What you should avoid if you are coming to Perú
By: Patricio Sebastian Alarcón Delgado
Tags: Nature, Peru, Experience, Travel, Adventure

This article is part of a collection that is focused on a main target: Give you the best experience if you are visiting this cultural, folklorical and with really…really a lot of biodiversity (this last i mean it, but is not everywhere)

That said, here is what you should avoid to do if you want to have a really nice, fun and safe experience (and for you extreme sport lovers, i am one myself, so do not worry, that is not what i mean with safe). Here we go!

1. Don’t try to explore places spontaneusly

Ok, when traveling, i like to identify two people: The ones that like to have itineraries and tourist guides and the ones who don’t. If you are part of the first group, you can jump ahead to the next step!

For the adventurers, i’ll explain why you should avoid this: we are a country on path of development and criminality is part of the daily life in Perú, like any other country in South America.

So…. this really would be a big problem? Not at all, every country has its safe districts (E.g. in Lima, we have Miraflores, Barranco, San Isidro, etc.). The way should handle it once in Peru is, no matter the city, ask for the safe districts! Anyone can tell you which districts are cool and that’s were you should put boundaries in exploration… believe me, thats the way to go to avoid a bad time with criminals the 95% of the time.

By the way, a short question you could do to people here is: “Qué distritos son seguros?”, practice your spanish accent a little bit!

2. You don’t know any spanish? Avoid purchasing services or products directly with people

The thing here is, latino-americans like to overprice their stuff if they know you are foreigner, specially if you aren’t latinoamerican! So…. need a taxy? call and Uber, Beat, Didi…. Need an electrodomestic? buy it online or in a mall…. Need some fine souvenir? Buy it on a store.

I mean, you can buy cheap things, like groceries, that’s fine because it is unlikely they will try to add price to that.. ok, let’s say in the worst case scenario they add 0.5$ dollar? Come on, we cannot be so tight.

A ditionally, by cheap i mean the price will vary from 1$ to 5$ american dollars, higher than that, try be cautious with your purchases. Finally, we like to bargain the price sometimes but you need to know spanish or have an interpreter to do that.. i’m just giving options!

3. Avoid walking on streets with more than 200 US$ with you.

Ok, first thing to say here… don’t worry, is not like in Perú you are in constant danger of robbery, but let’s just don’t put an spotlight on us for the bad people to see! And why 200$? because with that amount of money you can buy literally anything that is not luxury or something really extrainly expensive!

Then, let’s put a limit of 200$, in any case, if you are part of that 5% that is really unlucky as hell, you will only lose 200$, it isn’t a really big deal right? Come on, you can other precautions to reduce your chances to have a bad experience obviously! The odds indicate that you will have a really great experience.

Another thing to say is that we have coverage with Visa and Mastercard all over the country…faster and easier right? Anyhow, unless you staying in international hotels all the time, have peruvian soles with you so you don’t lose a chance to buy something you like along your trip!

4. Avoid eating something if you don’t know what it is

Well, maybe some readers are warriors in that matter, but for those who have alergies or a sensible digestive system i recommend you to be very cautious!

Peruvian food is world-wide known and considered by some one of the best gastronomic destinys. However, the cuisine haves lots of spicies and the dishes use all kinds of meats and vegetables (some very exotic and pretty unique). For this reason, some people don’t tolerate all the food. As long as you know what you are eating, and you can always ask, you will be fine. There is nothing worst than being sick on a trip!