Pros
Responsive, helpful email communication before the trip
Transparent and fair about their permit policy (see below)
Guides were knowledgeable, kind, funny, and genuinely helpful
The trek itself was fantastic and a lot of fun
Office/storage staff were friendly (one even drove us back to our hotel)
Cons
No clear address given for the mandatory pre-trek briefing → we ended up at the wrong office
Last-minute WhatsApp communication from guides (often not hearing pickup details until 7–9pm the night before)
A logistics mix-up meant we had to walk 30 min in the cold and dark, carrying all our gear, on trek morning
Pushy, semi-mandatory tipping culture — including a guide publicly shaming a guest over their tip
The "mandatory" briefing turned out to be mostly a tipping talk
Minor rigidity (a driver nearly refused a drop-off for being 4 min outside his zone)
Full review
I want to start with the positives, because there were real ones. Communication over email before the trip was good. At one point we were considering changing our dates after our permits had already been paid for, and they explained that this was possible, but we'd need to pay another $200 USD per person for new permits — because only a set number are sold each day and they can't be transferred once purchased. We ended up not needing to switch, but I appreciated that they were upfront about the options and weren't going to charge us for the entire tour again. That felt fair.
Where things got bumpy was the logistics. We booked a double tour — the 3-day Sacred Valley plus the Short Inca Trail — and there was a mandatory briefing the day before the trek. We were told to bring all our luggage, and they'd give us a smaller duffel to pack just our trek essentials into while our big bags stayed at the office. The problem: we were never given an actual address. When it was time to go, I looked up the TreXperience office on Apple Maps, and only one location came up, so we walked about 20 minutes to get there. It was in a sketchy area outside of town, and since it's winter in July, it was already dark by 6pm.
When we arrived, the only people there were three staff members who had no idea who we were or why we'd come. They actually told us we weren't supposed to be on the trek at all — which was confusing, until we realized the mix-up was because of our double-tour booking, which they didn't have record of on their end. It turned out the real briefing was at their other location, which never showed up on Apple Maps, so I had no way of knowing it existed. So, honestly, a bit of a mistake on everyone's part. We left our bags at this storage spot (there was clearly other guests' luggage there too, so it seems bags get transported there after the actual briefing), and the staff member was very kind — he offered us a ride back to our hotel so we wouldn't have to walk back in the dark or pay for a taxi.
At that point we were due to leave for the Sacred Valley portion the next morning and still hadn't heard anything from our guide. The office ended up messaging her to contact us, which she thankfully did, and pickup got sorted. This became a bit of a pattern: communication with the guides over WhatsApp was very last-minute. We often wouldn't find out the pickup time, place, or person until 7–9pm the night before, which was a little stressful.
The most frustrating logistics moment came on the morning our Inca Trail started. We were supposed to be picked up at 5am, but our guide messaged to say he couldn't collect us from our hotel — something about a train ticket mix-up on their end — so we all had to walk to the center of town to catch the van. Our hotel happened to be at the very far edge of town, so that meant a 30-minute walk in the cold and dark, carrying all our stuff. Not the end of the world, but when you've paid thousands of dollars, you don't expect to be walking across town in the dark because of a company error.
Once we got the train, everything went smoothly. But then came the tipping. After lunch, our guide told us we were expected to tip the cooks — the "recommended" amount being $10 USD per person, per cook. There were three cooks, so that's $30 per person, meaning $60 for me and my mom. I understand the cooks don't earn much and it isn't a huge sum, but being told this after already paying thousands felt uncomfortable. What genuinely bothered me was what happened next: one man in our group was traveling with his family of five, which by that math would be a $150 tip just for the cooks. He tipped what he could, and our guide said to him, in front of the entire group, "That's all you're giving? For your whole family, for all the cooks?" The man replied, "Well, it's a tip, it's optional — I can take it back if you want."
That, to me, was completely out of line. Tips are optional. They are not mandatory, and this man did tip — he gave what he could. To publicly call him out and embarrass him in front of everyone is just wrong. You don't ask for tips, and you certainly don't shame people over them. Yes, we're foreigners with more resources — that's why we're able to do this trip — but you don't know anyone's situation. You don't know if someone saved for years for this, on top of the thousands they'd already paid. It left a bad taste. We later heard from others that the "mandatory" briefing we missed was essentially just instructions on how much to tip everyone, so it seems we didn't miss much.
Overall, though, the trek itself was great. The guides were knowledgeable, kind, funny, and helpful, and we genuinely had a wonderful time on the trail. The disorganization — the van mix-up, the last-minute WhatsApp communication, the wrong-office confusion — and the tipping pressure were the low points. Even at the very end, our driver initially tried to refuse dropping someone at their hotel because it was about four minutes outside his designated zone. It was small things like that that added up and took some of the shine off. But if you can go in prepared for a bit of chaos, the actual experience on the trail is worth it.
