Machu Picchu Guidebook: A Self-Guided Tour

The best all around guide for all who ve been or are going to Machu Picchu. . . . Absolutely indispensable! --Don Montague, President, South American Explorers

One of the most exciting travel destinations in the world can be appreciated to its fullest by using this easily portable guide. --Booklist

Promotes a satisfactory low impact visit offering an early step-by-step trail through the legendary Incan site. --Publishers Weekly, June 4, 2011

This revised edition of the Machu Picchu Guidebook includes newly discovered sites. New photos and maps with full-color illustrations of real life scences from National Geographic Magazine."The best all-around guide for all who've been or are going to Machu Picchu. . . . Absolutely indispensible." - Don Montague

Machu Picchu is one of the world's great travel destinations. Built in the mid-fifteenth century by Incan royalty and "re-discovered" by Hiram Bingham in 1911, this awe-inspiring site in the Andes of Peru is the stuff of legends. The Machu Picchu Guidebook has proven to be one of the most successful and acclaimed guidebooks to the popular archaeological treasure. In this comprehensive traveler's guide, the authors offer an almost step-by-step tour of the world-renowned Inca city, keyed to a detailed, full-color foldout map. This fully-updated and revised edition features a new artist's rendition of Machu Picchu, presented as a three-page foldout in glorious color. The painting, which first appeared as a supplement to National Geographic magazine, brings Machu Picchu to life by depicting the royal retreat as it appeared on the June 21st solstice ceremony in the year 1530, at the height of the Inca empire. Further additions include a much-expanded chapter on the holy mountain of Huayna Picchu and an all-new chapter on the birds of Machu Picchu, which includes such species as the Inca wren, found only at this site. Whether you have three hours or three days to spend at Machu Picchu, this book is the one indispensable guide. No traveler should be without it.

Ruth M. Wright wove a twenty-five-year fascination with Machu Picchu into an authorized investigation when she and her husband, Ken Wright author of recently published "Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering Marvel," were granted a permit in 1994 from the Peruvian National Institute of Culture to study the site. The Wrights live in Boulder, Colorado.

Alfredo Valencia Zegarra is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Cusco and a registered professional archaeologist with the Peruvian National Institute of Culture. He spent several years as the resident archaeologist at Machu Picchu.