Discover the highest navigable lake in the world in an authentic way, spending your days with a local family on Taquile island. Most overnight stays at Titicaca go to Amantaní island, which allows you to enjoy the island calmly in the mornings and afternoons.
Taquile is unique for its weaving culture in which men take an important role, a tradition you will not find anywhere else in Peru. Your hosts will not only show you their home and their island, but will also share their ancestral culture with you and show you the art of their weaving craft.
You can read the day-to-day description further down.
Please note: You can extend this tour to a three-day version for only $50 p.p.! This includes homestay, activities and all meals. Select the desired programme upon booking. You can read more details about the extra day below.
If you’re not too sure about your Spanish, you can choose to bring an English-speaking guide with you. This is a rather expensive option due to their travel costs and we think it’s not necessary unless you really wish to have deep conversations with your hosts.
If your schedule in Peru is rather tight due to limited time here, we also have several day tours at Titicaca to offer you. Or you can choose our 3 day-tour that starts in Puno and ends directly in Cusco, if this is where you wish to continue your journey afterwards.
Feel free to check out our travel guide for Lake Titicaca and Puno as well if you want to get more practical information about this region.
This excursion starts around 07:15 am with a transfer from your hotel in Puno to the port. With a motorboat (with a covered part in case of rain or cold weather) you will go to the Uros floating islands. Standing and walking on these islands feels like a waterbed (but it is safe of course!). You will meet the residents, see their homes and learn about their lives. During the tour, you will visit two of the 60 islands before going to the island of Taquile. You can even do a ride on a traditional reed boat (for a small additional cost to be paid on the spot).
Note: these Uros islands are really touristy, and you can feel that. So please keep that in mind, keep smiling and remember that afterwards, you will go to a beautiful island where you will get to know the authentic culture in a non-touristy way with your own host family.
After a boat ride of about three hours, you will arrive at the port of Taquile island (don’t forget to put sunscreen on if you want to sit on the upper part!). Your host, Don Celso, will be waiting for you here. The guide of the boat will pay your entrance fee for Taquile island and then you will stay with Celso, a proud resident of Taquile. You will walk to his house for about 30-40 minutes (it is located quite high on the island).
Once arrived at his home you will enjoy a typical local lunch from the host family. In the afternoon you will go with a local guide (Spanish speaking) to the mountains to visit ruins, and to the temple of Pachamama where you can see the sunset. Keep in mind that the temperature will drop considerably! Do not leave home without a thick sweater and for example a windbreaker.
Dinner with your host family. You will spend the night in beautifully decorated rooms. If you are lucky and there is still space, we will make sure you sleep in a room with a private bathroom. However, if these rooms are fully booked, you will use the shared bathrooms on the patio.
When you wake up for breakfast and walk outside, and breathe the extremely fresh air, you will understand why the people here used to worship the sun so much. As soon as that celestial body rises above the horizon, you will only want one thing: warm yourself up with its warm rays. And everything will change: in a short time you can take off all your layers of the cold night as if it were spring!
Textile processing is extremely important on Taquile island and the whole culture is related to it. All men know how to knit with sticks and all women know how to weave with a (waist) loom. When a young Taquileña (Taquile woman) looks for a husband, the quality of his work is very important because if he knows how to weave his clothes well, he will know how to make beautiful skirts for her, too. And thanks to this she’ll gain status on the island. So, this is how you will start your day: men and women come to the house to knit and weave, and show you their most beautiful works. Feel free to ask questions about the meaning of all the drawings and colors.
After this short activity it’s time to go to the beach! Not for a swim of course, that’s too cold. The “playa pequeña” (small beach) is located near the house of Celso’s family, where you will have lunch and enjoy the beautiful view over the lake. Then, you will leaving this unique island again to go back to Puno, where you will arrive between 17:30/18:00 pm. We will drop you off at your hotel again.
If you can’t get enough of the unique Taquile culture, you could decide to stay an extra day. On this additional day, you will go fishing with Celso’s uncle (the fisherman) who will take you to the very far end of the island. On the way he will take you to a place at the beach to have a local lunch (picnic). This extra day has an additional cost of USD 50 per person, including meals.
When visiting Lake Titicaca, most agencies take you to Amantaní, because they get cheap prices there. On this tour, we choose the authenticity of Taquile, an island most tourists see only for a few hours around lunch time.
To lower CO2 emissions, we choose to take you there and back on shared tour boats. This is not comparable to going on a private boat, but apart from CO2 it saves quite a lot of money, as well.
Once on the island, your experience will be far away from the crowds. Here, you will get to spend some quality-time with your local host, who is also your guide. Other families will come join you as well, to explain and show you their textile work. As always, we work directly with the families, whom we have given workshops and assistance to improve their services.
Incomes generated from tourism have enabled them to build stone paths all over the islands. We hope to carry out further projects for the community in the future.
Finally, do consider the three-day version of this tour! You will enjoy Taquile as if it weren’t even a touristy place and leave a longer positive impact on the island and its inhabitants 🙂
This tour is physically not very demanding, as it is clearly not a hiking tour. However, please note that you will reach an altitude of 3.950 (12,950 ft) throughout the tour, which means that one might experience altitude sickness. To prevent that, make sure you stay hydrated and you shouldn´t have any problems (up to three litres per day; soup, water and (coca) tea are always good). We also highly recommend wearing a hat or cap, as the sun can be very strong at such altitudes. Should you not feel good despite your precautions, talk to your guide or host family and they will be happy to help out.
No, they don’t. So far, however, most of our travelers do not opt for an optional translator, since apart from the additional cost that might change the experience. Our host families are very used to having guests that don’t speak Spanish and their Spanish is easy to understand for those who speak other Latin languages.
Of course, learning Spanish beforehand is always a good idea! Use an app like Duolingo to learn the basics before leaving and enhance your experience whilst traveling.
No additional entrance fees will apply, it is all already included in the price.
On Lake Titicaca it gets very hot during the day and as soon as the sun sets, temperatures drop quite a lot. So be prepared for the sun (hat, suncream, drink lots of water), but also pack some warm clothes for the night.
On your way to Taquile island, you will travel together with other travelers (we are doing this to keep the prices down and reduce emissions). But as soon as you arrive on Taquile islands, you will be only with Celso and his familiy.
For questions about booking a tour, prices, preparation for your trip, health and safety or other themes, please check our Frequently Asked Questions page. If you can’t find your question & answer, email us and we’ll add it!
Don Celso and his wife and son are the chosen hostfamily on Taquile. Together with neighbours and family members organized in a tourism committee, they ensure authentic experiences and quality services to all their guests. For the past years they have only received wonderful comments and have been exemplar partners for us, participating in our workshops and improving their infrastructure and services continuously.
