Costa Rica or Peru: which suits a first long-haul holiday?

If this is your first long-haul trip and you want it to be easy on you, Costa Rica. If you want the one you will still be describing in ten years, Peru.

These are the two most-asked-about countries in our Latin American range, and travellers choosing between them are usually weighing the same handful of things: how demanding it will be, whether altitude is a problem, and whether they want wildlife or ruins.

In short

• Costa Rica — 18 days, no internal flights, essentially low-altitude, wildlife on almost every day
• Peru — 16 days, one internal flight, and the altitude question is real and worth taking seriously
• Costa Rica moves at a gentler pace; Peru covers more ground and more history
• Both are land-only, so you choose your own flights, and both run on guaranteed departures
• Costa Rica takes a maximum of 12 travellers, Peru a maximum of 15

This is the single biggest practical difference, and it is worth settling before anything else.

Costa Rica is low. The highest points on our route are the Irazú volcano and the cloud forest at Monteverde, both well below the level at which altitude troubles anyone. The rest — Corcovado, Montezuma, Cahuita, Puerto Viejo — is rainforest and coast.

Peru is not. Cusco sits at around 3,400 metres and the itinerary spends several days at that height. Our route is built to soften it: it begins at sea level in Lima, flies up to Cusco on day three, and paces those first Cuzco days deliberately. The Sacred Valley is lower than Cusco, and Machu Picchu itself lower again.

Altitude is not a fitness question. Fit and unfit travellers are affected alike, and it is largely unpredictable in advance. If you have been medically advised to avoid it, that settles the choice. If it is a worry rather than an instruction, read where to go in Latin America if altitude is a problem before you rule Peru out.

Costa Rica is a wildlife trip with culture attached. You go looking for the resplendent quetzal in the cloud forest at San Gerardo de Dota with a guide who knows where it feeds. In Corcovado you have a realistic chance of howler monkeys, toucans, scarlet macaws, sloths and crocodiles, and an outside chance of a tapir. Monteverde puts you level with the canopy. Cahuita adds mangrove and reef. Between them sit two coastlines, a volcano and a few days of mountain village life at Zapotal.

Peru is a history trip with landscape attached. Lima, then Cusco and the Sacred Valley, Moray and the salt pans at Maras, and Machu Picchu. After that the trip keeps going, which surprises people: the train across the altiplano to Lake Titicaca, the reed islands of the Uros, condors at the Colca Canyon, Arequipa's colonial streets, the Nazca Lines from a light aircraft, and the wildlife of the Ballestas Islands and Paracas.

If you want both, that is not an unreasonable ambition — see where to go after Peru.

Costa Rica, 18 days. Longer, and gentler for it. The distances between places are short, the walking is rainforest trails and beach rather than climbing, and there are no internal flights at all — you travel overland throughout. It is the easier of the two on your body.

Peru, 16 days. More is packed in, and the days are fuller. The walking is moderate — cobbled streets, archaeological sites, viewpoints — and there is no trekking: Machu Picchu is reached by train and bus. See Peru without trekking if that is the specific worry.

The honest summary is that Costa Rica asks less of you and Peru gives more back. Neither involves camping, neither asks you to carry luggage, and both are fully guided throughout.

Choose Costa Rica if this is your first long-haul trip, if altitude worries you, if wildlife is the reason you are going, or if you want two weeks and a bit that are restful as well as interesting.

Choose Peru if Machu Picchu is the thing you actually want, if you would rather see several very different landscapes in one trip, or if you have travelled long-haul before and want something with more in it.

A note on when. Costa Rica and Peru have different best seasons, so the calendar sometimes decides this for people — our guide to Latin America month by month sets out when each country is at its best.

Both trips are land-only, both go ahead on guaranteed departures, and both include our vSocial contribution of £25 per traveller to local projects. If you are also weighing Mexico, Costa Rica or Mexico covers that pair.