Hello!

At the recommendation of a friend, I have placed a deposit on OAT's Affordable Peru tour departing in early June 2010.

Has anyone toured with them recently? Our final payment is due soon.

We usually like to make our itinerary; however, found their itinerary to match the places we would like to visit while there. The trip is for 11 days.

We are in our late 40s and we'll be using FF miles. The airlne tickets are already booked.

Thank you in advance for your input.

Also, keeping fingers crossed that the Inca trail will be opened by then.

Well, it wasn't recent, but I took that trip in 2004 and loved it! Here's the trip report:
http://www.fodors.com/community/mexi...rip-report.cfm

I usually travel solo independently, but that year I didn't have the time for all of the research. I just used OAT again for the second time in 2009 for South Africa, also a winning trip.

Happy travels!

Amy: Thank you! We are very much looking forward to Peru. I already know that we will be making a 2nd trip.

Thank you again! It is greatly appreciated.

You won't be hiking the Inca Trail. You'll be taking the train and bus combo to MP. Hopefully THAT will be restored by June, and as that is peak trekking season I would bet that it will be a priority to be finished by then.

A friend did this OAT excursion a few years ago and liked it. I looked at it too, but it didn't match what I needed (I wanted to stay in Ollantaytambo), so I just planned my own trip.

I would recommend going to the Rafael Larco de Herrera in Lima during your free time since apparently this isn't included, which seems like a big "miss" in the itinerary.

http://www.museolarco.org/iindex.html

OAT is connected with Grand Circle Travel. I did the South American tour with this company in 2007, and I can still rave about my experience. Twelve of us did Peru and Machu Picchu; this was indeed fantastic as we bonded and felt like a family.

I've heard from others who've done OAT to have nothing but positive statements to say. Go to its website and see if there are any reviews.

I will be doing the Almalfi Coast and Tuscany with GCT in September and will use some of the review content to guide me if I decide to do certain places independently and not with the group itself; with GCT there is room for this.

Go and make the very best of the experience!

Hello mlgb and Eddwarm,

Thank you you very much for your advice! We are looking forward to it.

Trying to do as much reading and planning, which is all part of the fun and adventure.

Eddwarm, you will LOVE the Amalfi Coast; we visited several years ago and I can honestly tell you the Amalfi coast is one of the most beautiful places that I have visited. We stayed in Positano 1 week and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Thank you and a have Great time!

We took the OAT Affordable Peru tour a few years ago, and it was fantastic. Like others have said, OAT is a great company to travel with. They offer excellent value and fantastic tour guides. We have taken many tours with them - recently to South Africa and have a tour to Argentina and Chile booked for late September. The tours have a maximum of 16 people. Most of our tours had 15 participants and the other had only 11 people.

If you have any other questions about traveling with OAT, feel free to email me at: [email protected].

Sandys,

Thank you very much for the advise. It is greatly appreciated.

Wow, my heart beats faster just thinking about our awesome trip with OAT in July of 2008. THE highlight, however, was the Pre-Trip to the Amazon. Tends to attract more adventuresome and "younger" people in a smaller group. We had 7 who did the Amazon (still call ourselves The Pirraha Seven) and then joined 9 others in Lima for rest of tour. Several in the group did NOT really enjoy the Post-Trip to Lake T... Said it felt too touristy and put-on compared to experiences in Amazon, Lima, Cuzco, Machu Picchu... Remember that the baskets next to toilets in most of Peru are for the T.P. The plumbing cannot handle the paper !