Brazil

Brazil is too big to "do" — the trick is choosing. Rio delivers the postcard: beaches, mountains, and the best urban setting on earth. The Amazon and the Pantanal are where you go for wildlife. The northeast has the beaches and the music. Distances are vast and you will fly between regions, but few places repay the effort like this.

Start in Rio and give it four or five days: Ipanema mornings, the cable car up Sugarloaf at sunset, samba in Lapa after midnight. Then fly — to the Pantanal for jaguars and caiman, to Salvador for Afro-Brazilian food and music, or up the northeast coast toward Jericoacoara. Beach kiosks, caipirinhas, and churrascarias keep daily costs reasonable; the internal flights are where the money goes. One region per week is the right pace.

Safety is the honest caveat: phone snatching and petty theft are routine in Rio and São Paulo, and you'll adjust how you carry things. Almost nobody speaks English, distances are continental, and the Amazon is a long, expensive detour that often shows less wildlife than the Pantanal does. This is not a place to wing it casually. Come anyway — the music, the beaches, and the sheer warmth of the people are worth the vigilance it asks of you.