Lake Titicaca Tour Review: Day Trip From Puno, Peru
If you’re visiting Cusco in Peru, then you should consider adding two extra days to visit Lake Titicaca, which is the highest navigable lake in the world.
Situated at over 3,812 meters (12,406 feet) altitude, Lake Titicaca should only be visited after you’ve acclimatised to the high altitude in Cusco, Peru.
To do this tour on Lake Titicaca, you have to reach Puno, the largest city on the shore of the lake, on the Peruvian side.
From Puno, you can book a half-day trip to visit the Uros floating Islands or a full-day trip, as I did in this video, to visit both Uros Islands and Taquile Island.
I truly loved this entire experience, and I hope this blog helps you better understand if this is something you’d enjoy doing in Peru and how to prepare for it.
Table of Contents
Is Lake Titicaca worth it?
Yes, Lake Titicaca is 100% worth a 2-day visit. On the first day you arrive, explore the city of Puno, a souk in traditional Peru.
On the second day, you should do a full-day trip on the lake, which includes a visit to the Uros Islands and then a visit to Taquile Island.
Luckily, there are local tours organising everything for you, and you can visit these places with a guide. The tour includes the tickets, the guide, and the boat ride.
Ours also included lunch on Taquile, which was more than enough and absolutely delicious.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I am so glad I added Lake Titicaca to my 7-day road trip itinerary around Cusco. Sure, it’s a bit further away, but it’s worth the drive.
How to get to Lake Titicaca in Peru?
To visit the lake Titicaca side in Peru, you should go to Puno, the largest Peruvian city on the lake.
If you want to visit Lake Titicaca, you have several options to organise your visit at Lake Titicaca:
- Drive there with a rental car from Cusco (that’s what I did)
- Get a bus to Puno
- Get a train to Puno (Peru Rail)
- Go with an organised tour
All these options are great, and some suit you better than others.
Because I am an independent traveller, and I love to explore as much as possible on my own, I rented a car in Cusco to give me the autonomy that I needed in Peru.
Then, right after I got the car, I proceeded to drive to Puno.
Is it safe to drive to Puno from Cusco?
The drive from Cusco to Puno is spectacular, and it’s pretty much without issues. It’s a road through the mountains, with great views and the infrastructure is really good.
To be honest, I was expecting worse conditions, but it was really ok.
There were some sections under construction (like some really small bridges), but there was no issue. I had no delays, and there was nothing to worry about.
On the way to Puno, you will go through Juliaca city. It was a bit of chaos, but nothing an experienced driver cannot manage.
Overall, the drive is safe and can be done by almost anyone with some experience driving on mountain roads and a bit through crowded cities.
Where to stay in Puno?
Puno is highly touristy, and it offers a lot of hotels that suit all budget ranges. Initially, I wanted to stay right in the centre of Puno, but parking there was impossible, so I gave that up.
After that, I looked for a hotel with private parking. Usually, hotels that cater to tourists offer private parking. They are also a bit more pricey, but they might be worth the splurge.
I stayed at Sonesta Hotel, which is by the side of the lake and has the most gorgeous views of Lake Titicaca. You can even choose to stay in a room with lake views.
The room included a buffet breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant. During the morning, they let the alpacas roam around the garden, which makes the entire palace magical.
I even saw a small cuy (guinea pig) near their gazeboo.
Other hotels I’d recommend in Puno are:
$$$ – GHL Hotel Lago Titicaca
$$ – Lake Titicaca Hotel, Hotel Hacienda Plaza de Armas
$ – Pukantu Hostal, Hostel Sol Andina Inn
Lake Titicaca tour (day trip from Puno)
In my urge to see the lake, I didn’t realise how big and what to do around Titicaca lake.
I read about some day trips that start from Puno, but I wasn’t sure how to organise one for myself, as all I could read on the internet was about stories of people going on longer, multi-day tours that included this trip.
I figured I would just go to Puno and find a tour or a boat there to visit the islands. And I was not disappointed.
After I checked in at the hotel, I asked the friendly staff about the tours, and they explained the main attractions that you can visit on Lake Titicaca.
Then, they even offer to find me a spot on a day trip for the following day.
Usually, I can find these things online, but it was already super late, and most online tours might not accept bookings for the following day after a certain hour.
But they found one for me. The Peruvian hospitality is something beyond anything else.
The tour I joined included private pick-up and drop-off from the hotel to the dock area in Puno, where the tour starts. You can see the details of the tour here.
Our driver walked us all the way to the pier, where he introduced us to our guide.
The tour agency asked us to pay in cash, but because we didn’t have enough cash, they agreed for us to pay at the end of the day when the driver took us to an ATM in the city. Again, the service is out of this world in Peru.
The tour started from the pier in Puno, and the first stop was on the Uros islands.
After that, we got on the same boat again and sailed towards Taquile island, which is a bit further away, closer to the centre of the lake.
Uros Islands
To enter the Uros community, you’d have to pay an entrance ticket. But this was included in the price of the tour. Then, our boat proceeded to one specific Uros island.
What I didn’t first understand is that they are called the Uros Islands because there are multiple tiny islands. In fact, each extended family has an island of its own.
Because the entire community now benefits from tourism, they organize the entire system, and each family/island receives tourists only about once per month (according to our guide).
The Uros have about 2,000 inhabitants.
The islands are made from reed (totora), and they speak Aymara language, which is a language older than Quechua.
The totora is used to build the island, houses, and boats, and they also eat it, calling it the Titicaca banana. According to our guide, there are around 720 floating islands in the Uros islands.
Once we got on the island, we were greeted by the family living there, and then the head of the family explained how they live there, how the islands are built, what their daily activity to maintain their island and how they interact with the other islands.
The entire place has rules and they live together in harmony, self-governing.
But they also have to adhere to modern amenities, and some have solar panels to produce electricity for their TVs and to charge their mobile phones.
Children go to school in Puno, and most of them choose to leave the islands when they grow up and go live on the mainland.
Women on the island also made small souvenirs that you can buy at the end of your visit.
The last part of the visit included an optional ride with the touristic reed boat (15 Soles each) to another island where they had a toilet and a restaurant.
From there, we jumped back on the boat and sailed towards Taquile Island.
Taquile Island
The island is about one hour away from the Uros islands.
The views are extraordinary, and this is when you realize you’re sailing on a huge lake at almost 4,000 meters altitude. It’s truly out of this world, and for most of us, this is the kind of experience we can brag about for years to come.
Once we got to Taquile, we noticed how the water is much more cleaner, the island has a couple of gorgeous sand beaches, and even the locals look differently. It’s like an entire new world.
The tour guide introduced us to the elected president of the island and then explained how they self-govern as an island, talked about their unique way of clothing and displaying marital status, and so much more.
It’s crazy to imagine the history of this place, as Taquile is the only place around Titicaca lake where locals speak Quechua, and not Aymara like the rest of the places around.
That’s because the Incas brought their people to inhibit this place a long time ago.
I have also learnt that on Taquile Islands, locals are recognised as some of the best weavers in the world.
They even demonstrated some of the techniques they use to us, and there’s a small marketplace where you can buy handicrafts such as scarves, belts, hair bands, bracelets, and hats.
We walked around a bit, admired the beautiful landscapes and then ended at one of the few restaurants on the island, where we had lunch. This, too, was included with our tour. The food was delicious. We got serve quinoa soup and fish from the lake.
Normally, it’s not recommended that tourists eat fish from Lake Titicaca, as it is quite populated nearby Puno. But here in the middle of the lake, the water is much clearer, and it was delicious.
After lunch, we walked back to the boat and sailed back to Puno.
On the way to Puno, we briefly stopped by the Uros because some of the passengers were getting off there to spend the night at one of the families.
I didn’t know that was a thing until that moment, so here are some accommodation options on Uros if you want to spend the night on Lake Titicaca:
Lake Titicaca tour review: Is the day trip worth it?
Yes, I believe that the entire tour is packed with sightseeing, the tour guide was very knowledgeable and offers a lot of information and detailed about the people living on these islands on Lake Titicaca.
The Lake Titicaca tour can be booked online, you can ask your hotel staff to help you book a tour, or you can simple go to the port area and book one of the tours there.
There are also boats going to the Uros a few times a day, and there’s a timetable at the pier in Puno.
If you don’t speak Spanish, the best option is to book a tour as the tour guides speak English, and that’s when you can get the best out of this day trip to Lake Titicaca.
However, if you do speak Spanish, you could probably just show up at the pier in Puno and check the boats’ schedule.
Overall, I think it’s a great activity, and you shouldn’t miss it if you make it to Puno.
I made a video with this entire experience on Lake Titicaca in Peru, and it’s published on my YouTube channel:
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