Machu Picchu in January?
 

We are considering a trip to Machu Picchu in January 2011, and we are wondering if the weather will be OK at that time of year? We may fly from the NYC area to Lima and spend about 6 days in the area of Sacred Valley, MP, Cusco, and back to Lima. Then we may fly to Buenos Aires for another 6 days or so. (We were in BsAs last January and really loved it)! We hope that January would be all right to go to MP, as that is a good time for us. Does anyone have any thoughts about the logistics of this agenda? Does LAN (or any other airline) offer a route like this at an attractive price? Thanx so much for your advice.

This CAN be a rainy month, two years ago the end of January was when the Urubamba river washed out the train tracks. I was there the year prior and the weather was great!

LAN does fly that route from JFK, often they have sales, if you are going after the New Years week I would expect you can find a good fare NYC/Lima. Keep an eye on their website. You can use their South American airpass if you fly R/T NYC to Lima, not so sure what they charge for into Lima and out of BAs.

As mlgb says, January can be a rainy month. We are thinking of doing the Inca trail right after Xmas.

http://www.incatrailperu.com/inca_trail_weather.html

Weather2travel.com climate guide

Was there in early Jan last year pretty good

2 bad storms some rain but late Jan into Feb massive flooding

Dec works better May even better when rain slacks off

Insuremytrip.com always wise

Spirit.com saved me a tonne on air

Casa-andina.com nice hotels everywhere.

Have fun

We were there mid January and had very good weather but as others say it can be rainy. As a safety I booked two nights at Agua Calientes in case we had a rain day at MP but it was fine so we had two great days there.

Thanx so much for all your advice. We haven't made our final decision yet; but perhaps if we plan it for the earlier part of January, we might get better weather in MP. Still wrestling with the idea of trying to do BsAs the 2nd week of this agenda. I'd really like to do that combo. Again, we appreciate all your help.

Most heavy rains in Cusco are on February, I think you would get a better weather if you plan your trip earlier of January. If you are looking for a good agency in Peru we suggest to send your request to www.intrandes.com, they are specialist in taylor made holidays.

Thank you all very much for your advice! At this point, we think that we will go to Bs As again in January, 2012, and we may do MP as a separate trip another year, during a better season for that destination. Going to MP in January sounded too risky weather-wise for us; didn't want to take a chance.

Wkwb42a - we will let you know what you missed. Looks like we are doing the IT to MP starting around New Year's Eve. If it rains every day a divorce will follow.

As far as I know, the official rainy season starts around Sep and ends in April, with Jan and mostly Feb being the worst in average rain fall. But its summer, nice & warm