Brazil

Brazil gives you two jungles for one flight. The Amazon around Manaus is the heavyweight — river lodges up the Rio Negro where the forest floods ten meters deep in the wet season and you canoe between the treetops. It asks more of you: boat transfers, generator hours, real distance from everything. That is the point.

The second jungle is the one most travelers miss. The Mata Atlântica — Atlantic rainforest — runs down the coast between Rio and São Paulo, and in places like Paraty, Ilhabela and Ubatuba it drops straight off granite mountains into green coves. You get dense forest, waterfalls and toucans, plus a caipirinha on a colonial square the same evening. Itacaré in Bahia does the same trick with better surf.

Stays here range from architect-built glass boxes in the canopy to simple stilted cabanas reached by boat. Portuguese helps but isn't required at the better-run places. The coastal jungle is a year-round destination; the Amazon is best June through November when the rivers are high enough to explore but the rain has eased.