Facilities for people with disabilities are improving in Peru, but are far from adequate. Most bathrooms are impossible to enter in a wheelchair. Hotel stairways are usually narrow and steep, and ramps are few and far between. Peru’s sidewalks are hard to navigate with a wheelchair because they are frequently narrow, potholed, and lack ramps. Cars usually do not respect pedestrians, so cross streets with extreme caution.

The exceptions to the above are airports and high-end hotels. Peruvian hotel chains such as Libertador (www.libertador.com.pe) and Casa Andina (www.casa-andina.com) stand out for providing accessible rooms in hotels in Trujillo, Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, the Colca Canyon, Arequipa, and Nasca.

PromPeru, the government tourism commission, has launched a major accessibility campaign and now claims that more than a hundred tourist facilities in Aguas Calientes, Cusco, Iquitos, Lima, and Trujillo have been approved for travelers with disabilities. PromPeru lists these wheelchair-accessible places on its web page (www.promperu.gob.pe). Other resources for disabled travelers include Access-Able Travel Source (www.access-able.com) and Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality (U.S. tel. 212/447-7284, www.sath.org).