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1 Day Inca Trail Machu Picchu is the best alternative to the classic Inca Trail. It takes you through the prime sites on the last segment of this legendary hike.
The four-day Classic Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is the most preferred hike for most people who visit Machu Picchu. However, the hike involves many challenges, most of which involve obtaining the Inca Trail permit.
To protect the trail’s authenticity, local authorities restrict access to just 500 trekkers a day, including porters, chefs, and guides. The permit tends to sell out six months in advance.
However, the one-day Inca Trail is the most preferred alternative as it does not require advance bookings and offers the best of the hike.
You will start to hike the Inca Trail at Km.104. It is named after its distance from Cusco en route to Machu Picchu. You will hike through the cloud forest and reach the iconic ruins of Winay Wayna. The trail then takes you to the Sun Gate (Intipunku). From here, you will visit the iconic Inca Citadel, Machu Picchu.
If you want to learn more about this beautiful trek, check out our article, which contains everything you need to know about the Inca Trail.
Happy Gringo Tours is a local tour operating company founded by a local guide who has hiked the Inca Trail over 500 times. All our guides are locals and passionate hikers. We have years of experience in tourism. Our guides have extensive training in providing aid to altitude sickness.
We operate the one-day Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu as a private guided tour in small groups.
Do take a moment to check our reviews on Trip Advisor.
Cusco Hotel Transfer
4:00 am
Early in the morning, we will pick you up from your hotel in Cusco. Then, in our private transport, we will drive you through the Sacred Valley of Incas to Ollantaytambo train station.
Here we will be boarding an Aguas Calientes bound tourist train at 0610 AM. We will be getting down at Km.104. The trail begins amidst the cloud forest where you will get to see different flora and fauna.
On this 10-kilometre stretch, we will visit many Inca ruins. Then, we will reach Wiñay Wayna, one of the prominent Inca sites here. After a guided tour of the complex, we will visit Sungate (Intipunku). From here, you will get the first sight of Machu Picchu citadel.
Once inside Machu Picchu citadel, we will give you a two-hour guided tour. After the tour, you will have some free time to explore the citadel on your own. If you have booked to hike Huayna Picchu or the Machu Picchu mountains, our guide will direct you to the trail head.
Alternatively, you can hike to Sun Gate or Intipunku. This is the entrance to the citadel for those on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
After exploring Machu Picchu, you will take a bus back to Aguas Calientes. Here, we will have lunch at a local restaurant. At around 04:00 PM, we will take a train back to Ollantaytambo.
Our representative will meet you on arrival and transfer you back to your hotel in Cusco. We will return to Cusco by 09:30 PM.
Each review from our users is important to continue growing and offering the best service to each of our clients. Our priority will always be that you enjoy your trip to the fullest while our professional team works to fulfill it.
Our vacation was great to the land of the Incas in Perú with Gringo Tours.
We strongly recommend traveling... read more in Cusco. We had an amazing experience.. Thanks to our guide Juan!
We highly recommend booking the Machu Picchu day tríp from Cusco with Happy Gringo!
Everything else was a dumpster fire that had us waiting for two hours for a guide to show up (he stated he hadn’t been notified from the travel agency even though we went to the physical Happy Gringo location to check in the day before AND provided all requested information in person and again via WhatsApp). If we hadn’t reached out to them on WhatsApp, I’m certain we would have still been standing outside of the train station waiting. The information you get when you get to the Machu Picchu location is also confusing, telling you to go to a Pueblo, but when you look it up on the maps, there are several listed, which further added to the confusion. Very much underperformed our expectations for nearly $800.
Final thought, Machu Picchu is very much worth the visit, but not with this outfit.
My family had difficulty to find a travel agent to book the Machu Picchu tour, however the workers of Gringo Tours were very helpful... read more to assist us with our trip to Machu Picchu.
The pick up was on time, the journey from Cusco to Aguad Calientes town was amazing with fantástic views, and finally the tour guide at Machu picchu was very knowledgeable.
Highly recommended tour operator in Peru!
The communication was great, the pick up was on time, the box lunch was very delicious,... read more the hotel at Aguas Calientes was clean and our tour guide Wilder was very informative.
All the team of Happy Gringo tours were professional. Therefore, we hughly recommend hiking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu with them and with Wilder!
¡Thanks for everything!
We booked the 2 days tour to Machu Picchu. The service was very well organised from Cusco, the Communication... read more was fsntastic with Ariana, the pick up ass on time and our tour guide Ivan gave us a lot of information of Machupichu site.
Strongly recommend our guide Ivan and thanks Gringo tours!
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.
My daughter and I had to find another local operator in a rash after two days waiting for the confirmation of our booking and we we were told our booking could not be confirmed. Then we switched to Happy Gringo Tour, and our booking was confirmed immediately. Mauro contacted me immediately to collect our information required for the trip. It turned out that we had a great experience for our trip with Happy Gringo Tours.