The fabled route leading to Machu Picchu is one of the world's most jaw-droppingly beautiful treks – but it's also plagued by ...

confirming centuries-old rumors of a labyrinth stretching beneath the ancient capital of the Inca Empire. This newly uncovered marvel, called a chincana, offers fresh insights into the ...

On an island in Lake Titicaca that was sacred to the ancient Tiwanaku culture, young craft vendors wait for tourists. When the Inca conquered the Tiwanaku, they incorporated the sanctity of this ...

The sapa Inca himself was the supreme leader of the entire system. He was somewhat similar to the pharaoh in ancient Egypt in that he was both a political leader and believed to have divine power.

The girl was only 13 years old when she was sacrificed to the gods but had been frozen in time for hundreds of years when a ...

The Inca Trail draws large crowds, which can compromise your hike's quality. If you crave quieter treks with even better views, check out our selected trails.

With suspension bridges and ramrod-straight roads laid out by ancient surveyors, the road functions as a kind of map of Inca ambitions, an eternal landmark imposed by a preliterate society that ...

On the morning of July 24, 1911, an enterprising lecturer-explorer from Yale University set off in a cold drizzle to investigate rumors of ancient Inca ruins in Peru. The explorer chopped his way ...

I hope that you will visit NMAI’s Inca Road exhibition online or in person, and that this ancient engineering marvel will spark your sense of wonder as much as it did mine.

But if Machu Picchu is the Holy Grail, hiking the Inca Trail is the true pilgrimage to get there. The ancient path is a challenging four-day trek. All trekkers must go with an organized group or ...