3 Days on South America’s Most Luxurious Train

In our travels around the world, we’ve fallen in love with both Peru and train travel. So, when we saw the opportunity to combine these two loves with a ride on South America’s most luxurious train ride, we jumped at the chance.

The Andean Explorer travels higher than any other luxury train in the world. On its three-day journey from Arequipa to Cusco, we saw the best of Peru’s landscape, history, and culture while enjoying the opulence of what may now be our favorite train ride ever.

Here’s everything you can expect from a journey on the Andean Explorer.

Let’s Take a Train Tour!

Before we dive into the itinerary, here’s a bit of the history behind the Andean Explorer because I found it fascinating.

This train was once part of The Great South Pacific Express, one of Australia’s most luxurious trains. In 2003, it was sold and shipped to Peru where it was redone by local artists. The coolest bit, in our opinion, is that the train was designed by the same people as the Singapore Airline first class suite (a.k.a. The best first class suite ever). Without a doubt, this is one of the most modern, bright and airy trains we’ve ever stayed on.

The Andean Explorer has three cabin options: bunk bed cabins, twin bed cabins, and suites. We opted to stay in the Suite, the train’s nicest room.

The room is compact, but filled with everything we needed for the journey. The bed was small, but super soft and accompanied with alpaca fur blankets and slippers to keep us warm in the night at high elevation.

On each side of the bed is a nightstand with storage, two outlets, and an Andean Explorer-branded thermos for carrying warm drinks on excursions.

There are two large windows on one wall that provide panoramic views of the Andes Mountains. The room’s two love seats are the perfect place to sit and enjoy the view.

A drink station featuring an espresso machine and hot water kettle was the perfect little luxury, keeping us stocked with warm beverages at any hour of the day.

Two closets and under-the-bed cabinets meant there was plenty of space to store all of our luggage.

The bathroom was stocked with tons of full-sized amenities, including SPF, shimmery bath foam, and lip balm that made the journey comfortable and luxurious!

On the rest of the train, there are two restaurants and two bar cars for enjoying meals and cocktails after dinner. There is also a spa cart which is a luxury you don’t see on many trains, so we found it pretty exciting and Kara fit in a massage during our trip.

Our favorite part of the train was the open-air observation cart, where we could breathe in the crisp mountain air and get 180-degree views of the Andes.

A Journey Across the Andean Plains

Day 1: Arequipa to Puno

After boarding the train in Arequipa, we headed over to one of the restaurants for brunch. All meals are included on the journey, specially cooked by acclaimed chefs using only local ingredients. We indulged on baskets of warm, flaky bread, glasses of wine, and bowls of Peruvian potato soup as our train snaked through the Andes.

Throughout the meal, our ears were popping like no other because in just the first 2.5 hours of the journey, we climbed from 8,000 feet to 12,400 feet.

In the afternoon, the train stops at Sumbay Caves for an excursion. This archaeological site houses cave paintings that date back 8,000 years and tell the story of ancient Andean traditions. If you’re feeling a little tired, you can opt to stay on the train and get a spa treatment or just enjoy the views, like we did.

We watched the sun set from the observation deck before the train pulled over for some incredible stargazing. Let me tell you, the stars in the Andes Mountains are insane. In the midst of the darkness, far away from any large city, we could see the Milky Way and what felt like millions of stars.

To end the evening, the train stopped for the night so we could get some sleep without being woken up by every bump in the track — trust us, this is a big deal in the train travel world.

Day 2: Puno to Marangani

We woke up bright and early on day 2 to watch the sun rise over Lake Titicaca. Getting up this early on vacation is never fun, but the train staff made it as easy as possible by setting up fires and coffee stations along the shore.

The train has an impressively large breakfast menu, so we filled up on omelets, pastries, yogurt bowls, and more before leaving on our excursions for the day.

It was a little disappointing to be leaving the train for the whole day, but after a couple of hours cruising around the world’s highest navigable lake, we forgot all about that.

Lake Titicaca is home to the Uros people, who live on groups of manmade floating islands in the middle of the lake. We stayed here with a local family a few years ago and to this day it is still one of our favorite trips, so being here brought back lots of great memories. After visiting one of the floating islands, we visited one of the lake’s non-floating islands for a delicious lunch of champagne, roast potatoes, lake trout, and quinoa soup.

We took a little siesta on the beach, set against an incredible backdrop of terraced quinoa fields, before returning to the boat for card games and pre-dinner cocktails.

Somewhere in the evening, our train literally drove right through the heart of a city market. Seriously, the vendors had to duck out of the way to avoid getting hit. Even then, we could have reached out the train window and high-fived them.

We enjoyed another dinner onboard with some new friends that we had met. The staff was sweet enough to make special desserts for our anniversary and a new friend’s birthday.

Day 3: Maragani to Cusco

On day 3, after breakfast, we went on an excursion to Raqch’i, a unique Incan archaeological site. This ancient town is home to dozens of round stone storage buildings that the Incas used to store goods for trade. Most people only talk about Machu Picchu, so it was cool to see another example of what insane architects the Incas were.

Our final lunch on the train was super casual. We all spread out in the bar carts, saying goodbye to all our new friends and listening to live music in the background. Having ridden on trains in six out of seven continents, we feel qualified to say this was one of our favorite train rides ever.

Want to see our full journey on the Andean Explorer? Check out the YouTube video below!