Thanks, United+Hertz partnership! They send me those emails even though I live here :P

Yes, Uber cars are top-notch around the ridesharing/cabs business. Over here, Uber is considered one of the most reliable and trustworthy options. There are other options around, but they send you a regular car. The experience has never been like Uber, and I still take Ubers to get around.

Traffic-wise... yeah. That's how we live every day. Unfortunately it's something several citizens don't enjoy. Me, personally, I try to drive around sticking to the rules, but I'd say 50% drivers may just get away with stuff.

If you get caught between two cars and think you'll never get out... believe me, you will. Just trust your driver :)

What do you guys think about Peruvian Shuttle? They have private transfers for $25 to Miraflores. It seems it may be safer for a 2am pick up from the airport than taxis, and not too expensive. They seem to have good reviews on TripAdvisor.

Uber is cheaper than Peruvian Shuttle, and definitely safe. There's free wifi on the airport. I'd recommend Uber, which I've used for my last couple trips and works great.

Thanks, I am not using Uber yet, and I would probably want to start in the US before I tried it internationally. I speak no Spanish at all and not feeling too adventurous...:p

My limited Spanish, combined with my lack of familiarity with Lima's streets and address formats, is precisely why I loved Uber so much. Your driver has the destination on his phone before you get in the car: no need to try to communicate it.

If you're going from the airport to a hotel, it's easy: just type the hotel name into Uber. If you're going to a home or business, just make sure your host gives you a proper address that online maps recognize.

Uber is significantly less adventurous than Peru's taxis!!

Exactly what happened to a friend of mine! He had very very limited Spanish. He requested an Uber using the airport's wifi, introduced the destination, took a screenshot of driver/car details (just in case) and stepped outside. They were waiting for him, and even though the driver didn't speak English, he was able to get to his destination safe.

Just FYI. Uber at LIM.

Apologies for article is in Spanish--issue revolves around Uber having the license to operate at LIM, just like any other Taxi Company. In the interim, you may have to rely on the other agencies mentioned in this thread.

Taxi mafia is big in Lima, and Callao is under strict control.

I did use Uber, from and to the airport.

On the way back from Miraflores they charge a fixed fare of 60 soles, whereas stopping just few meters before or basically anywhere in Lima would hardly cost 18 soles.

Callao area is not a place you want walk with or without your luggage and they know it.

Not discounting the local neighborhood "safety surcharge," but how much would the regular taxi fare be for that same trip to the airport?

More and more airports are now charging network transportation companies to pickup and dropoff just as they do with taxis and hotel shuttles so that may be more the source of the higher cost.

Going to try and use Uber on my way back this weekend. I'll report.

We were in Lima , Cusco and Urubamba in April. For pre determined trips to the airport, meeting at the airport etc we used Taxidatum to book on line and were met reliably. It wasn't expensive and was very reliable. http://taxidatum.com/

For more spontaneous trips we found the Easy Taxi app on our smartphone to be a godsend. It gave you location , registration number, driver's photo and price. All you had to have was a street address where you were,a desired destination, a smart phone and a signal. Worked perfectly in Cusco and Lima. Like Uber the driver had the location already if you have no spanish. We didn't need it in Urubamba. I plan to use it again next year in Ecuador.
Interestingly we were unable to download in Canada , as it said we had no Easy Taxi in that location. We added the app while in an airport in the US on another occassion and it worked fine.

Recently back from 2nd trip to Peru (cab report)
 

The airport scene is a mess. No matter what you choose, you're going to wonder if you chose correctly. Most of us come from areas where cabs are relatively regulated and airports, while busy and often hectic, don't exhibit the sort of random chaos you see outside LIM.

You look for some sort of "authorized" cab, or a cab line like you see at nearly every other airport & train station in the world, and instead you get a whole lot of people asking you if you need a cab. You push through looking for something you're not going to find... that semi-civilized taxi stand with the long line of people waiting for the next cab. It ain't there.

You've read up about "taxi verde" and mistakenly think they'll be easy to find. Cars that look like one another. Nope. Instead you get drivers coming up to you wearing ID placards around their necks that say they're official cab drivers, but their "cab" has no markings (at least none that you can see in the dark) and there's no meter. You look confused and tell the guy no, you're looking for a "real" cab. So he walks up to one of the police officers there and had a conversation with him, and the officer agrees with him and tells you that yes, this guy's "real."

So you go along with it, against your better-half's judgment (in this case, my daughter), and you know what happens next? Believe it or not, you end up where you were planning to go, at the price agreed upon.

It's all weird, maybe even a bit scary at night, but it really doesn't appear to be dangerous. It's not as warm & fuzzy feeling as taking a cab at home (wherever home happens to be), but if you want everything to be the same, then I wouldn't leave home in the first place.

OK, that's how my 2nd trip leaving LIM went. Which is pretty much an exact repeat of my first taxi ride out of LIM two years prior. I thought I knew a bit more about how things worked this time, but that proved incorrect. The only thing I was pretty sure of was that, like the first time, I was going to arrive at the hotel in one piece, without being taken advantage of too badly.

Now, how about the dangers of hailing a cab outside of the virtual walled section of Miraflores? Main area we hung out was Pueblo Libre along Av La Marina. No problem hailing a cab there, nor did it seem like you were taking your life in your hands. Reasonable fares (no attempt to take advantage of our extremely-limited Spanish), expected routing to destination.

I think one thing that will help tremendously to conquer any fears is to pick up a local sim card so you have access to things like Googlemaps while getting around. If you've got an unlocked phone, there's a new service called Flexiroam that offers very reasonably-priced roaming ($20 for the first gig) and installs literally on top of your original simcard. No swapping involved. Otherwise, you're looking at about $30 or so for a local simcard and a gig of data. Easier to use Flexiroam and be set up ahead of time.

Hope this helps a few people. If you're looking for a sole-less adventure (sorry, couldn't resist), then maybe you should head to Disneyland. But the risk/reward ratio for Peru is extremely favorable. ;)

I'm no tech expert at all but I find that the free app Maps.me on my phone, followed by downloading the maps for my destination, allows me to navigate with data turned off, providing I have a signal.
For Lima, when I had confirmed trips ( i.e. the airport and back), or even from Cusco to Urubamba and back, I found prebooking through taxidatum effortless, reliable and inexpensive. Even when our flight was late the driver was waiting with our name, right by the exit. Took away a lot of the stress that MJ is describing.

Well darn, I screwed up in that post. My point was that the stress isn't based on anything real, anything you're likely to actually experience. Taking a cab in Lima isn't likely risking your life.

Unless you read the internet, in which case you could believe that you are likely to be abducted by a taxi driver and taken to somewhere remote where you'll be robbed or worse. I agree that it isn't anything like as bad as sometimes conveyed. It was our first trip to SA and loved it so much we are off tho Ecuador in February. Still avoiding Colombia though, although that's because my wife has been worried by some of the stories she read.

We took a couple "regular" taxis in Lima, including our first memorable once from the airport to Miraflores at 6 am, and we were fine. Just before exiting the arrivals hall, we found that the Airport shuttle bus, which I had booked in advance, wasn't open yet. We ended up paying for and getting a Green Taxi. It was the WACKIEST ride ever--Lima traffic is absolutely nuts! All the cars were so close together, you could reach out a hand and touch the car next to you. Absolutely insane. But we got to our destinations just fine. We kind of look at it as part of the adventure.