Welcome to Happy Gringo Tours

  Was really worried about this tour because the night before I found out I’d be the only one going BUR the tour company made me feel super safe and my... read more guide Mauro was AWESOME!! he spoke great English and gave me a TON of information about Machu Picchu. He was also AMAZING and so helpful with taking pictures (something I was worried about as well) ️️️️️

  Lifetime Experience with Gringo Tours - We book the Machu Picchu tour with gringo tours. We strongly recommend how they work and did their best to find our Machu Picchu ticket when all the travel agencies... read more around the main square told us the ticket were sold out.

We noticed the sirious work and profesionalism that we received. Juan is the persona who gave us all his support. Therefore, we share our experience that Happy Gringo is the only company in Cusco that got our dream reop to Machu Picchu.

Thanks all the team of Gringo tours for your help and we highly recommend the travelers who want to ise this tour operator in Cusco.

  Gringo Tours - DO NOT USE THEM - I would not recommend Gringo Tours. From the get-go, when we were booking our tour, communication was very poor. We did not hear confirmation of our tour until a couple... read more of days before leaving on our trip to South America. Things that went wrong:

1- We were told that the agent from the company would meet us at our hotel at 8 AM. As it turned out, the night before the tour, they had emailed our travel agent in the United States that we were being picked up at 9:20. They should have called our hotel to inform us, as we were not checking our email! We had to call the tour company to find out where the pick-up person was.

2- The pick-up person turned out to be a taxi driver who dropped us off at the Inca Rail location in Cusco. He asked us if we had our train tickets! We had NOTHING. He left us there. Luckily, my daughter had the presence of mind to go to the ticket counter to see if we could get our tickets. We got our tickets, but there was a problem: there is a bus ride and then a train ride to get tourists to and from Cusco. Inca Rail could not find the bus portion of the ticket for our return to Cusco the next day. We left Cusco uncertain about how we would get back the next day.

3- Do not bring much luggage! Gringo tours never told us that if we bring a big piece of luggage it may not be easy to store it on the train - which is what happened to us. Not only that, nobody told us that we would need to walk from the train station in Aguas Calientes to our hotel.

4- The hotel the tour put us in is probably one-star at best. Yes it was clean and yes it was safe, but for the price we were paying for the tour, we expected more. Our room did not even have toilet paper! We had to ask for it.

5- After the Machu Picchu tour, when we got off the train, though we had been told that we would get a driver to meet us at the train - since we did not have bus tickets - there was NO driver waiting for us. We had an email from Mary from Gringo Tours confirming that we would have a driver, with his name and phone number. But there was nobody. When I called the number, the person did not pick up. We were only able to get back safely to Cusco because we begged the people who were running the buses to bring my daughter and me back. These were people from the Inca Rail company - they were amazing and felt sorry for us that we had been lied to.

The only saving grace of the tour was the tour guide, Mauro, and of course, Machu Picchu is beyond breathtaking. But I would never use Gringo Tours again. The experience with them was 100% disappointing.

  AMAZING TRIP!! - This was an amazing trip. Everything was explained & they made the commute to Machu Pichu an easy one. Our tour guide Mauro was excellent, we learned history.... read more We also had time to take amazing pictures, he made sure to take us to the best spots for pictures. Amazing trip. The train ride was comfortable and had amazing views as well.

  Scum bags who only care about taking your money - Machu Picchu tour was purchased directly with Gringo tours. Once money had been taken I was informed the tour is not available. My whole vacation was ruined, I was looking... read more forward to seeing this incredible place and cancelling the tour the very last minute is just a such a low blow. I would like to worn other tourist to not to trust this operator, its shady practices and complete disregard of my time is just outrageous. They did not even care to issue a refund for the tour after my multiple attempts. I had to file a claim with the credit card.
Once again if you don't want your travel plans to be ruined stay away from this shady tour operator

  Sublime but check language - Machu Picchu was an amazing sublime and almost mystical experience. The light rain wasn’t a problem as ponchos were handed out.
While I was the only English speaker in our... read more group of seven my fellow travelers from Mexico were very friendly and made me feel very welcome, and also assisted me in navigating the transport systems. They even bought me lunch!
Our guide Mauro was very knowledgeable and helpful and did his best to accommodate everyone. His English was excellent.
The day would have been perfect had I been put with an English speaking guide. This would have made it easier for all concerned. As it was I felt I missed out on some of the information. I was able to fill in several of the gaps at the Musee Machu Picchu in Cusco the next day (recommended).
But overall the Machu Picchu experience was unforgettable thanks to Mauro at Happy Gringo tours and my fellow chicos!

  Surreal experience. Can be earily silent at times with no wind and even with all the people. Unbelievable scenery both at the top and by the train. You don't need... read more to be super fit as the climb from the bus drop off is not far. First view from the Inland trail is min blowing

  Just really enjoyed walking around the site and learning about the history and Mauro was a great tour guide. Make sure you bring bug spray.

  What an amazing day! After realising when we arrived in Cusco how hard it was to obtain a Machu Picchu ticket, Happy Gringos were so accommodating in fitting us in... read more within 2 days of speaking with them. Our guides were brilliant and even waited in line for us so we could have breakfast. The history behind the site was so interesting and the day ended with a lovely lunch. It was one of the most amazing days and it wouldn’t have been the same without them. Would highly recommend!

  Highly recommend - We had a great time with happy gringo tours, everything was booked for us and taken care off, no hassle at all. Juan was very helpful with the booking at... read more very short notice, we booked the day before . Our tour guide Ruben was a great man and helped us out with everything. I'd recommend to anyone

  SEAMLESS TOUR - Happy Gringo Tours made my visit to Machu Picchu MAGICAL and SEAMLESS! Ruben gave us an excellent tour and did a fantastic job breaking down all the fascinating history behind... read more the citadel. I had to make arrangements for a quicker trip to get back to Cusco in tike to make my flight, and they were so helpful in making sure I’d get to the airport in time and made arrangements to bring me straight to the airport! They were so accommodating to my schedule. I cannot thank them enough for all their help!

  The tour to Machu Picchu was awesome! The tour guide knowledge was great about the Quechuas history and He allowed us to take time for taking photos. He was a... read more great photographer too. Thanks so much for this great experience.

  Happy Gringo was great! Highly recommend! Tickets were hard to get for some reason. They organized everything for us and made sure we got everything we needed. We ended up... read more doing the one day tour and we were well taken care of. Juan specifically at their office and Cusco was a huge help.

  An unforgettable experience to Machu Picchu thanks to Mauro at Happy Gring Tours  - Everything went as they told us. There is a lot of confusion about the entree tickets as they are limited each day. But Happy Gringo Tour's and our guide Mauro... read more were fantastic. Mauro speaks English very well and has a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm about Machu Picchu. He was very helpful, respectful and considerate of all his group he guides. I will recommend Happy Gringo Tours and Mauro anytime. Thank you for an unforgettable experience at Machu Picchu.

  POOR EXPERIENCE, DISORGANIZED TOUR AGENCY — RUN NOW!! - This was definitely the WORST and MOST DISORGANIZED tour experience of my life! I advise you to NOT book with Happy Gringo. Run!!! NOW!

Let me tell you what... read more happened. I originally booked for the 2-day Inca trail hike and the company changed it up on me the day before the tour, telling me they had a “system error” and lost my tickets, while blaming it on the Machu Picchu agency. That literally made no sense to me and I don’t know why I wasn’t given earlier notice. I did not have a choice but to switch to the two-day sacred valley and Machu Picchu tour by train.
I switched to the new tour, and the guy at Happy Gringo DID NOT tell me I needed to bring my physical passport for Machu Picchu. How was I so sure? I had taken notes in my iPhone of the details such as meet up time and one of the things he did tell me to do was to send a photo of my passport (which I did).
I attended the day 1 sacred valley tour, excited for the adventure and what the day had in store. It wasn’t until someone I met in the group mentioned physical passports that made my boyfriend and I leave the day 1 tour halfway through to taxi back and grab our passports in Cusco.
I talked to the guy at the agency on the phone and he tried to tell me he had cameras in the office and mentioned multiple times that I had to bring my physical passport EXCUSE ME I took clear notes on my phone and could not believe he was taking zero accountability. I’m an attentive person and NOT one to forget details like that. He even tried to tell me I could print a photo of my passport when online resources specifically said photocopies are NOT permitted. We were not going to risk not getting into MP, so we lost half of our day 1 tour visiting the Inca sites.
We made it to the train station after the trek back to grab the passports, and arrived in MP town around 6pm. We were told to get in line with hundreds of people waiting for an entrance ticket to MP for the next day (Wed). The ABSURD thing was that the agency was not able to reserve that ticket for us
After a long 2 hour wait on an empty stomach, we were told that they sold out of entrance tickets for Wed (1,000 tickets max) and we had to go sign up to go Thursday instead.
This was awful news as it would’ve meant losing 6 hours on Wed to go back to Cusco, pack up our bags to check out of our Airbnb, head back to MP town, AND rebook our thurs flight back to Lima. Luckily, we got on the waitlist for Wed and the tour guides got us in to see MP but the tour was very short 2 hours inside was NOT enough for a $400 tour. I mean if we would’ve known we weren’t hiking, we would’ve just gone to MP on the train on our own
The LEAST Happy Gringo could’ve done was told us that they couldn’t reserve an entrance ticket for us so that we could get that on our own and not go through all the stress and hassle of obtaining a ticket, in addition to all of the uncertainty of not knowing whether we’d get in or not.

Overall, there was a lot of stress associated with the Happy Gringo tour due to their POOR COMMUNICATION. I am giving them two stars because we ended up getting into MP on Wed, didn’t have to change our itinerary, and the guides were very nice people (thanks Mauro and Ruben). However, this was NOT the MP experience I have been dreaming of and I will NEVER book with Happy Gringo again.

  Family visit to Macchu Pichu. - We arranged a last minute day tour to see Macchu Picchu, despite being warned that the booking system had crashed and we heard of lots of stories of folk not... read more being able to go, or needing to queue for hours.
We saw that HG had a really good reputation, so we felt reassured that if they promised us a visit, we had our best shot with them.

Juan arranged our transport from Cuscoand once in Cusco we could see the chaos in bookings we had heard about. However, Juan again assured us he was on the case, and that evening confirmed we would be amongst the first groups inwhich we were.

Our guide around the citadel was Rueben who was really fantastic. His information and guiding was first class and we could not possibly fault either his knowledge or his enthusiasmwe even learned a few words in Quechua.

Thanks again HG!