HUACACHINA 6-STAR EXPERIENCE WITH VSA Did a day tour to Huacachina with Visit South America... read more (VSA) at the end of April. Overall a 6-STAR experience with VSA! Picked up on time from our hotel in Lima and dropped off at the bus station. Ready to board the bus and realized we left our passports at the hotel – wouldn’t let us board without them! Panicked – we called Hilton (VSA founder) and he immediately answered and was able to help re-book the next bus (an hour later), while we went and retrieved our passports! The only downside to this day-trip is the bus ride is long (~8 hours round-trip), but the bus is comfortable, clean and air-conditioned. Once we got to ICA – we were picked up by a friendly VSA driver who brought us to a local restaurant, followed by a pisco tasting (tour) prior to going to Huacachina lagoon and desert adventure (dune buggy and sandboarding). Huacachina does not disappoint (as cool as seen in pictures). We’ve done dune buggies before in the middle east and this was way more fun! Drivers are experienced and know the sandy terrain well. Sandboarding was a cool experience and here’s where VSA solidified their 6-star experience. My iPhone flew out of my pocket while coming down the hill sandboarding. It was sunset – so nowhere to be seen (buried somewhere in the sand). The guide and other travelers tried to find / call it for a... Did a day tour to Huacachina with Visit South America (VSA) at the end of April.

Overall a 6-STAR experience with VSA!

Picked up on time from our hotel in Lima and dropped off at the bus station. Ready to board the bus and realized we left our passports at the hotel – wouldn’t let us board without them! Panicked – we called Hilton (VSA founder) and he immediately answered and was able to help re-book the next bus (an hour later), while we went and retrieved our passports! The only downside to this day-trip is the bus ride is long (~8 hours round-trip), but the bus is comfortable, clean and air-conditioned. Once we got to ICA – we were picked up by a friendly VSA driver who brought us to a local restaurant, followed by a pisco tasting (tour) prior to going to Huacachina lagoon and desert adventure (dune buggy and sandboarding).

Huacachina does not disappoint (as cool as seen in pictures). We’ve done dune buggies before in the middle east and this was way more fun! Drivers are experienced and know the sandy terrain well. Sandboarding was a cool experience and here’s where VSA solidified their 6-star experience. My iPhone flew out of my pocket while coming down the hill sandboarding. It was sunset – so nowhere to be seen (buried somewhere in the sand). The guide and other travelers tried to find / call it for a good 20 mins – with no luck. This was our 2nd day in Peru so a bummer to start the trip! Devastated, when I got back to our hotel in Lima I was about to clear the phone remotely, but decided it was worth a try to send a text to it asking to call Hilton’s number if the phone was found. Next morning we called Hilton and sure enough – someone had found the phone and turned it into the tour office! At this point we were already on our way to Cusco, so not only did Hilton track down my phone (by making numerous calls), he had it hand-delivered back to me in Lima 2 weeks later, when we had a connecting flight back to the US!

Everything about the Huacachina day-trip was as advertised (highly recommended), but how VSA dealt with our “hiccups” of the day – was on such an elite level of service, that frankly we’ve never experienced before.

A big thank you to Hilton and the VSA Team for an amazing time and taking care of us! More read less