Brandon WichmannPHOTOGRAPHY
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Peru · An illustrated field guide

Stone by stone,
the Inca Trail.

Terraces shaped around mountains. Passages disappearing into mist. A city revealed at the end of the walk.

Explore the places behind my July 2025 photographs, with a closer look at the architecture and landscape of each ruin.

Explore the ruins ↓
Wiñay Wayna’s stone buildings and terraces on a green mountainside

A route through a living landscape

The classic Inca Trail connects far more than a starting point and Machu Picchu. Its archaeological sites reveal cultivated slopes, settlements, water features and paths adapted to steep terrain. This guide follows the main sites along that route; it is not an inventory of every ruin in the wider sanctuary.

Read the sites in trail order below, or choose a photograph that catches your eye. For the personal story of the walk, visit my four-day Inca Trail hiking guide.

Explore each ruin

Reading the photographs

The site galleries combine my labeled photo sequences with visual comparisons of recognizable architecture. Close details remain described as stonework or passages when a particular building cannot be identified. The Conchamarca and Sun Gate sequences complete the photographic coverage of the eleven sites.

These are educational pages, not a navigation map. For the wider cultural and natural setting, see UNESCO’s Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu overview.