Is Peru safe for tourists? Cusco, Lima and Machu Picchu

Key Takeaways

• The US State Department rates Peru Level 2 (Exercise Increased Caution). That is the same tier as most of Western Europe, in an advisory last reissued on 16 May 2025.
• The UK’s FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the VRAEM valley and a strip of the Colombian border. Both are well off the routes to Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Arequipa.
• On that circuit, the crime that reaches tourists is petty theft, taxi scams and the odd armed robbery in named neighbourhoods. It is not the terrorism the advisories warn about elsewhere.
• Altitude, not crime, is what actually changes how you plan a Cusco itinerary. Our guide to Cusco and Machu Picchu without altitude sickness covers it in full.
• A head-on train collision near Machu Picchu killed one railway worker and injured around 40 people in December 2025. The line was running again within days.

Is Peru safe for tourists? What the US and UK advisories say

Two governments publish country-wide guidance on Peru. Both put it in the middle of their scales, not at either end. The US State Department rates Peru Level 2 of 4, Exercise Increased Caution. It cites crime, civil unrest and the risk of kidnapping. That is the same level the US currently gives most of Western Europe.

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office is more specific about where it draws its line. Instead of a blanket warning, it advises against all but essential travel to two named areas. That advice was last updated on 22 June 2026. Neither government tells its citizens to stay away from Peru. Both tell them to be careful about which part of it they mean.

Is Peru safe for tourists in Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu?

On both governments’ own account, yes. The US advisory names “some areas within the regions of Ayacucho, Cusco, Huancavelica and Junín” as places to avoid. The region here is the department, an area the size of a small country, not the city. The same advisory is explicit that Cusco city and the popular sites near it, including the Sacred Valley, the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu, sit outside that affected area.

The FCDO reaches the same geography from the other direction: its essential-travel-only zone is the VRAEM valley and the Colombian border strip, both hours from any tour Lati runs. Arequipa and the Colca Canyon are not named in either warning.

Where the advisories do warn against travel

The area both governments flag is the Valley of the Apurímac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers, known as the VRAEM. The other is a stretch within 20km of the Colombian border, along the Putumayo River in the Loreto region. The VRAEM is Peru’s main coca-growing area, and the last stronghold of the Shining Path insurgency. The border strip is a smuggling route, not a place with a tourist industry. Neither has a hotel Lati books, or a circuit Lati sells.

That distinction matters more than the headline number. A single country-wide advisory reads the same whether the underlying risk sits in a city’s tourist centre or hundreds of kilometres into the jungle. The regional detail, not the headline level, is where the actual answer lives.

The crime that does reach tourists: theft, scams and taxis

Away from VRAEM, the risk on the tourist trail is property crime, not political violence. The FCDO names street crime as “a significant problem” in Lima, Cusco, Arequipa and other major cities. It flags pickpocketing and bag-snatching as common, and it records armed robbery of tourists in Lima’s Miraflores and Barranco, two of the neighbourhoods visitors actually stay in. Our Lima guide covers those districts and the historic centre in more depth.

Two scams are specific enough to name. Unlicensed taxis, especially around Jorge Chávez airport, are a known route to robbery, and the fix is booking transport in advance rather than hailing one on the street. In Cusco’s tourist streets, the FCDO also records street money-changers passing off Peruvian intis, a currency that stopped circulating decades ago, as if it were still legal tender.

The December 2025 Machu Picchu train collision

On 30 December 2025, a PeruRail train and an Inca Rail train collided head-on near Ollantaytambo. The two were travelling in opposite directions on the single track that carries almost every visitor to the sanctuary. One railway employee died, and around 40 people were injured, several of them foreign tourists. Peruvian authorities opened an investigation into the cause.

The line did not stay closed. A US Embassy update on rail service confirmed both operators were running trains again within days. PeruRail’s own service updates since have described the Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu route as operating normally. It was a serious, well-documented accident on a route Lati books, and it is worth knowing about. It is not an ongoing risk with no resolution.

Altitude, not crime, is the health risk that changes this trip

The health risk that actually changes how you plan this trip is not crime. It is altitude. Cusco sits at 3,400 m, and altitude illness becomes a real possibility for anyone sleeping above 2,500 m, regardless of fitness or age.

That risk is manageable with the right order of travel, and we cover it separately rather than repeat it here. Cusco and Machu Picchu without altitude sickness sets out the acclimatisation schedule that keeps most trips clear of it.

Travelling safely on Lati’s Peru routes

Bring the basics that apply to any city. Book taxis through an app or your hotel, rather than hailing one on the street. Keep bags zipped and in front of you in crowded markets and stations. Use registered exchange houses or banks, not a street money-changer. None of this is specific to Peru. All of it addresses the risks named above.

For the itinerary itself, treat altitude as the real planning constraint and crime as an ordinary city precaution. Our 5-day Cusco and Machu Picchu package runs the acclimatisation order the altitude guide sets out, with transfers booked in advance rather than hailed on arrival. For visa questions on the same trip, see Peru visa requirements.