From hiking the Inca Trail to the iconic Machu Picchu site, to taking a reed boat across Lake Titicaca and indulging in food and culture in Lima, Peru offers visitors a rich tapestry of incredible experiences. I spent two weeks there in 2018 and while I blogged about the places I visited, my long-overdue Peru travel guide is finally here!

It's that time again: time for my annual round-up of my coffee, food and cocktail favourites of the year. I've used the same categories as last year — coffee, brunch, street food, restaurant and cocktail. And as usual, I've included new-to-me picks from both London and my travels around the world. This year, I visited seven different countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Peru, Poland and the United States) and enjoyed some fantastic meals and cups of coffee.

It goes without saying that if you want to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, you need to book your trip a long time in advance. But there was another activity on my Peru to-do list that required a long lead time: dining at Central in Lima. 

When planning my two-week Peru trip, I soon realised I wouldn't manage to squeeze a visit to a coffee farm into my packed itinerary, as I did in Costa Rica. But I did my best to visit as many coffee shops as I could, including in Cusco, Arequipa and especially Lima. I spent two full days at the start of my trip and an afternoon at the end in Lima; I could have cut a day and reallocated it to another city but I wanted to have time to visit a few of the specialty coffee shops I'd researched.

As with many large cities in Latin America, Lima isn't the main reason most people come to Peru. But if you're flying into the Peruvian capital, it's well worth spending at least a couple of days in the city. There's plenty to see and do and it's a foodie's paradise, from world-beating tasting menus to fresh and flavoursome ceviche at low-key counters in the mercado central.