Puno is the gateway city to Lake Titicaca and its islands, the region’s foremost attraction. Among the inhabited islands, which include the famed Uros Floating Islands, Amantaní and Taquile, is Isla Suasi - the only private island in the entire island. With a sophisticated ecolodge, the tiny but intensely beautiful and remote island is a little-known gem, offering a unique perspective on the extraordinary lake and indigenous fauna, flora and culture.

Lake Titicaca is South America’s largest lake and the world’s highest navigable body of water, and it has long been considered a sacred place among the indigenous Andean peoples (the Quechua and Aymara cultures). The lake is massive, covering more than 8,500 km2 (3,282 sq. miles); it is 176km (109 miles) long and 50km (31 miles) wide.

Although much of life and tourism revolves around the lake culture of Titicaca, there is also a rural Puno alternative that includes such unique offerings as the Chulpas de Sillustani; the colorful colonial town of Lampa, with its stunning stone cathedral and replica of the La Pietá; the Tinajani “stone forest”; and the Capachica peninsula, with its incredible beaches along the banks of Titicaca. Because the distances in the altiplano are significant, though, and roads still a bit complicated, exploring the region beyond Puno and Titicaca requires time.

Puno is, along with the Himalayas, the only region in the world where high-mountain agriculture is capable of flourishing. It is here that early Peruvians cultivated potatoes, quinoa and now-ubiquitous camelids.