You Cannot Book the Inca Trail on the Day — Epoche A2
The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu is not a path you can simply turn up and walk. Peru releases a fixed number of permits for each day: about five hundred. That number includes the guides, the cooks and the porters who carry the tents. Only about two hundred are left for walkers. Here is how to get one of them. Choose your dates first, not your agency. Avoid February: the whole trail closes every February for repair. Book early. Permits for the dry months are often gone five or six months ahead. Choose a licensed agency. Only an agency can buy the permit; you cannot buy one yourself. Send your passport details exactly as they appear in your passport. The permit is issued in your name. Pay the deposit and wait for the permit number. When it arrives, that day is yours. Travel with the same passport you booked with. The permit cannot be sold, given away or moved to another date. If you cannot go, it is lost. And if you reach Cusco with no permit? Walk the Salkantay route or the Lares route instead. Neither needs an Inca Trail permit, and both end at the same mountain. The rule is not there to keep you out. It is there because an old stone path cannot carry thousands of feet a day.