What makes Sacred Valley worth the trip?
The Sacred Valley of the Incas — the Urubamba Valley — stretches northwest from Cusco along the Urubamba River, descending from 3,400 meters to about 2,800 meters in a lush corridor of green that the Inca prized as their agricultural heartland. The valley's mild microclimate, fertile soil, and reliable water supply allowed the Inca to cultivate maize, potatoes, and quinoa on vast terraced hillsides, and the remains of their engineering — irrigation channels, stepped terraces, and fortress-granaries — line both sides of the valley for over 60 kilometres. The valley's major sites form a natural day-trip circuit from Cusco, though spending a night in Ollantaytambo or Urubamba rewards you with emptier ruins and a chance to explore at a calmer pace. Pisac sits at the eastern end, its Inca citadel perched above a famous market town. Moray's concentric circular terraces descend into the earth like a natural amphitheatre — likely an Inca agricultural laboratory where different microclimates at each level allowed controlled crop experiments. The Maras salt mines, just a few kilometres from Moray, consist of thousands of small salt evaporation pools cascading down a hillside, fed by a mineral spring and worked continuously since pre-Inca times. At the valley's western end, Ollantaytambo is a living Inca town where the original street grid and water channels are still in use, its massive fortress ruins guarding the approach to Machu Picchu.