Peru: Ancient Worlds & Living Cultures
Lima • Cusco • Machu Picchu | 8–9 Day Featured Program
An Immersive Journey Through Peru’s Past & Present
Designed for middle school students, this immersive program journeys from Peru’s Pacific coast into the Andes to explore how ancient civilizations, Indigenous traditions, food, art, and community continue to shape Peru today.
Students experience Peru through the places, people, and traditions that connect its past and present. Explore ancient archaeological sites, discover the flavors of Peruvian cuisine, wander colorful markets, spend time with a Quechua community in the Andes, and journey by train to Machu Picchu.
Along the way, students build curiosity, confidence, and a deeper appreciation for different cultures and ways of life.
What Students Explore
ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS | Discover the civilizations that shaped Peru through archaeological sites in Lima, the former Inca capital of Cusco, and Machu Picchu.
INDIGENOUS CULTURE & TRADITIONS | Learn how Quechua communities preserve language, traditions, agriculture, and connections to the natural world across generations.
FOOD & EVERYDAY LIFE | Explore local markets, discover native ingredients, prepare Peruvian food, and see how geography and culture shape people’s diet.
COMMUNITY & RECIPROCITY | Spend time with a rural Andean community and learn how cooperation, shared responsibility, and traditional knowledge shape community life.
PEOPLE & PLACE | Travel from Lima’s Pacific coastline into the high Andes and discover how dramatically different landscapes influence history, culture, food, and everyday life.
8-9 Day Itinerary
This itinerary takes students across two very different regions of Peru, combining ancient history with contemporary culture and meaningful interactions with local communities.
Students learn by exploring, tasting, asking questions, working together, and experiencing places firsthand. Your school can customize the program length, activities, learning themes, and pacing to align with your students and travel goals.
Activities listed below are examples and subject to availability and confirmation.
A Program, Built to Be Customized
Day 1 | Welcome to Peru: First Impressions of Lima
Arrive in Lima and begin exploring a capital city set between the Pacific Ocean and Peru’s coastal desert. Walk through Miraflores and along the clifftop Malecón, get oriented to the program, and begin discovering everyday life in a major Latin American city.
Visit Huaca Pucllana, an ancient ceremonial pyramid surrounded by modern neighborhoods, for a first glimpse of how Peru’s ancient and contemporary worlds exist side by side.
Sample Experiences:
Miraflores • Pacific coast & Malecón • Program orientation • Huaca Pucllana • Introduction to life in Lima
Day 2 | Peru Through Its Food: Markets, Ingredients & Culture
Discover Peru through its food. Explore a local market, encounter fruits, vegetables, grains, and ingredients that may be new to students, and learn how Peru’s diverse regions shape its cuisine.
Then roll up your sleeves and prepare a Peruvian meal together, putting what you’ve discovered into practice.
Sample Experiences:
Local market exploration • Native Peruvian ingredients • Hands-on cooking • Regional food traditions • Shared meal
Day 3 | From the Coast to the Andes: Discovering Cusco
Fly from Lima into the Andes and arrive in Cusco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire and an important center of Indigenous culture.
Take time to acclimate to the elevation while exploring the city’s plazas and historic streets. Begin discovering how Inca and Spanish influences are reflected throughout Cusco and how Andean traditions remain part of everyday life today.
Sample Experiences:
Flight into the Andes • Cusco historic center • Plaza exploration • Introduction to Andean history & culture • Qorikancha
Day 4 | Markets, Traditions & Andean Life: Culture You can see, hear & experience
Explore Mercado de San Pedro, where food, crafts, ingredients, languages, and everyday routines offer a window into life in the Andes. Take part in an interactive market challenge before learning about Pachamama, often translated as Mother Earth, and considering how Andean traditions understand the relationship between people, community, and the natural world.
Students reflect on what they are experiencing and compare it with their own communities and traditions back home.
Sample Experiences:
Mercado de San Pedro • Student market challenge • Andean traditions • Pachamama • Cultural reflection
Day 5 | Community & Connection in the Andes: Learn by Doing
Travel into the highlands near Chinchero to spend the day with a rural Quechua community. Learn about daily life, farming, language, and traditions directly from the community and participate in a hands-on project identified by local partners. Depending on community needs and the season, students might help prepare crops, work with irrigation or soil, or learn about traditional adobe building techniques.
The emphasis is on working alongside community members, listening, participating, and learning from the people who call this place home.
Sample Experiences:
Quechua community visit • Traditional agriculture • Hands-on community project • Cultural exchange • Shared learning
Day 6 | Journey to Machu Picchu: Ingenuity in a sacred landscape
Travel by train through the Sacred Valley and along the Urubamba River toward one of the world’s most renowned archaeological sites. Explore Machu Picchu with a local guide and discover how the Inca built a sophisticated city high in the Andes without modern machinery.
Students consider the relationships between architecture, engineering, mountains, water, astronomy, and belief while experiencing a place that continues to inspire people around the world.
Sample Experiences:
Scenic train journey • Sacred Valley landscapes • Machu Picchu • Inca engineering & architecture • Guided archaeological exploration
Day 7 | Cusco, Reflection & Celebration: Bringing the experience together
After several days of exploration, slow down and enjoy time together in Cusco. Students can revisit favorite places, explore with their group, pick up final souvenirs, and reflect on what they have experienced across Lima and the Andes.
Gather for a farewell dinner and celebrate the journey together.
Sample Experiences:
Cusco exploration • Small-group time • Shopping • Program reflection • Farewell dinner
Day 8 | Return Home: Carrying Peru With You
Begin the journey home and reflect on the experiences of the past week, from Lima and its Pacific coast to Andean markets, Quechua traditions, community life, and Machu Picchu.
Students return home with new questions, new perspectives, and a deeper appreciation for how history, culture, community, and landscape shape the ways people live.
Sample Experiences:
Breakfast • Program reflection • Airport transfer • Flight home
Make this program your own
Start Here. Then Shape Around Your Course.
This itinerary is a starting point. Customize the program length, activities, locations, site visits, pacing, learning focus, cultural experiences, and community engagement to align with your students, curriculum, group interests, age range, and travel goals.
Ancient Civilizations & History
Inca history • Pre-Columbian cultures • Archaeology • Machu Picchu • Historic Cusco
Culture & Community
Quechua traditions • Indigenous perspectives • Community exchange • Markets • Everyday life
Food & Agriculture
Peruvian cuisine • Local markets • Native ingredients • Cooking • Traditional farming
Environment & Geography
Pacific coast • Andes Mountains • Sacred Valley • Human relationships with the land
Could this work for your students?
Use this program as your starting point or tell us what you'd change. We'll work with you to align the itinerary with your students, school, preferred dates, group size, and budget.
Have a different academic focus in mind?