We all want to be comfortable on any trip we take and it’s possible to do this in Peru if you are prepared ahead of your trip. I take for granted access to safe drinking water, public restrooms with toilet paper, and a hot shower not to mention heat and AC. Although none of these are guaranteed in Peru, you can still have a safe, comfortable trip if you follow these tips.
It is not safe for Americans to drink the water including ice in Peru. You risk getting ill and no one wants that on their vacation. Keeping well hydrated on a trip helps with elevation adjustment and general well being. You can certainly buy bottled water throughout your trip but this adds up cost wise and all that plastic isn’t great for the environment. One thing we did was bring a Portable Water Purifier. In every airbnb my husband would fill up a pitcher and our water bottles. Another option is to buy something like this GRAYL UltraPress Water Purifier and Bottle for each person. By the end of our trip we did have a few drinks with ice in them but we must have built up enough tolerance by the bits of water we got on our toothbrushes, etc.
One thing that was quite an adjustment was not putting toilet paper in the toilet. For cost or environmental reasons, Peruvians seem to have very little paper waste. There weren’t paper towels in any of our Airbnbs. Napkins at restaurants were tiny and thin. And, bathrooms often didn’t have toilet paper. If they did, there would be a sign asking you not to put them in the toilet but instead there was a trash can next to the toilet. The Peruvian septic and sewer systems are not designed to handle any paper waste. As icky as it seemed to me to throw out used toilet paper instead of flushing it, that’s what everyone expects and you do not want to be the reason the system backs up. You will want to travel with some wipes or tissues for those public restrooms that don’t have any paper.
Hot water and heat/AC are something else that aren’t always common. We didn’t stay in any hotels which would probably have these (but always check). We did stay in really nice Airbnbs (and one not so great Airbnb) and not one of them had central heat or AC. In September that wasn’t an issue because it wasn’t hot and didn’t get too cold, but take that into account when you plan when to go. Some of our Airbnbs had an on demand hot water heater, but a lot of places have solar hot water heaters (see photo below). It’s basically a tank on the roof that gets warm as the sun heats it up. If a hot shower in the morning is important to you, make sure you have an Airbnb with a traditional hot water heater. Ask the host. Read reviews.
