Lake Titicaca Day Trip from Cusco: Uros & Amantani Islands

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Duration3d

GroupUp to 40

LanguagesEN · ES

Mobile ticketAccepted

Overnight to the World's Highest Lake: Uros & Amantani from Cusco

You travel overnight from Cusco to Puno, spend a full day on Lake Titicaca visiting the Uros floating islands and Amantani with a bilingual guide, eat lunch in a lakeside village, and return to Cusco the following morning. The overnight buses mean you don't lose two days to travel — you sleep through it and wake up ready to go. Lunch and all boat transfers are included.

Step-by-step itinerary

Day 1 — Overnight travel from Cusco to Puno

Depart Cusco at 9:30 pm
Travel overnight to Puno by bus

Day 2 — Lake Titicaca boat tour and return

Store bags at partner hostel
Optional breakfast at hostel
Transfer to port at 6:45 am
Boat tour to Uros Floating Islands
Boat to Amantani Island at 9:30 am
Guided tour of Amantani Island
Boat to Llachon Peninsula at 12:30 pm
Lunch and free time in Llachon village
Free time in Puno around Plaza de Armas
Board overnight bus to Cusco between 9:00 pm and 9:30 pm

Day 3 — Arrival back in Cusco

Arrive in Cusco around 5:00 am

The Experience

The Peru Hop bus leaves Cusco at 9:30 pm, and you're already settled in your seat with Wi-Fi working before the city lights fade. Most people sleep through the overnight ride to Puno — some catch up on messages, some just watch the dark Andean landscape roll past. You arrive around 6:00 am, drop your bags at the partner hostel for free, and by 6:45 am you're at the port. The boat to Uros Floating Islands departs on schedule, and that's when the Lake Titicaca day actually begins.

Uros comes first. The floating islands are made entirely of totora reeds, and your guide walks you through how families build and maintain them, how the reeds sink and get replaced, how kids navigate between islands on reed boats. It's not a quick photo stop — there's time to understand how people actually live here. Then at 9:30 am the boat heads out across the highest navigable lake in the world toward Amantani Island. The crossing takes a couple of hours, and the water is wide and still. Once you arrive, a guided tour of Amantani shows you the traditional terraced agriculture, the small communities, the way the island has stayed largely unchanged. Lunch happens at 12:30 pm in Llachón Peninsula, a shoreside village where you eat with a view of the water and can wander the quiet streets afterward.

By evening you're back in Puno with free time to walk around the Plaza de Armas, eat dinner wherever you want, and explore on your own terms. Between 9:00 and 9:30 pm the bus picks you up again for the overnight return to Cusco. You arrive back around 5:00 am — tired but not destroyed, because you've had two nights on a comfortable bus with onboard restrooms and that same Wi-Fi. The whole thing is two days and one full day on the water, which is why it works: you're not rushing between three islands in five hours. You're actually there.

What’s included

Your trip includes the overnight bus from Cusco to Puno with air-conditioning, Wi-Fi and onboard restroom, free bag storage at the partner hostel, guided tours of both Uros Floating Islands and Amantani Island with a bilingual guide, boat transfers between all three locations, lunch in Llachón Peninsula, and the return overnight bus to Cusco.

Good to know

Easy physical levelStroller friendlyPublic transport nearby

Operated by Peru Hop

Is this one for you?Choose this if you want to see Lake Titicaca's main islands without arranging separate transport, accommodation or guides — the overnight buses handle the travel time, and the full day on the water means you're not skipping between stops. You'll need to be comfortable sleeping on a bus, but that's what makes a two-day trip from Cusco possible.