Lima, Peru

Lima consistently ranks among the world's best food cities in independent culinary surveys, and ceviche — raw fish cured in citrus, Peru's signature dish — is worth trying at a dedicated cevichería rather than a hotel restaurant. Miraflores, the clifftop district overlooking the Pacific, has a landscaped boardwalk that makes for one of the more pleasant evening walks on this entire list.

While many families connect through Lima on the way to Machu Picchu and Cusco (see our separate guide), Lima is worth treating as its own multi-day stop: the colonial Plaza Mayor, the catacombs beneath the Monastery of San Francisco, and Barranco's bohemian art scene are all distinct from anything in the Andes.

LATAM flies nonstop from New York in about eight hours. December through April brings Lima's warmest, driest weather; the city also has a genuine, near-constant coastal fog called garúa that keeps things overcast for long stretches even outside the rainier months, which is worth knowing about ahead of a trip focused on outdoor sightseeing.

Lima has become one of South America's leading food cities, with several restaurants regularly ranking among the world's best, and the clifftop Miraflores and bohemian Barranco districts are the main bases for most visitors. The city's fog-shrouded coastline gives it a distinct, cooler climate than much of the rest of Peru, and Lima functions as the natural gateway before continuing on to Cusco and Machu Picchu.

Two to three nights, typically as the entry or exit point for a longer Peru trip. It suits food-focused travelers specifically given the city's culinary reputation, and Miraflores is generally the most convenient and comfortable base for first-time visitors.

Getting there: About 8h nonstop from New York (LATAM). We check routing and fare-class options across that itinerary and weigh them against December to April (warmer, drier), rather than booking on price alone.

Lima was founded by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1535 as the 'City of Kings,' and for roughly two centuries it served as the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, the wealthiest and most important Spanish colonial territory in South America — silver extracted from Bolivia's Potosí mines passed through Lima's port on its way to Spain, funding the grand colonial architecture still visible around the Plaza Mayor and in the city's numerous Baroque churches and monasteries. Lima's now globally recognized culinary reputation is a relatively recent phenomenon, driven largely by chef Gastón Acurio, who beginning in the 1990s championed Peruvian ingredients and traditional dishes on fine-dining menus specifically to rebuild national pride in a cuisine that had been undervalued at home — Central and Maido, two Lima restaurants, now regularly rank among the world's best. Ceviche, Peru's signature dish, traces to coastal Indigenous fish-curing traditions layered with Spanish citrus and later Japanese immigrant technique (the country has one of the largest Japanese diaspora populations in South America, giving rise to Nikkei cuisine, a genuine Peruvian-Japanese fusion tradition). Lima sits on a coastal desert with almost no rainfall, relying instead on a near-constant blanket of fog called garúa for roughly eight months of the year, a genuinely unusual climate for a city its size.