Peru: Building Travel Experiences Like a Documentary Film Crew

Watch the highlights. Our first Nicholas Gill X WhereNext signature itinerary, Classic Peru, Elevated Through Gastronomy, was shaped by our December 2025 scouting journey.

Twenty Years Later, Returning to Peru

In 2006, Peru was an unknown geographic region on the map of my two-year bicycle journey through the Americas, Ribbon of Road.

By the time I crossed into the country, I had already ridden thousands of miles from Alaska. But Peru was different. Somehow felt more ancient, more human.

My route had a theme.

It traced the spine of the Andes alongside the network of the Inca Road, 14,000 miles of routes that once connected an empire from Quito to Santiago. The passes I was climbing weren’t modern mountain highways. They were arteries. Messengers once ran these ridgelines, covering impossible distances in a single day. Cities, food stores, and military outposts were all built to support movement across the Andes.

As a cyclist moving slowly through it, I could feel that continuity.

My cycling companion, Harold, high above the tree line in the Cordillera Blanca, July 24, 2006, tracing the spine of the Andes along routes once connected to the Inca Road.

Peru was spectacular not just because it was mountainous, though my legs and lungs certainly felt the burn of that geography, but because the adventure was woven into a living cultural history.

I chose to get off the bike for a bit and explore the country more deeply.

I spent weeks trekking in the Andes, hiking through high-altitude villages where Quechua was spoken at the dinner table, and terraces shaped the hillsides.

Leaving the bike behind to trek the Huayhuash Circuit. In 2006, I spent three weeks on foot in the high Andes, trading wheels for worn boots and discovering Peru at walking pace.

In October 2006, the first time I had ever been to Cusco, I rolled into the Plaza de Armas after months of moving through Peru. I was exhausted. My bicycle was thrashed. But I was full of energy.

Somewhere in that stretch of months, I made a quiet promise to myself: I would return one day and build something meaningful in this region.

I didn’t know what that meant yet.

Receiving a ceremonial blessing upon my return to Cusco, teeing up good vibes for this new chapter in the same mountains and people that first shaped my journey nearly twenty years ago.

December 2025 WhereNext Travel Scouting Trip

Nearly twenty years later, I came back.

Not as a cyclist chasing the horizon, but as the founder of a travel company.

I arrived with Fiorella Freyre, our Country Manager. With a documentary film crew. With the culinary guidance of Nicholas Gill, whose understanding of Peru runs deeper than accolades or rankings.

Schedules moved constantly. The Sacred Valley’s weather doesn’t wait or ask permission from anyone. Lima’s traffic is a test of patience. Light shifts. Roads close. Kitchens adjust. Interviews slide. In the middle of it, Fiorella stood with a phone to her ear, recalibrating reservations, drivers, chefs, and artisans — the way a world-class travel designer does, and the way a film producer does — making sure the story holds together even as conditions change.

We weren’t just scouting itineraries.

We were producing experiences in Peru, the way a film crew produces a documentary, and the way I experienced the country as a young man exploring my curiosity on a bicycle two decades ago.

The First Itinerary Expression

Our first Nicholas Gill X WhereNext signature itinerary was shaped by this scouting trip: Classic Peru, Elevated Through Gastronomy.

It’s a synthesis of Nicholas’s culinary insight, Fiorella’s leadership, and a documentary approach to designing experiences.

Peru changed me as a young man.

Nearly two decades later, I returned to build something worthy of it.

For full program details and pricing, please contact Fiorella Freyre at:

fiorella@wherenext.com

Manuel Choque walking his family’s potato fields above the Sacred Valley.

My Surprise Highlight: Manuel Choque

In the Sacred Valley, we spent time with Manuel Choque, a farmer devoted to experimenting with Andean tubers, fermentation, and wine production rooted in altitude and soil.

We tasted together.

I closed my eyes while he spoke about mashua, oca, potatoes, about resilience, about believing what grows here deserves its own expression. Then we walked his farm with the Andes behind him and the Valley unfolding below. He talked about his dreams for the land.

And for a moment, I felt like I was back on my bicycle again.

Discovering.
Exploring.
Being pushed and inspired by someone I had just met along the road.

#FeelSomething