Ica

Ica is a nice enough place, but the city isn’t typically the main reason for staying in this part of Southern Peru. Ica serves as a base for trips to the surrounding dunes for buggy rides and sandboarding, most famously at the Huacachina oasis. The surrounding area is also part of the pisco route, with some of Peru’s finest pisco distilleries nestled in the region’s river valleys. Fans of history and archaeology -- as well as fans of questionable pseudoscience -- will find plenty of museums in Ica, some of which are home to the area’s infamous elongated skulls. But the main draw in the Ica region are the Nazca Lines, for which Ica also serves as a base (along with the city of Nazca, of course, which isn’t the most inspiring of places).