July-August 2006 issue

You can join boatloads of tourists on the Tambopata River. Or you can take an eight-hour boat ride deeper into the jungle to a unique ecolodge, where you’ll be dazzled by a chorus of howler monkeys and waves of brilliant red-and-green macaws.

Alaska’s McNeil River is one of the few places on earth where you can sit within whispering distance of wild brown bears and watch them nurse cubs, nap, and do everything else that comes naturally.