Best New Trips in the World: Volunteer with Inca Descendants in Peru

For our annual Adventure Travel issue, we scoured the globe to find the 25 Best New Trips in the World for 2010, complete with a Best Trips photo gallery. Today, we present Peru. The world’s far corners are now well within reach.

PERU: The Real Sacred Valley

Long before the term “voluntourism” became etched into the travel lexicon, Adventure Life Journeys was a model practitioner. For years, the Latin America–focused outfitter has made a point of incorporating meaningful volunteer work into each of its itineraries and employing local guides and lodge owners. Now comes perhaps its most compelling offering: a weeklong stay with Inca descendants in the Sacred Valley village of Cachiccata, followed by a trek to Machu Picchu. “We’re not just showing up and dropping off donations and then leaving,” says Adventure Life’s Jonathan Brunger, who spearheaded the project. Instead, you’ll arrive in one of the world’s most spectacular settings—picture millennia-old Inca terraces overlooking a river in the heart of the valley—and roll up your sleeves to work alongside indigenous community members on various tasks.

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