Where you visit Peru’s Amazon largely depends on how much money and time you have. If you only have 3–5 days, and a few hundred dollars, look into lodges around Puerto Maldonado or Iquitos. If you have a week or more, and a bigger budget, go to Manu Biosphere Reserve, the crown jewel of the Amazon. The best time to visit Peru’s jungle is during the dry months May–October, though Iquitos can be visited year-round.

To figure out where to go, it helps to understand Peru’s different jungle zones. The jet stream in the southern hemisphere moves west, not east as in the northern hemisphere, so Amazon humidity cools and condenses as it is forced over the eastern edge of Peru’s Andes. This creates the preferred cloud forest habitat of the Andean cock of the rock, a crimson, chicken-shaped bird, as well as a huge range of colorful orchids, bromeliads, epiphytes, and hummingbirds. Peru’s most accessible cloud forests are around Tarapoto and the drive into Manu Biosphere Reserve.

Lower down into the jungle, clear mountain streams give way to broader, progressively muddier rivers that weave through the increasingly flat landscape and leave stranded oxbow lakes behind. This type of lowland rainforest occurs in Manu and Puerto Maldonado but reaches its greatest expression all the way downriver near Iquitos—here, the Amazon is a mile wide and the forest is perfectly flat.

The Manu Biosphere Reserve is one of the most pristine swaths of Peruvian Amazon and is the best place in Peru to see a wide range of birds, monkeys, and mammals. The best time to visit here is during the dry season May–October, though only sporadic rains occur in November and December. During the coldest and sunniest months of May and June, as many as 30 percent of Manu visitors see jaguars sunning on river logs (as opposed to 10 percent during the rest of the year). There are only eight licensed tour operators in Manu, which charge between US$600 and US$2,000 for five- to nine-day tours ranging from beach camping to comfortable lodges.

The advantages of the Río Tambopata and Río Madre de Dios lodges near Puerto Maldonado are cost and access: Travelers arrive at lodges within a few hours of flying from Cusco, and a two-night stay costs anywhere from US$60 to US$200. This area, on the edge of the Reserva Nacional Tambopata, has a good variety of monkeys, birds, caiman, and small mammals, especially at the Tambopata Research Center, a 7- to 10-hour boat ride from Puerto Maldonado. Like Manu, the best time to visit here is May–October.

The city of Iquitos, in Peru’s northern Amazon, forged Peru’s tourism industry back in the late 1970s but has grown so large that tourists have to go a long way these days to find interesting jungle—at least four hours by boat, or 80 km (50 miles). If you don’t mind traveling a bit longer, some of Peru’s best lodges are upriver and near the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria, Peru’s largest protected piece of Amazon.

Unlike Manu or Puerto Maldonado, Iquitos is just as fun to visit during the rainy season. Even in April, the wettest month, rains come mostly in the afternoon and then clear up immediately. Although the weather is relatively constant, the level of the river is anything but. When rain falls in the Andes between November and May, much of the jungle surrounding Iquitos is flooded. Animals can most often be spotted on the mud banks after the river drops, between June and September. The cost of Iquitos lodges ranges US$15–150 per night, depending on the distance from Iquitos.

There are other access points to Peruvian jungle, including Chanchamayo, in Peru’s central jungle, and Tarapoto, which is upriver from Iquitos. There are few operators in these areas, however, so travelers need to choose carefully, and an ability to speak Spanish is a definite advantage. Other areas, such as Pucallpa or Apurimac, are not covered here because they are near centers of cocaine production and have limited tourist infrastructure.