My fiance and I are seriously considering Peru for our honeymoon in May 2012. We have both always wanted to do the Inca Trail and are thinking about other options for the rest of the trip. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else is doing something similar and any tips you have, in particular tour v independent travel - or mix of both! We have limited time (probably 14-15 days actually in the country) and fairly limited funds too! We are happy to consider visiting Bolivia or Ecuador too, but realistically probably won't have enough time!! Whilst we are naturally more attracted to doing it ourselves as far as possible, a tour does look attractive in terms of taking away the stress of booking the travel involved, accommodation etc. But then there is the issue of effectively sharing your honeymoon time with 10 or so others!

Any thoughts/tips appreciated.

Thanks!

Sarah

We're not honeymooning but I did trek the Inca Trail in 2006, it's fab if you can walk it, we took our time and made a 4 day journey of it, but every year the locals run it and back then the record was 3.5 hours! Made us feel very inadequate - we went in September and the weather was fine, although a bit cool on the higher parts of the trek when we we were walking through low lying rain cloud! From Cuzco you can get a train to take you to Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu which we got on the way back, we also stopped off at Lima briefly which was a very busy town - the traffic at junctions was mental! If you can, set off early when you're reaching Macchu PIcchu as seeing the sunrise at the Sun Gate is a definite sight - plus it's less busy there as most other tour groups start to arrive around 10am ish - back then though there was rumour that they were making it a UNESCO site so were limiting the number of tourists to visit the city each year so check out with your travel arrangements etc that you're able to get a visitor's pass, it's very cool getting a stamp in your passport too for the start of the trail itself!

I'd maybe join a tour for the trail then if you go on anywhere else then do that as the two of you for your honeymoon, if you wanted to just get the train you could actually do it in a day from Cuzco, but I enjoyed the trekking and camping sites, saw lots of alpaca and the biggest chinchilla I have ever seen on the way!

I went to south america in 2009 - and trekked the inca trail too - it is absolutely amazing, one of the best experiences in my life!
You can easily book the inca trail through a company over here and do the rest yourselves - you do need to book in advance as there are a limited amount of permits to walk the trail each day. An extra day in aguas calientes is also nice as you can go back the next day when you are a little less tired
I wouldn't really recommend ecuador, its one of the unsafest countries in south america, bolivia on the other hand is brilliant, lake titicaca was really good, and if you have time to do a jungle trip thats pretty cool (you can organise lots from cuzco)
If you want to stay in peru arequipa and the colca canyon are worth a visit and the nazca lines and the desert around huacachina (i think thats how you spell it) was cool

The north coast of peru around mancorra is good for some days by the beach and you can learn to surf there too :)
If you want any recommendations then just ask!