Curated Itinerary
Qhapaq Ñan: the Great Andean Road
Six anchors of the Qhapaq Ñan across Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina: temples, provincial capitals and frontier forts strung along the Inca royal road.
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From Ingapirca to Pucará de Tilcara, in the order we curated them.
➤ Open the stops in Google MapsThese places are spread over thousands of kilometres, and Google will not always join them into one route. It opens with the stops loaded in our order: from there pick two that are close to each other, choose how you travel, and add places of your own. For a single leg, the directions on each stop's own page work better.
This itinerary follows the Qhapaq Ñan, the Andean road system of the Inca, inscribed by UNESCO in 2014 across six countries — the largest transnational listing ever attempted. Our route selects six archaeological anchors from north to south: Ingapirca in Ecuador, Huánuco Pampa, Vilcashuamán and Raqch’i in Peru, Incallajta in Bolivia, and the Pucará de Tilcara in Argentina.
The order is the road’s own: each site is a node the royal road was built to connect — a temple showcase, a provincial capital, a garrison at a junction, a sanctuary, a frontier fortress, a hilltop watchpost. Walked or driven, the sequence reads as the empire intended: administration by distance.
Treat each country as its own chapter. Acclimatise before the high sites, travel in the May–September dry season, and wherever a walkable stretch of original road survives near a stop, take it — the paving underfoot is the monument.
Read the full story of this route in the CHO Magazine →
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A word from your host
You will not walk the whole thing — nobody has since the sixteenth century. Pick a country, pick two or three anchors, and hike the surviving road sections between villages. The stonework underfoot is original, and that is the point.
Getting around
Each cluster has its own base: Cuenca for Ingapirca, Cusco for Raqch'i, Ayacucho for Vilcashuamán, Cochabamba for Incallajta, Salta or Jujuy for Tilcara. Most sites sit above 2,500 metres — plan acclimatisation days.
Step by step
Ingapirca
The most important Inca archaeological site in Ecuador — a sun temple in dressed andesite, built on a pre-existing Cañari sacred site at 3,160 metres…
Huu00e1nuco Pampa
The most complete and best-documented Inca provincial administrative city in the Andes — 3,500 stone structures on a high plateau, built by imperial decree…
Raqch’i
An Inca ceremonial complex in Peru's Cusco Region, dominated by the Temple of Wiracocha and positioned at 3,480 meters along the Vilcanota River.
Vilcashuamán
An Inca administrative center at 3,490 meters in the Andes, Vilcashuamán preserves the sacred Ushnu pyramid and temple, where the legendary Seat…
Inkallaqta
A monumental Inca ceremonial centre in central Bolivia featuring the western hemisphere's largest pre-Columbian roofed hall and astronomical observation…
Pucará de Tilcara
Pre-Inca hilltop fortress in Argentina's Jujuy province, strategically positioned to defend the Quebrada de Humahuaca valley.
Download for tour navigation
🔒 The walk and the notes are open to everyone on this page. The files to take with you — the stop list as a PDF, and the GPX and KML tracks for your phone — come with a CHO account, and the free one includes them.
Walk it with the navigator on
These places are spread over thousands of kilometres, and Google will not always join them into one route. It opens with the stops loaded in our order: from there pick two that are close to each other, choose how you travel, and add places of your own. For a single leg, the directions on each stop's own page work better.