Hi! If you're not driving in a major city it was quite easy to drive around. Peruvians are driving in their own way, which is a little chaotic if you're used to german / austrian very orderly driving. If there's two lanes for cars, expect to see three cars driving next to each other, no one halts if a person wants to cross the street, etc. If you're a calm driver and don't get upset by these maneuvers it's quite easy for you to drive in Peru, if you're easily stressed out and don't like to drive (also don't like to drive for long hours!) you better avoid it. Also I highly recommend a second driver!! Don't underestimate the altitude and altitude sickness. When driving from Arequipa to Colca Canyon the streets go up to 4,900m and when driving from Colca Canyon to Puno you're driving on an altitude of 4,500m for several hours. It's better to have someone take over the wheel if you don't feel good. Other than that, it was amazing being so flexible and I felt that we were able to see so much more of Peru then you ever would on a normal train / flight trip / guided trip. If you're outside of the big cities theres also not that much traffic (as seen in the video) so it's quite relaxed to get around :) We used google maps or maps.me which is a free offline road map that worked VERY well. We extra purchased the south america card for our tomtom gps, but it didn't work very well in Peru. Since the internet connection in Peru is so good it's easy to drive with google maps too. Only in very rural areas there might be no signal, but if you have maps.me you're on the safe side :)
Was it easy to get around? Did you have gps?
Hi! If you're not driving in a major city it was quite easy to drive around. Peruvians are driving in their own way, which is a little chaotic if you're used to german / austrian very orderly driving. If there's two lanes for cars, expect to see three cars driving next to each other, no one halts if a person wants to cross the street, etc. If you're a calm driver and don't get upset by these maneuvers it's quite easy for you to drive in Peru, if you're easily stressed out and don't like to drive (also don't like to drive for long hours!) you better avoid it. Also I highly recommend a second driver!! Don't underestimate the altitude and altitude sickness. When driving from Arequipa to Colca Canyon the streets go up to 4,900m and when driving from Colca Canyon to Puno you're driving on an altitude of 4,500m for several hours. It's better to have someone take over the wheel if you don't feel good. Other than that, it was amazing being so flexible and I felt that we were able to see so much more of Peru then you ever would on a normal train / flight trip / guided trip. If you're outside of the big cities theres also not that much traffic (as seen in the video) so it's quite relaxed to get around :)
We used google maps or maps.me which is a free offline road map that worked VERY well. We extra purchased the south america card for our tomtom gps, but it didn't work very well in Peru. Since the internet connection in Peru is so good it's easy to drive with google maps too. Only in very rural areas there might be no signal, but if you have maps.me you're on the safe side :)