Iquitos has around 400,000 people and no road connecting it to anywhere. You arrive by air or by riverboat, and that is the whole geography: the city sits where the Nanay and Itaya meet the Amazon, surrounded by several hundred thousand square kilometres of forest in every direction. It is generally described as the largest city in the world that cannot be reached overland, and the practical consequence is that everything is expensive, everything arrives by boat or plane, and the only way out of town is water.
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It was built on rubber. Between roughly 1880 and 1912 the rubber barons made fortunes here and spent them conspicuously, importing Portuguese azulejo tiles and an iron house designed in Gustave Eiffel's workshop, which still stands on the Plaza de Armas. That boom rested on the enslavement and killing of indigenous people on a scale that was documented at the time and is not much memorialised now, and it collapsed when seeds smuggled to British Malaya undercut the Amazon price. The city has been finding other work ever since.
What Makes Iquitos Different to Pack For
Hot, wet and humid without variation
Temperatures run 24°C to 33°C year round with humidity above 80 percent. There is no cool season and no dry season, only a wetter one. Around 2,700mm of rain a year.
The river rises and falls six metres
High water runs roughly December to May and low water June to November, and the difference changes what you can do entirely. High water means boats reach deep into flooded forest and canoeing among treetops; low water means walking trails and beaches appear. Neither is better, but they are different trips, and lodges describe their activities according to season.
Yellow fever, and it is a real requirement
Yellow fever vaccination is recommended for the Peruvian Amazon and is required for onward entry to some countries; the certificate is checked at some borders and by some lodges. Get it at least ten days before travel. Malaria risk exists in Loreto, so a travel clinic conversation is needed.
Everything will be damp
Nothing dries. A merino wool base layer for women is here for the aggressively air conditioned flight and hotel rooms, which are genuinely cold, and because it is the layer that survives a humid week without smelling.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
The Iquitos Packing List
Footwear
Rubber boots are the correct footwear for jungle walking here and essentially every lodge lends them, so check your size in advance rather than buying. The ground is mud and standing water.
Waterproof hiking shoes for the drier trails in low water season and for the city, which is potholed and floods in a downpour. Sandals for the boat and the lodge. Flip flops for nothing much, because the mosquitoes find feet.
Clothing
Light, loose, quick drying, long sleeved and long legged. Long clothing in light fabric is more comfortable than shorts here, because it handles sun, mosquitoes and the sandflies at once. Neutral colours for wildlife. Two sets minimum, because one will be wet.
A packable rain jacket or a poncho, used daily. A dry bag is essential rather than optional: boats are open and the rain is sudden.
A warm layer for the flight and the air conditioning. Swimwear if you intend to swim in a lodge's blackwater lagoon, which some offer and which is generally safe where they say so.
For sun
A wide brim sun hat, sunscreen and sunglasses. The river is wide open water with hard reflection and the boats have partial cover at best; a long transfer upriver is several hours of direct sun even through cloud.
Practical
Insect repellent with a high DEET or picaridin concentration, more than you expect to need, plus permethrin for clothing if you can get it. Cash in soles, because lodges are often prepaid but the city and the markets are cash. A head torch, for night walks and power cuts. Binoculars, which transform the wildlife. A refillable bottle and water treatment. Rehydration salts. A basic first aid kit with antihistamine and antiseptic, because bites get infected in this humidity. Your yellow fever certificate. And a waterproof phone pouch.
What to Wear at Key Places
The jungle lodges
Most visitors book a lodge two to four hours upriver or on a tributary, with guided walks, canoe trips, night excursions and community visits.
Practically: choose on the guide quality and the distance from the city rather than the thread count, because wildlife density increases sharply the further you get from Iquitos. Lodges within an hour see very little. Rubber boots, long clothing, repellent, dry bag, torch. Expect basic power, mosquito nets and early starts. Confirm what the lodge does about animal encounters before booking, for the reason set out below.
Pacaya Samiria National Reserve
Two million hectares of seasonally flooded forest several hours upriver, reached on multi-day boat trips, with pink and grey river dolphins, caimans, manatees and a very large number of birds.
Practically: this is the serious version of an Amazon trip and needs four days minimum to be worth the transfer. Licensed operators only, because the reserve requires permits. Full jungle kit, and accept that you will be on a boat for many hours.
Belen market and the floating district
A vast market at the southern edge of the city selling everything the forest produces, with the Belen neighbourhood below it built on rafts and stilts that float when the river rises.
Practically: go in the morning with a guide, keep your bag closed and in front of you, and take very little. The market is crowded, wet underfoot and genuinely overwhelming; it is also the most interesting hour in Iquitos. Closed shoes. The pasaje Paquito sells medicinal plant preparations. Do not buy wildlife products, and be aware that live animals, turtle eggs and bushmeat from protected species are openly sold here; buying any of it funds the trade.
The city and the rubber boom architecture
The Plaza de Armas, the Casa de Fierro, the tiled Casa Cohen and the Malecon Tarapaca above the river, with the Museo Amazonico in a former government building.
Practically: walkable in a couple of hours, hot and shadeless by midday. The malecon is where the city sits out in the evening. Motokars, the three wheeled taxis, are the transport and are cheap; agree the fare first.
On animals used as props, plainly
You will be approached on the malecon, at Belen and at some lodges by people holding sloths, anacondas, baby caimans, monkeys or macaws, offering a photograph for a few soles.
Practically: decline, every time. These animals are taken from the wild, often by killing the mother, they are handled constantly, they are frequently dead within months, and the trade exists only because tourists pay for it. The same caution applies to some facilities marketing themselves as rescue or rehabilitation centres: a genuine one does not let visitors hold the animals. If you want to see sloths and monkeys, a licensed guide will find them wild, which is better in every respect.
Ayahuasca, and a word of caution
Iquitos is the centre of a large ayahuasca tourism industry.
Practically: this is outside the scope of a packing list, but two facts belong in it. There have been deaths and serious harm at unregulated retreats, including where participants were on incompatible medication such as SSRIs, and there have been documented assaults on women at retreats by facilitators. If you are considering it, research the specific centre exhaustively, never go alone without telling someone, and disclose all medication to a doctor beforehand rather than to the retreat.
What Not to Bring
Leave cotton, which will not dry. Leave shorts as your main legwear. Leave dark blue and black clothing, which attracts biting flies.
Leave a hard suitcase, since boats and stilt walkways do not accommodate it. Leave valuables, because Belen is a pickpocket environment. Leave money for animal photographs. And leave the expectation that a lodge an hour from the city will show you much wildlife.
Essential Resources for Women in Iquitos
Emergency numbers in Peru: 105 for police, 116 for fire, 106 for SAMU ambulance. English is not available. At a jungle lodge, your guide and the lodge radio are the emergency service; there is no other one, and a serious problem means a boat journey of several hours.
Tourist police: Peru operates a Policia de Turismo and Iquitos has a detachment, used to handling theft reports for insurance. iPeru has an office in the city and is the service to use for a complaint against a lodge or tour operator, which in Iquitos is a more frequent problem than crime.
US Embassy: the US Embassy in Lima at pe.usembassy.gov covers Peru. There is no consular presence in Iquitos and no road to Lima, so a lost passport means a flight. Enrol in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program at step.state.gov before you travel.
Main hospital or clinic: the Hospital Regional de Loreto and the Hospital III EsSalud are the main facilities, with Clinica Ana Stahl the private option most used by visitors and the best equipped in the city. Standards are limited for anything complex and serious cases are flown to Lima, which is around two hours by air and the only route out. Carry insurance that covers medical evacuation by air, because from a lodge upriver that is boat plus flight.
Official health authority: Peru's Ministerio de Salud at gob.pe/minsa. This is the destination in this library with the most substantial vaccination and prophylaxis requirements: yellow fever vaccination is recommended for the Peruvian Amazon and the certificate may be requested, malaria risk exists in Loreto, and dengue is endemic with regular outbreaks. Typhoid, hepatitis A and rabies are all worth discussing. See a travel clinic at least six weeks before you go. Tap water is not drinkable.
US State Department travel advisory for Peru: current advisory level and detail, which names specific regions of concern including the Colombian border area of Loreto, well north of Iquitos and the tourist lodges. Read it directly rather than relying on this page.
UK FCDO travel advice for Peru: entry requirements, safety and health guidance, including the Amazon health requirements, the specific warnings about ayahuasca retreats and assaults at them, and the guidance on river travel and unlicensed operators.
Official tourism authority: PromPeru at peru.travel, with SERNANP at gob.pe/sernanp for Pacaya Samiria permits and the reserve rules, and the Loreto regional tourism office for licensed operator verification.
Solo women safety assessment: Iquitos requires more care than anywhere else in Peru covered in this library, and the reasons are specific rather than general. The city itself is a working Amazon port with real poverty and a high rate of opportunistic crime: bag snatching, phone theft and pickpocketing are common, concentrated around Belen market, the Plaza 28 de Julio, the port areas and the malecon after dark. Carry almost nothing, keep a zipped bag in front of you, and use the hotel safe. Motokars are the transport and are generally fine, but agree the fare first and use one from a rank or called by your hotel rather than flagging one late at night. Do not walk in Belen or around the ports after dark, and do not walk the malecon alone late. By day, with a guide, Belen is fine and worth seeing. Street harassment is more persistent here than in Arequipa or Cusco, mostly verbal from men on the street and from touts on the malecon; a firm no without engagement and continuing to walk is the method. The two risks that are distinctive to Iquitos deserve naming directly. The first is unlicensed tour and lodge operators, who sell aggressively on the street and at the airport: book through a verifiable operator with a physical office and reviews, never from someone who approaches you, and never hand over your passport. The second is the ayahuasca retreat industry, where there is a documented pattern of sexual assault on women by facilitators, as well as deaths from unscreened medical interactions. If that is part of your trip, research the specific centre exhaustively, tell someone at home exactly where you are, and do not go on a recommendation from a stranger in town. At the lodges themselves the environment is entirely different and generally very safe: they are small, staffed, family run in many cases, and used to solo women. The physical risks are the jungle ones and they are manageable with a guide: mosquito borne disease, which is the real one and the reason for the vaccination and repellent; infected insect bites in the humidity; sun on open water; caimans and electric eels, which mean swimming only where the lodge says so; and river travel in overloaded or unlit boats, so decline a boat that looks wrong and insist on a life jacket.
Reading On
Iquitos is two hours from Lima by air and unreachable by road, and it is the easiest way into the Peruvian Amazon. The Peru travel guide for women is the parent for the country and the Peru packing list for women covers a trip across it. West, the Lima packing list for women covers the capital you will transit. In the highlands, the Cusco packing list for women and the Machu Picchu packing list for women cover the Inca heartland, the Arequipa packing list for women the white city and the Colca Canyon, and the Huaraz packing list for women the Cordillera Blanca, which is the same country at 4,600 metres instead of 100. The travel packing guide for women is the parent for all destinations. For why wool survives a week where nothing dries, the best merino wool base layers for women explains the fibre, and the Roman Trail collection is where the tops themselves live.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
