K pp. If you want our complete itinerary email me. This july we are doing a celebrity 7-day galapagos cruise with 2 pre-cruise and 3-post cruise days. that is a top of the line cruise on one of the few "larger " boats, bascially all inclusive except for our independent 1-day of 3 precruise and 2 day postcruise (visitng mindo cloudforest), and including air and trip/cancel and separate med evac (med jet assist)insurance , probably will cost total 13K (cruise alone is 5K+pp ). We are doing our own air as it was more competitive than the cruise line. If you took a small boat for the same amount of time, it might cost 50% or less of celebrity-there are cruises and there are cruises so it depends on what you want and what style you want to travel in. I would do a 7-day cruise rather than a 4-day-you will see much more and you aren't likely to repeat this costly trip. For peru and galapagos we splurged.

My friends and I are in the process of booking our own flights, hotels, etc for a 14 trip to Peru in May. Our route will take us to Lima, Cuzco, Ollantaytambo and the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Lake Titikaka, Arequipa, and back to Lima. We haven't entirely finished making all the reservations, but I am estimating that the total cost will be around $3500, including 800 airfare from the States and $1200 or less for hotels, which are averaging about $80/night. (We are staying in rather nice places recommended either by friends or by my Fodor's guidebook.) We are booking some trains and a couple of bus tours in advance. But we have chosen to hire guides and drivers once we get there, since we've been told there is an abudance of good, inexpensive English-speaking guides available through the hotels. The downside of making our own arrangements as others have mentioned, it's a lot of work.

I'd like to thanks everyone for their help.

When we first started planning the trip to Ecuador and Peru we thought we'd like to have everything pre arranged due to safety reasons. I am traveling with my sister, I'm not sure now two women travelling togethter will be treated in Peru. Also, niether of us speak Spanish.

I had emailed several hotels directly, and Peru Rail. I only got a few responses from some of the hotels and Peru Rail never responded. Due to this, I wasn't sure if I book things directly if everything would be in order once we were in Ecuador and Peru. Obviously, we do not want any nasty surprises in Ecuador or Peru. This is when I deceided to approach a travel agent. We don't mind paying for their services, but we are stunned by their prices.

I don't mind making the arrangements myself. Which websites have fodorites used to sucessfully book hotel reservations and train tickets? Also, in Puno do we need to make advance arrangements for a transfer from the train station to the hotel? The Andean Explorer train arrives late at night in Puno.

RumRita, thanks for the airfare prices.

blamona, thanks for answering my questions.

chacheetah, I hope your problems planning your Peru trip are a thing of the past. I'm not sure when you're going, have a great trip.

artnuvo, we plan on travelling in May, prices in early May are slightly less, since from mid May the tour operator considers this to be peak season. Based on the quotes from the tour operator there is a $300 difference between low season ($7500 per person) and high season ($7800 per person). I appreciate your suggestion of a 7 night cruise, we did think of this, but we simply could not do Ecuador and Peru (including Lake Titicaca) in 18 days if we did a 7 night cruise. We will probably never return to this part of the world so we'd like to cover as much ground as possible.

barbmn, thanks for sharing your itinerary, have a great trip.

Also, I should mention the quote of $7500 does not include our long haul international flights, these flights cost about $1000, each. Also, no insurance coverage is included and we need to pay extra for this.

It looks like I'll be busy on the internet this weekend trying to plan this trip. HELP. And, wish me luck.

I travelled with my sister on my Peru/Galapagos trip. We do speak Spanish, but I found it was not neccessary-everyone in the tourists areas speak perfect English, and spoke to us in English all the time. I felt totally safe, of course we didn't do anything crazy-(walk alone at night, keep an eye on camera gear, turn down peddlers, etc) One thing about peddlers, if you say "Mana"-it really means no and they leave you alone. "No" to them actually means "maybe later". That's all you need to know! ;-)

Perurail is hard to hear back from, and the only place to get train tickets, but here's your best bet:

Monasterio Hotel is in the same company. They will get the tickets for you! They charge you around $6 for this service-well worth it. You don't loose time going to train stations, can charge it to your room (Perurail directly you need cash) and you don't stress over getting the tickets.

Private tours, (no bus or sharing) I was being quoted around $60 for both of us, all day Sacred Valley-very reasonable.

Most of the hotels around Cusco-Sacred Valley can make all kinds of arrangements for you (train tickets, tours), not just Monasterio.

I find $7500 to be alot-while you've added more days to the trip-we paid around $4200 for EVERYTHING-including the Galapagos fees, all of our transfers. All the restaurants included breakfast. This included almost all of our meals-Inkaterra Pueblo includes all meals, and Galapagos cruise includes all meals. The breakfast at Monasterio is huge too. In my price, I included all of our tours, etc. This was the price I gave my sister, because I did it all and then charged her. ;-)

My flights were around $500 per person from DC area-Lima, Quito DC. I don't know where you're coming from, but Spirit Air also goes to Lima and it's very reasonable. Lan also has good specials for air, and quite frankly, found the planes to be nicer than AA. The Lan flights we had were all leather seats, great service, etc.

While I won't lie, it took alot of work to do all myself, alot of changing dates, learning things (ex. you have to spend the night before in Quito to go Galapagos-they don't allow direct back and forth) I was nervous about thinking it would all work, being my first time in South America. It did all work out, and I saved around $2000 per person in commissions. I have to tell you-I'm extremely well travelled, and roll with the punches anyway. Some people like to be "taken care of", so only you would know if the tradeoff is worth it.

RJames, thanks for the enouragement..I have everything ready for May 4 takeoff.
Other than purchasing a 6 night package from Luxury Link for Inkaterra - 3 nights Amazon, 2 nights MP and one night SV, I added another 6 nights by using the internet tools, fodors, t/a and any other info I could find. Actually when I add the 6 nights up for Ink. their web site prices are about the same. All total my l2 nights inluding air, train, car transportation, etc. are about 5,000 for two of us. I was quoted 8-10,000 for a package for 7 nights by Inkaterra, so you can see I saved a bundle AND added 5 nights to the trip. We are staying in higher end properties, so prices could be significantly reduced if we had not chosen them; but I specifically wanted a few lodges I had read about in Cusco and the Sacred Valley. I also paid a hotel to purchase my train tickets to MP, so I could come straight to Sacred Valley before MP (and tour Cusco the last 3 nights.)
The comission was less than the overnight stay would have been in Cusco just to go to the train station.
Most of our properties included breakfast, some - b, L, and dinner. In Cusco we will need to explore the restaurants for lunch and/or dinner (we ususally do not do both, esp. at high altitudes where I tend to lose any appetite).

So...that gives you an idea along with the other posters of what you can accomplish through emails, etc. planning your own trip. I have also really enjoyed getting to know some of the people I email and cannot wait to meet them in person!

Happy travels, CC

We have just booked a 20 day tour to Machu Pichu and the Galapagos Islands, (including Lake Titicaca and the Amazon) with GAP tours, for USD 2875. We are planning to go in September.