TIPPING TOUR GUIDES – FULL DAY TOURS
- This is one area where tipping will generally always be expected, but again, please only tip if you feel your tour guide has done a good job.
- As a general rule of thumb, a tour guide will anticipate getting S/. 35.00 – S/. 40.00 or $10-$15 dollars per person for a full day tour. If the guide is only leading one or two people, the hope would be that the small group would provide a little more in tips for the “private” tour.
- The tour guides in Peru are very well trained, so you should anticipate that service will be outstanding and you may want to tip above the amount listed. Please feel free to do so.
- Please remember to tip the driver if you are on a tour what requires bus or van service. The traffic in Peru is crazy and requires a lot of focus, so it never hurts to show some appreciation. About S/. 30.00 or $10 from the group would be great.
Tipping Tour Guides in Peru
You should always tip your tour guide in Peru, be it a two-hour tour of a museum or cathedral, or a four-day tour of the jungle. It’s always tricky to know how much to tip, so just go with your gut.
For a short tour of an hour or two, S/ 10 soles per person is often enough — but again, it depends on the complexity of the tour and the amount of information being offered by the guide.
For a day-long tour, S/ 30 to S/ 50 is enough, again depending on the type of tour. And if you’re in a group of five or six people, for example, you don’t all need to give S/ 50 (not that the guide would complain). S/ 100 to S/ 150 or 45-50 usd given from the group as a whole would probably be fine.
These recommendations are for the classic four day/three night Inca Trail:
Inca Trail operators recommend between 25 usd and 30 USD per porter from the whole group; 40 to 50 usd for each cook from the group; 100 usd to 130 usd from the group for the guide.
Always remember that tips are not mandatory. The tipping ranges above are suggestions only and assume that the service given was of a good standard. If your food was terrible, for example, you should not feel obliged to tip the cook. At the same time, resist the urge to over-tip.
If you feel you might want to go beyond a standard tip, keep in mind that many porters would be grateful for additional donations such as clothing or school equipment for their children.
Inca Trail Operators will tell you, tipping is not mandatory on the Inca Trail. But while it’s not mandatory, tipping has become such a tradition that it would be strange not to tip. If the service is really bad — if you feel robbed or ill-treated — then consider withholding the tip. In all other situations, tipping is a widely accepted — and largely expected — part of Inca Trail etiquette. https://www.newperuvian.com/
Tips are not included in the overall cost of your Inca Trail trek, so you need to take enough cash, in Peruvian soles or US dollars, to cover this additional expense. Who exactly you are tipping can depend on the size of your trekking group, but you’ll generally need to tip the lead guide, porters and cook (and sometimes a driver). A larger trekking group might also include an assistant guide and assistant cook.
We recommend the following tips for the classic 4 Day/3 Night Inca Trail trek.
These amounts are to be given by the trekking group as a whole, not per person (and the cook and porters prefer to receive their tips in Peruvian soles rather than US dollars):
Lead guide: S/ 400 total (about $120)
Assistant guide(s) (if required based upon group size): S/ 300 (about $90)
Chef: S/ 200 (about $60)
Assistant chef(s) (if required based upon groups size): S/ 120 soles (about $36)
Porters: S/ 80 per porter (about $24)
Driver (if applicable): S/ 120 (about $36) per day/drive
