LIMA · PERU
Ceviche by the sea, dunes down the coast.
South America's food capital sits on a clifftop above the Pacific, and it is the doorway to the desert south. Food tours and cooking classes, the old center and Barranco, day trips to Paracas, Huacachina, the Nazca Lines and the Ballestas Islands.
Only in Peru
The three you plan a trip around.
Plenty of cities have good restaurants and a day trip or two. Lima has the best food on the continent, a real desert oasis a few hours south, and a two-thousand-year-old mystery you read from a plane window. Build the rest of the week around these.
First, eat
The Food Capital of the Americas
Lima is where ceviche was perfected and where the pisco sour gets argued over. Two of its restaurants trade places near the top of the World's 50 Best list, but the real schooling is a market stall at breakfast, a cevicheria at noon and a pisco sour poured properly at dusk. Eat first, plan the rest later.
- 1 Lima Ultimate Peruvian Food Tour
- 2 Lima: Ultimate Peruvian Food Tour
- 3 Street Food, Market & Old Eateries Tour in Lima’s Historic Center
Down the coast
A Real Desert Oasis
Four hours south the dunes swallow the highway and a lagoon appears, palm trees and all. Huacachina is one of the only inhabited desert oases in the Americas. You sandboard the dunes, ride a buggy over them at sunset, then boat out to the Ballestas Islands for sea lions and Humboldt penguins.
- 1 Premium Paracas & Huacachina Day Trip from Lima with Sunset Toast
- 2 Full Day Tour From Lima: Paracas and Huacachina Oasis
- 3 Paracas and Huacachina Exclusive Sunset Picnic Tour
From the air
The Nazca Lines
Giant figures scratched into the desert two thousand years ago: a hummingbird, a monkey, a spider, only readable from a few hundred metres up. Nobody is certain why they are there. A light aircraft banks over each one in turn while you press your face to the window.
- 1 2 Day Tour from Lima: Nazca Lines Flight, Paracas, and Huacachina
- 2 3 Day Tour from Lima: Nazca Lines Flight, Paracas, and Huacachina
- 3 4 Day Tour from Lima: Nazca Lines Flight, Paracas, and Huacachina
Start here
The one most people book first.
New in town and not sure where to begin? This is the one that fills up fastest, and a confident first day before you strike out for the coast and the desert south.
Most popular
Lima's Most Popular Tours & Day Trips
Food tours, the old center, the desert oasis and the flight over Nazca. The trips travellers book first.
Plan the trip
How far do you want to go?
Most people land in Lima and use it as a launch pad. How much of Peru you see comes down to how many mornings you have. Three ways to play it.
By area
Pick a part of Lima.
Miraflores for clifftop parks and ocean air. Barranco for murals and bars. The old center for cathedrals and catacombs. Chorrillos for the fishermen and the beaches below.
The Costa Verde
Sunset over the Pacific.
Lima is one of the few big cities where you watch the sun drop straight into the ocean from a clifftop park. Walk the Miraflores malecon as the paragliders come in to land, then carry on to Barranco for the last of the light. The coast road runs for miles below.
Explore the coast →By experience
Or pick the kind of day you want.
A food tour if you came to eat. A clifftop bike ride if you want the coast. Cooking classes, market crawls, a paraglider off Miraflores, the fountains lit up after dark.
Old Lima
The center, and what lies beneath it.
Plaza Mayor, gilded wooden balconies and the bone-lined catacombs under San Francisco monastery. Three walks through the oldest, most ornate corner of the city.
After dark
Barranco, once the sun is down.
The bohemian district runs on pisco bars, live music and late conversation. These crawls hand you a local who knows which doors to knock on.
Hands on
Learn to cook it yourself.
Shop a Lima market for aji and limes, then learn to balance a ceviche and shake a proper pisco sour alongside a local cook. This is the souvenir that travels home with you.
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