Last Sunday saw the giant mass of sweaty, jiggling, sambaing humanity that is Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, a must-see bucket list entry for every traveler. For just a small taste of what it might be like to attend the parade at the Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí (capacity 90,000), check [...]

Everyone’s favorite ex-Monty Python member turned traveler turned three-year term as president of the Royal Geographical Society, Michael Palin, is back with a new travel series, Brazil With Michael Palin, which recently began airing on the BBC, and hopefully coming to a local station (or Netflix) soon. Palin, who long [...]

My trek the top of Mount Roraima was an accidental adventure. Serendipitous? Yes. Rewarding? No doubt about it. However, there were times when I would have given anything to be anywhere other than on that mongrel of a mountain in Venezuela. A table-top mountain or mesa — synonymous with this [...]

I had been enchanted with Sugar Loaf Mountain ever since I saw it in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker, in which Bond battles with Jaws on a cable car traveling up Rio de Janerio’s most famous landmark (along with the Christ the Redeemer statue that sits at its top). [...]

Is there nothing better than shipping off on a red-eye flight in the depth of a cold winter night and arrive, half-a-day later far on the other side of the Equator (assuming you’re coming from the north) in warm South America? Plants are budding, locals are excited about the onset [...]

Let’s face it, the U.S. economy is limping along at best, and the last thing it should be doing is making it difficult for people outside of the country to come and spend money here. Take Brazil for example, a nation which spent a whopping $5.9 billion in the U.S. [...]

Having just returned from Barcelona — a city that was immensely impacted by hosting the Olympics — I saw firsthand and heard in almost every story about the history of the city how hosting the Olympics helped transform the city by creating public beaches, cleaning up once dingy neighborhoods, and [...]

Brazil. The word alone conjures visions of dark-haired, curvy women, swaying to samba in the sultry heat of a mid-summer’s night, clinging to their equally gorgeous counterparts on the coarse sands of Copacabana beach. The country just sort of exudes this sexy, vibrant, beautiful vibe to the average pale-faced foreigner, [...]

You don’t have to be in Brazil this March 4th to have your very own Carnaval experience. The samba schools that compete for Carnaval honors in São Paulo hold open rehearsals in the months leading up to the big night. For travelers it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an up-close experience most people [...]

It’s probably safe to say that if you really want to get to know a city, stay away from where the scenic beaches and high-rise hotels are located. Far from the pulse of the city, these upscale, over-developed, tourist-friendly locales not only attract the crowds of tourists you’re likely trying [...]