Inca Trail history is very fascinating. Originally, this avenue from ancient times was a royal highway for the Inca. Its importance in terms of how it fit into the scheme of things is evidenced by the ruins that are found along its stretch. More ruins lie at the end of the trail, and they are the ruins of the famous lost city of Machu Picchu.
The Inca Trail is a collective term for three trails that overlap one another. During the reign of the Inca, it helped form a larger network of roads that traversed the far-reaching empire. For the Inca, this was not an average road, however. It was used for royal, political and sacred purposes. Some scholars even theorize that the Inca Trail was the Inca Empire’s crowning jewel.
Today, the Inca Trail is part of the larger Machu Picchu Historical Sanctuary. UNESCO has pretty much designated the entire area as a World Heritage site, and it figures among the top tourist attractions in all of South America. Inca Trail tours have been offered for quite some time now, and they allow Peru visitors to hike along the famed route. The tours delightfully culminate in a Machu Picchu visit. There may be no better way to get in touch with Inca history in general, and the memories of such a hike are bound to last a lifetime.