My friends wanted to do the Salkantay trek so badly that we braved the January weather and booked a trek with Orange Nation. The mountains are beautiful with fresh snow... read more on them and it was totally worth going during the rainy season. The hiking and camping was wet and cold but it just added to the sense of achievement when we made it down the last day of hiking and got to Aguas Calientes. It was also really nice to have a hot shower and sleep in a real bed the night before we visited Machu Picchu. Our guide was awesome for both the trekking and the tour of Machu Picchu. I really appreciated his encouragement on the second day of the trek, which was really hard! My friends are obsessed with everything Inca and said that his tour of Machu Picchu was really good. The whole trip was great and we had a great time in Peru!

  We had heard so much about the rain in Cusco in January that we decided not to do a trek and booked tours of Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu... read more Picchu with Orange Nation. We ended up having pretty good weather and really loved the tours. Orange sent us with Paulo, who is a great guide! We really appreciated all the information he had about each place we visited and he was a super nice person too. The Incan ruins we visited around Cusco and in the Sacred Valley were all interesting, but the cherry on top was definitely the tour of Machu Picchu! It has been on my husband’s bucket list forever and we were both so happy to be there! Definitely recommended!

  My sister and I wanted to do a trek that would have fewer people than the Inca Trail and Lares turned out to be the perfect choice! The trail is... read more rugged and there are lots of glaciers and little lakes along the trail.
Orange Nation’s guide Paulo has done this trail a lot and even knows some of the families in the villages that we passed through. I was expecting beautiful mountains, but I had no idea we would learn so much about Quechua language and culture! We really loved meeting all the children who came out to greet us along the trail. Paulo translated for us and asked each of them their names and ages in Quechua. By the end of the trek we had learned enough Quechua that we could at least greet people.
Other things I would recommend about Orange Nation:
• Smooth logistics and transportation before and after the trek
• Fantastic cooks and delicious food
• Pack horses that are healthy and well fed
• ‘Small group’ for us turned out to be a private tour for my sister and I even though they kept the group price since we had booked a group tour

  We did the 4 day Inca Trail in January even though we had been warned it was the rainy season. We were lucky with the weather and it rained all... read more night, every night, but it never rained on us while we were hiking! The trail is just as challenging as I had heard but I’m glad we ignored recommendations to not do the trek during the rainy season.
Our guide Alex was great at encouraging us on the really steep parts of the trail. Dead Woman’s pass was a challenge for the whole group but Alex stayed with us and was very helpful. He reminded us that he had oxygen but none of us decided to go for it.
The ruins along the trail were amazing and Alex was full of information about each one. We all loved the tour of Machu Picchu but getting up so early that morning was hard. I had read the details on the Orange website, so I knew how early that day starts, but my friends apparently didn’t because they were shocked that we had to get up at 4am.
The food was great and we were so impressed that the cooks were able to make us a cake on a camping stove. We would definitely recommend Orange Nation for their great guides, cooks and porters!

  My partner and I are on a two month trip around South America for the southern summer and booked the Inca Trail Trek with Orange Nation as the highlight of... read more our time in Peru and it definitely lived up to our expectations! We had a fantastic time and really loved our guide Gunnar! After all the backpacking and hostels around South America we felt like we’d died and gone to heaven with the plush treatment we got from the cooks and porters. The food was amazing and we enjoyed all the little details like how tea was always ready when we got to camp and how the tents were set up with our sleeping bags rolled out, air mattresses inflated and basins of hot water for us to wash. The trail is beautiful and we were amazed by all the Incan ruins we passed every day. Gunner is an expert on everything Incan and we really learned a lot about Incan history and culture. Gunner even taught us some Quechua! Our visit to Machu Picchu was amazing and we were so happy to have sprung for the extra expense of the Huayna Picchu hike. It was totally the cherry on top of a fantastic experience!

  I got so lucky that Orange Nation had a group going on the Lares trek the week I was in Peru! It was a last minute trip and as a... read more solo traveler I wasn’t sure if there would be any trekking agencies with a Lares trek in January. Orange not only had a group going but it was only three people! It felt like a private trip to have such a small group and the guide treated us like it was a private family trip too. I really appreciated how much Paulo included me and made me feel like I’d known the others for years!
I wanted to do the Lares trek because I’d read that it was the most rugged trail and I’ve always dreamed about trekking in the Andes. The valleys that Paulo took us through and the glaciers in all the mountains around us were just stunning! I loved everything about the trek and the last day at Machu Picchu was a dream come true! Paulo is also an expert on everything about Machu Picchu and gave us a very thorough tour of the ruins. Overall an amazing experience!