Peru Festivals and Celebrations

Before the list, one practical warning

Two of these fill Cusco completely. Book accommodation and trains months ahead if your trip overlaps Inti Raymi in June or the days around Independence Day at the end of July. Arriving on spec during either is how people end up sleeping a long way from where they meant to be, at several times the usual price.

And note that several of these dates move, because they follow the church calendar rather than the civil one. Corpus Christi and Qoyllur Riti shift with Easter every year. Confirm the date for your own year rather than carrying one forward.

Inti Raymi, Cusco, 24 June

The festival of the sun, staged around the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere. The modern event is a twentieth century revival of an Inca ceremony, performed in Quechua across three sites in one day: the Qoricancha, the Plaza de Armas, and the great terraces above the city at Sacsayhuaman.

It is the largest thing that happens in Cusco all year. Seating at Sacsayhuaman is ticketed and sells out; the procession through the city is free to watch and is where the atmosphere is. June is also the dry season, which is part of why the city is already full.

Virgen de la Candelaria, Puno, early February

Two weeks of dancing on the shore of Lake Titicaca, with thousands of costumed dancers and brass bands, centered on the feast of the Virgin of Candelaria. It is one of the largest festivals in South America and it is comparatively little known outside Peru and Bolivia.

February is deep in the rainy season, so expect rain and expect it not to stop anything. Puno sits at nearly 3,800 meters, which is higher than Cusco, and dancing in the street is not the moment to discover that. Arrive several days early.

Qoyllur Riti, May or June

A pilgrimage of tens of thousands of people to a sanctuary at the foot of a glacier in the Sinakara valley, at around 4,600 meters, timed to the movement of the Pleiades and to Corpus Christi. Andean and Catholic practice are inseparable here and the event is a religious obligation for the communities that make it, not a performance.

This is the one festival on this page that a visitor should think hard about. The altitude is extreme, the conditions are cold and exposed, the walk in is long, and there is no infrastructure. Go with a community based operator or do not go, and do not go at all unless you have already acclimatized properly.

Corpus Christi, Cusco, May or June

Fifteen saints and virgins are carried from their parish churches into the cathedral on the Plaza de Armas, accompanied by bands and by their own congregations, and remain there for a week before returning. It is one of the clearest illustrations anywhere of how completely Andean and Catholic practice combined, and it is a local event rather than a staged one.

The associated food is chiriuchu, a cold dish eaten only at this festival.

Independence Day, 28 and 29 July

Two national holidays, Fiestas Patrias, marking independence. There are parades, flags on every building, and a great deal of domestic travel, which is the part that affects a visitor: flights, buses and hotels fill with Peruvian families, and prices rise accordingly.

Senor de los Milagros, Lima, October

Lima turns purple for most of October. The procession of the Lord of Miracles carries an image painted by an enslaved Angolan man in the seventeenth century, on a wall that survived the earthquakes that destroyed everything around it. It is among the largest religious processions in the Americas, and the devotion is overwhelmingly a coastal and Afro-Peruvian one, which our guide to Afro-Peruvian heritage takes up.

The month is also bullfighting season in Lima and the association is historical rather than incidental. Purple clothing is worn by devotees all month.

Carnival, February

Celebrated across the country, most vigorously in the highlands and in Cajamarca. Water is thrown at everybody, cheerfully and without consultation. Assume a camera will get wet.

Planning around a festival

• Book accommodation and transport months ahead for Inti Raymi, Candelaria and Independence Day.
• Confirm this year's dates for the movable feasts.
• Expect crowds, and expect pickpocketing where there are crowds. See our Peru travel safety guide.
• Do not attend a high altitude pilgrimage in your first days in the country.
• Remember that a festival is worship or commemoration for the people holding it. Ask before photographing, and stand where you are invited to stand.

Verify before you travel

Dates move, ticketing arrangements change and events are occasionally canceled or relocated. Confirm with iPeru or the regional tourism office before booking around one.

Sources

• UNESCO World Heritage Centre: the inscription of the City of Cuzco in 1983, recording the city at 3,400 meters, its remodelling under Pachacuteq in the fifteenth century as the capital of the Tawantinsuyu, and the Inca stone construction of the Qoricancha and the surviving pre-Hispanic street pattern. Accessed 16 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office: Peru safety and security: protests and strikes and their effect on the southern railways, street crime in Lima, Cusco and Arequipa, robbery by criminals posing as taxi drivers at Jorge Chavez airport and the bus terminals, express kidnapping, counterfeit notes and the withdrawn intis passed by street changers in Cusco, methanol in spirit drinks, the requirement to carry identification, the prohibition on photographing military sites, the illegality of carrying coca leaf out of the country, driving and overnight bus standards, the rainy season from November to May, and the earthquake and volcanic risk. Accessed 16 September 2026.