They call it "The Lost City of The Inca," but a lot of visitors have been finding their way to this historic site since its glory days in 1450 when the city was built for the Inca emperor Pachacuti at the height of his empire. You'll feel like you're on top of the world once you reach the apex of the Urubamba Valley in Peru because you'll be 7,875 feet above sea level. After the initial high, the mystery and beauty of the abandoned city will settle in and the magnitude of its history will make you realize why we had to put Machu Picchu as our #3 AbsoluteVisit.
Often referred to as the 'Lost City of the Incas', this well-preserved ancient city in Peru is located 7000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains.
Machu Picchu contains over 150 buildings including houses, baths, temples and sanctuaries.
The most popular way to travel to Machu Picchu is the Inca Trail, a three day hike that takes you as high as 4,214 meters (13,285 feet), taking you along some sections of original Inca stone paths.
The area has over 100 different flights of stairs. Each staircase was individually carved from its own slab of stone.
The Incas used a very unique and skilled technique in the construction process called ashlar in which stones are carved to fit so perfectly that mortar is not even used. Their accuracy was so acute that not even a knife blade can fit between two stones.
Where is Machu Picchu?
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Wayna Picchu View Over Machu Picchu Ranked #1 by Brad Harbach
Early Morning Fog over Machu Picchu Ranked #2 by Brad Harbach
Machu Picchu View Through The Sun... Ranked #3 by Brad Harbach
No visit to Peru would be complete without spending some time exploring the most famous ancient ruin and what many would consider to be one of the top ten wonders of the world that you should see before you die – Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is an old Inca city located around 50 miles outside of Cusco and it is famous not only because of it’s massive size and surrounding natural beauty (as you will surely see in all of our pictures) but because it is one of the few Inca cities that was not plundered by the Spaniards during their conquest of the Incas in the 1500’s. There are over 400,000 ... read more
