Peru eSIM for Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, and the Inca Trail

Peru is a Machu Picchu ticket bought months ago, a train to Aguas Calientes booked in an app, and a trail where the phone is a camera for four days, and Jorge Chávez's arrivals hall is the place to have a phone that already works. The best eSIM for Peru is the one added at home, on Wi-Fi, so the ride into Miraflores is booked and the Cusco flight is checked before the taxi touts reach you.

Below: how a Peru plan works, how to set it up before you fly, what to expect in Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and beyond, and why the Global plan doesn't cover the country.

A South American trip is usually long, and it usually crosses a border or two. KnowRoaming is built for that. You add the KnowRoaming eSIM, called KR.One, to your phone once, then add a plan per trip: Peru now, a LATAM plan the year the route runs through three countries, anywhere else after that. The eSIM stays; only the plan changes.

The plan's days start when you turn it on and connect in Peru, not at checkout. Buy it weeks ahead, add it at home, and a delayed flight costs you nothing. The full rule is in what plan validity means and when it starts.

Choose a fixed plan for a set amount of data at the lowest overall price, or an unlimited plan when you'd rather not count. Unlimited plans give you 5 GB a day at full speed, then a slower speed until the allowance resets the next day. If a fixed plan runs low, top up in the app and the extra data lands on the same eSIM.

See it in two minutes: Meet KR.One, iPhone setup with KR.One, or Samsung setup with KR.One.

Do this at home on Wi-Fi. It takes about a minute.

Before you leave

1. Get the KnowRoaming app (available on iOS and Android) and choose your Peru plan.
2. Tap Add. First time on this phone? The app adds KR.One and your Peru plan together. Already have KR.One? Only the plan is added, with nothing to scan.
3. Leave data roaming off on the KnowRoaming line until you land, and turn it off on your home line too so it doesn't run up charges in the background. Steps are in turning off roaming on your home line.

When you land

1. Turn the plan on in the app, then turn data roaming on for the KnowRoaming line. That setting lives in your phone, so the app can't flip it for you.
2. Give the phone a minute to find the network. If nothing happens, turn airplane mode on for 30 seconds and off again.

Prefer a QR code? The checkout page and your confirmation email both carry one; scan it from your phone's settings. Every tap, by device, is in adding your eSIM on iPhone, adding your eSIM on Android, and adding your eSIM on Samsung, or watch the iPhone QR walkthrough or the Samsung QR walkthrough. Still no signal after landing? Work through the no-signal checklist.

Jorge Chávez is about 45 minutes to an hour from Miraflores and Barranco, and Uber, Cabify, and inDrive all run from the terminal with the number you already have; Cusco's airport is about 15 minutes from the Plaza de Armas and sits at 3,400 meters, so the first day is slow. The sol is the currency, cards work in the hotels and the bigger restaurants, and cash covers the markets, the colectivos, and the villages.

Lima's Barranco, the Larco museum, and the ceviche are the first day; the flights to Cusco fill in the high season and are booked in the airlines' apps, and the bus through the Andes is the long alternative.

Machu Picchu's entry tickets are sold online in timed circuits that sell out weeks or months ahead, and the trains from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes are booked the same way; the Sacred Valley's Pisac market, Ollantaytambo's terraces, and the Moray and Maras day trips fill the days around it. Claro's 4G covers Cusco, the valley towns, and Aguas Calientes; the site itself has patchy signal and the trails above it none.

The four-day Inca Trail needs a permit booked months ahead with a licensed operator, and the Salkantay and Lares treks are the alternatives; all of them are offline from the first morning on every network, and the operators carry satellite devices. Rainbow Mountain is the day hike at altitude. Download the route, agree the check-in, and treat the trek as days without data.

Arequipa's white city and the Colca canyon's condors, Puno and the Titicaca islands, Huacachina's dunes and the Nazca lines, and the Amazon lodges out of Puerto Maldonado and Iquitos are the rest of the classic loop; the towns have 4G, the islands are thin, and the jungle and the canyon are offline. Huaraz and the Cordillera Blanca are the trekkers' north.

Cusco itself is a week: the San Pedro market, the Sacsayhuamán walls above the city, the San Blas neighborhood's workshops, and the Sunday market at Chinchero; the boleto turístico, the combined ticket for the valley's sites, is bought in the city with cash.

Peru is on the LATAM plan, 15 countries on one plan that also covers Chile, Ecuador, and Colombia, switching networks by itself at the crossings; the overland route from Quito to Santiago runs on it, with one gap: Bolivia, reached from Puno across Titicaca, is not on the LATAM plan and needs its own. Peru is not on the Global plan, which catches round-the-world travelers who arrive on it; add a Peru plan or the LATAM plan to the same eSIM. A Peru-only plan stops at the border. Read do I need a new plan for every country? for the detail.

Your plan connects to Claro on 4G LTE. There is no 5G on this plan. Coverage is strong in Lima, Cusco, Arequipa, and the towns along the Pan-American highway, and reaches the Sacred Valley and Aguas Calientes. Your phone picks the network automatically once the plan is on; there is nothing to choose by hand.

On the Inca Trail and the other treks, in the Colca canyon, on the Titicaca islands, and in the Amazon, expect no signal on any network. Power is intermittent in the mountain villages; a power bank helps.

Most phones sold since 2019 support eSIM, including iPhone XS and later and most Android flagships from the same window. Check yours before you add a plan; it takes a few seconds. On iPhone, go to Settings, General, About and look for an EID or Available SIM. On Android, go to Settings, Network & Internet, SIMs and look for an option to add an eSIM. On Samsung, dial *#06# and look for an EID.

Your phone also needs to be carrier-unlocked. If you're not sure, carrier-locked vs unlocked: how to tell shows you where to look.

Adding a Peru plan doesn't touch your regular SIM. Calls and texts on your usual number keep working exactly as before. The new plan handles data while you're there, and most phones run both at once without you doing anything else. Bank codes and two-factor texts still arrive on your home number, as long as that line stays switched on.

For South America the alternatives are your home carrier's roaming rate, often unavailable outside the capital; a local SIM that means paperwork, a local number, and a queue; or hostel Wi-Fi that is fine until you're on a bus. A Peru plan added at home beats all three: one price agreed before you fly, live the second you land, and a LATAM plan if the route crosses borders.

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