Many of Arequipa's buildings are made from white volcanic stone

Located more than 600 kilometres southeast of Lima, Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and is nicknamed La Ciudad Blanca - The White City - thanks to the region's pearly white volcanic stone used to construct most of the city's colonial-era buildings.

The Andean city of Huaraz - 400km north of Lima - is a bustling high-altitude hub ringed by the jagged snowcapped mountain peaks of the Cordillera Blanca.

As well as being close to a number of significant archaeological sites, the region around Huaraz offers superb opportunities for ice climbing, rock climbing, trekking, paragliding and even skiing.   

Most travellers take a couple of days to acclimatize to Huaraz's altitude (3090m) by exploring the city, stocking up on warm clothing and embarking on easy day hikes. 

An Adean Condor soars on a thermal in the Colca Canyon

Colca Canyon is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States, however its walls are not as steep.

You can take a trip down into the valley where villagers still farm the Inca terraces and have maintained their colourful ancestral way of life.

Accessible only by train, the picturesque tourist town of Aguas Calientes is the jumping off point for Machu Picchu.

Nestled beneath soaring cloudforest-smothered mountains, the town is famous for its thermal baths - a series of brown, lukewarm pools  filled to the brim with  blissed-out travellers.

Aguas Calientes is also known as Machu Picchu Pueblo and is a scenic four-hour train ride from Cusco. Unless you've walked here on one of the handful of 'alternative' Inca trails, the train is the only way of reaching the town.

Cusco was once the heart of the Inca Empire

Roughly translated, Cusco means "Centre of the Universe" and was the heart of the Inca Empire that stretched from present-day Ecuador to central Chile.

Machu Picchu - the Lost City of the Incas

The citadel of Machu Picchu is the most famous of the Inca ruins.

This stunning city - which dates back to the 1400s - was overtaken by dense jungle following the Spanish invasion. It was rediscovered by archaeologists in 1911 and has gone on to become the most visited site in South America.

One of the most biologically diverse places on the planet, the Manu Biosphere Reserve is two million hectares of sweltering tropical jungle. 

This World Heritage Site that clocks up at about half the size of Switzerland is Peru's largest national park, with nearly half the park consisting of Amazon basin tropical rainforest.

Just a stone's throw from Cusco (the former capital of the Inca empire), the Sacred Valley is a series of picturesque towns and villages that dot the fertile agricultural plain that snakes its way towards Machu Picchu.

The impressive Urubamba River gushes through the steep-sided valley, past laid-back settlements that are home to a veritable treasure trove of archaeological remains, impressive Inca ruins and  vibrant artisan markets. 

The oasis of Huacachina lies 5km from the city of  Ica and is set around a lovely palm-fringed lake surrounded by towering sand dunes. 

Huacachina is both an established gringo hangout and a summer resort town that is popular with wealthy Peruvians who come to bathe in the lake's medicinal sulphur waters. 

The third largest city in Peru (after Lima and Arequipa), Trujillo is a stone's throw from some of Peru's most important archaeological sites and the popular beach resort of Huanchaco.

With its charming colonial architecture, palm-lined squares, stately mansions and myriad churches, Trujillo is well worth a stop if you're headed north to Ecuador or south to Lima. 

Miraflores is an upmarket area of Lima

Once you leave the Amazon and the Andes, Peru dries up. The coastline is a hot and arid strip of desert, burnt white by a tireless sun.

A caiman lizard keeps watch in the Amazon basin

If you want to get hot, sticky and up close and personal with some serious jungle action, Iquitos is the place. It's located almost as deep into the Amazon as you can get, 3000 kilometres from the mouth of the Amazon River.

You can't reach Iquitos by road. The only way in is by air or water and the jungle pushes in like a sweating green beast on all sides.

Fed by glacial melt, Lake Titicaca is the world's highest navigable lake

From the shore, Lake Titicaca looks like an endless ocean ringed by distant gleaming peaks.

The water is ice-cold, fed by glacier melt, and in some places is crystal clear. When the sun hits the lake, its a startling cobalt blue reminiscent of the Mediterranean Sea.