Visitor overload at Machu Picchu; go to the hundreds of free, open sites across the Sacred Valley instead
Anybody interested in seeing Macchu Picchu should be aware of a few things:
First, if you want to go to MP, you'll have a nice, somewhat busy time. Bear in mind that:
A lot of people want to see MP as the most famous Incan town and nobody regrets their visit, MP is in a beautiful valley and Peru is wonderful.
Visiting Macchu Picchu is going to require multiple in-advance reservations, multiple legs of travel, hundreds of USD equivalent for separate train tickets, shuttle buses, guides, entrance tickets, you will be surrounded by tourists and tour services and many areas of MP are restricted from access. The Macchu Picchu ruins are heavily reconstructed.
There are literally hundreds of other intact ancient Incan sites you can visit for free and walk around inside of unrestricted or for a few dollars. There are so many citadels, towns, qolqas, lakes and sacred sites in Peru to see with far fewer or no other tourists, no entry fees and unrestricted access. Many sites are within walking distance of Cusco(the Peruvian city you'll take your trains and buses to MP from).
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Do you have any recommendations for doing a stretch of the Inca trail?
The trail to Macchu Picchu? I didn't hike that one, sorry. There are thousands of other trails, though. Rumiwasi is worth it and connects to Cusco, The Lake Singrenacocha trail is unbelievable; silent, over 14000 feet, beautiful, herds of alpacas and viscachaos, any huacacauri(sacred point) peak) is going to be amazing., tree corridors, traditional carved steps.
I typed "ruins" into my offline map every other day and visited one site after another for nearly 3 months while living in Cusco.
I see, I didn’t realize the trail was only 30 miles, thought there would be options for hiking stretches other than Macchu Picchu!
There are tens of thousands of miles of Incan trails along Peru, but the one you're referring to is primarily a walk toward Macchu Picchu, with several ruins along the way.
The linked article cautions about overtourism at Macchu Picchu, so my post is focused on tourists visiting Macchu Picchu versus the many other relatively uniknown Incan sites, rather than the history of any single trail or the entire Incan road system you're referring to.