Peru » Cusco | 🏛 Machu Picchu Rail Tours

Cusco: Sacred Valley & Machu Picchu 2-Day Train Tour

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.90 (346 reviews) 92% rated it 5 stars

Instant confirmationTravelers' pickLikely to sell out

1/24

Duration2d

GroupUp to 15

LanguagesEN · PT +1

PickupAt your hotel

Two Days Climbing Through Inca Ruins and Ending at Machu Picchu at Sunrise

You start in Cusco and spend day one driving through the Sacred Valley, stopping at five archaeological sites and a working weaving center, then take a train to Aguas Calientes for the night. Day two is Machu Picchu itself—a guided tour in the morning, free time after, then the train and drive back to Cusco by evening. Everything except your lunch in Aguas Calientes is covered: hotel, meals, transport, entry tickets, and a guide who speaks English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — Sacred Valley tour and train to Aguas Calientes

Breakfast at hotel in Cusco
Drive to Chinchero
Visit Andean weavers and alpacas
Explore Moray agricultural terraces
Visit Maras salt ponds
Enjoy buffet lunch in Sacred Valley
Tour Ollantaytambo ruins
Train to Aguas Calientes
Check in hotel and free afternoon

Day 2 — Machu Picchu visit and return to Cusco

Breakfast at hotel
Bus to Machu Picchu entrance
Guided tour of Machu Picchu
Free time at Machu Picchu
Bus back to Aguas Calientes
Train to Ollantaytambo
Transport to hotel in Cusco

The Experience

You're picked up at 7:45 a.m. from your Cusco hotel and driven an hour into the Sacred Valley, where the road climbs and the air thins. The first stop is Chinchero, a weaving center where a local family still works alpacas and llamas the way their ancestors did, using natural dyes to color wool by hand. You feed the animals, watch the looms move, and understand why this part of Peru doesn't feel like a museum—it's still alive. From there the guide takes you to Moray, a set of circular terraces cut into the mountainside that the Incas used as an agricultural laboratory, testing which crops grew best at which altitude. The engineering is obvious once you see it, and a little unsettling—how did they know to build this?

By mid-morning you're at the Maras salt ponds, thousands of small pools still producing salt the way they have for five centuries. The water runs down from a spring, fills each terrace, and the sun does the rest. Your guide will take your photo here because the light is good and the view is the kind you'll want proof of. Lunch is a buffet with more than fifty Peruvian dishes—soups, salads, main courses, desserts, vegetarian options—at a colonial restaurant in the valley. After eating you head to Ollantaytambo, the last major Inca site before the mountains close in. It was a fortress and a guard post, and the Spanish fought here during the conquest. Then you board the train—your choice of regular, panoramic, or observatory car—and ride for an hour and forty-five minutes down the Urubamba River valley to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu. You arrive around 6 p.m., check into your hotel (included; you choose 2, 3, or 4 stars when you book), and the rest of the evening is yours.

The second morning starts at 7 a.m. with breakfast at the hotel, then a bus ride up the mountain to the entrance of Machu Picchu. Your guide walks you through the main plazas, temples, and carved stone staircases, explaining how the Incas built this without mortar, fitting stones so tightly you can't slide a knife between them. After the guided portion you have free time to wander on your own, sit in the sun, and let the scale of it sink in. Lunch is on your own in Aguas Calientes (the tour doesn't include it), and at 2 p.m. you board the train back to Ollantaytambo. A driver meets you there and takes you back to Cusco, arriving around 6 p.m. The whole thing—transport, guide, meals, the night in Aguas Calientes, the Machu Picchu ticket, the buses up and down the mountain—is included. Groups stay under ten people, which means you're not moving as a herd.

What’s included

Hotel pickup and drop-off in Cusco, guided tour of the Sacred Valley (Chinchero weaving center, Moray terraces, Maras salt ponds, and Ollantaytambo), buffet lunch at a colonial-style restaurant, train ticket (your choice of class) from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes and back, one night in a 2, 3, or 4-star hotel in Aguas Calientes with breakfast included, round-trip bus tickets from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu, guided tour of Machu Picchu with an expert guide in English, Spanish, or Portuguese, Machu Picchu entrance ticket (Circuit 2 subject to availability), and one bottle of water per day. Airport pickup and drop-off are available upon request.

Good to know

Easy physical levelStroller friendlyNot for pregnant travelersNot for heart conditionsNot for back problemsInfants must sit on laps

Operated by FLY CUSCO Perú Travel Agency

Is this one for you?Book this if you want to see Machu Picchu and the main Sacred Valley sites without arranging five separate tickets, two train journeys, a hotel, and a guide yourself—the fixed itinerary and included transport mean you show up at your hotel at 7:45 a.m. and everything else is already planned.