Archives: Destinations

“The Switzerland of South America”. Charming Uruguay fully lives up to its nickname. Socially progressive and politically stable, this tiny nation has long drawn sun-worshippers with its spectacular riviera. But Uruguay offers much more than sparkling sands and trendy nightlife.

Tucked away on Central America’s Caribbean coast, Belize is one of the last unspoiled places on Earth. Here’s a tiny nation that punches well above its weight. Composed of tropical rainforest in the interior and shimmering beaches along shore, Belize is a friendly, welcoming place, full of pre-Hispanic ruins, laid-back beach villages, and slender cays—coral islands—floating in sky-blue waters.

It starts with the dream-like, swirlingly colored expanses of the Bolivian Altiplano, and extends to the chaotic capital city of La Paz (flanked by not one, but four snow-capped mountain ranges). Along the way, Bolivia’s terrain spans everything from grassy plains to steamy jungles and colonial cities frozen in time—as well as some of the most remote and inhospitable terrain on earth.

Ecuador means “Equator,” and in this Andean wonderland, you can snap selfies as you straddle the Big Line itself, with one foot in each hemisphere. Ecuador has had a reputation for enchantment since pre-Colombian times, when it was home to the second capital of the Inca empire. Today, this compact nation offers an array of adventures that’s staggeringly broad.

Costa Rica packs tremendous eco-diversity into a very small space. When you go, the naturalist in you will thrill to see lush jungle and sandy coast just a short bus ride from each other. Jaguars, poison dart frogs, and scarlet macaws skitter through the brush, and each step takes you deeper into a biosphere estimated to hold some 6 percent of the world’s plant and animal species.

When Charles Darwin first came to the Galápagos in 1835, he discovered animal species so untouched by humans, they came right up to him, fearlessly. Today Darwin is long gone, but the Galápagos’ astonishment persists, as the iguanas, tortoises, flightless cormorants, and Sally Lightfoot crabs that inhabit this enchanted biosphere blithely strut past their appreciative human visitors.