Best of the Peruvian Amazon: Iquitos, Manu, Tambopata, Pacaya-Samiria & Puerto Maldonado - A 2026 First-Person Guide
Browse more guides: Peru travel | Americas destinations Best of the Peruvian Amazon: Iquitos, Manu, Tambopata, Pacaya-Samiria & Puerto Maldonado - A 2026 First-Person Guide TL;DR I have spent three separate trips inside the Peruvian Amazon over the last few years, the most recent in early 2026, and I can tell you with full honesty that this is the part of South America that rewired how I think about wild places. The Peruvian Amazon covers around 782,000 square kilometres, roughly 60 percent of Peru's national land area, and it sits on five experiences that I keep coming back to. Iquitos, with a population of around 470,000, is the largest city on the planet that you cannot reach by road. From there, you push by river into Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, which at about 2,080,000 hectares is the single largest protected area in Peru and one of the best places anywhere to see pink river dolphins, Inia geoffrensis, surfacing alongside your boat at sunset. Down south, Manu Bio...