In 1998 I received a magazine from a tourism promotion company that was helping Embratur to promote Brazil. Unlike promotional material I'd received from other countries, it didn't tout the cities or the hotels. Instead, it was promoting the natural wonders of each state and their efforts to promote ecotourism. Many of these places I'd never heard of, since most brochures in travel agencies only featured Rio, Manaus and Iguassu Falls, even though Brazil is roughly the size of the lower 48 states in the U.S.

I often tell people that when you visit the Amazon, a good guide can be the difference between a "black and white experience" and a "full color experience". There are lots of guides who can spot animals, but they might not be able to explain the relationships and other details that a good one can go into depth about.

Today I read an article in which the author was talking about how she uses AI to help to make all of her travel decisions. I can see where that could be possible as far as commodities, such as flights, hotels and day tours. AI can help to choose the cheapest flights or ones with the best schedule. It can help to choose the best hotels for you, based on location, star ratings, etc. These are all facts that are fed into data streams.

​But can it help to choose which Amazon jungle lodge will give you the best experience?

We have been busily updating our website for 2024, and in doing so have added quite a few new tour options in Peru and Colombia that we think are pretty exciting.

I attended the Adventure Travel Trade Association's event in Arequipa, Peru in early December.  While one of the focuses was to promote travel to less visited and less well-known destinations, another focus was on how to use tourism to empower the local indigenous communities in positive ways, if they desire it.

Are you planning a trip to the Amazon and want to learn about the plants and animals that you might see? Or do you want to learn about the history of exploration in the Amazon - from the adventures of the explorers to the knowledge that they gained?

In the over 20 years that I have been involved in travel to the Amazon, here are some of the books that I have found to be fascinating reading sources.

Matteo Preabianca recently interviewed our agent Jorge Rodriguez for an article published on June 19 in the Italian publication Agoravox.  In the article, Jorge ​talks about his latest article "Environmental protection in the Amazonian communities of western Peru".

If your browser can't translate the article, it says:

You may be pondering where to go on your next vacation, since it's getting close to summertime in the northern hemisphere. Let's take a look at what your interests are and see what places you might consider.

​Leadership in destinations within the Amazon Basin has its rewards. With over 50 programs throughout Brasil, many of them in the Amazon Rainforest and surrounding regions such as the Pantanal, we cover most remote areas in South America’s largest country. Amazon Adventures has been bringing guests to Brazil’s most distant and isolated corners for over 25 years. We pride ourselves of being recommended by some of the most important travel media outlets as International Travel News, National Geographic Adventures, Brandt Guides, Fodors, USA Today and Frommers, among others. 

For many years, if travelers wanted to do an Amazon tour in Colombia, they needed to fly to Leticia, at the Tres Fronteras border with Peru and Brazil. From there, they could either do a lodge-based stay in the area, catch a cruise boat or a speedboat to Iquitos, Peru, or catch a cargo or transport boat towards Manaus, Brazil.

But when the vast majority of the FARC guerillas quit fighting in 2017,  other areas of the country became safe to travel to and it opened up fascinating areas in the Amazon made famous by the famous ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, during his explorations in the early 1940's, as are mentioned at