Brazil
Chapada Diamantina
Tabletop mountains, underground rivers, and a waterfall taller than the Eiffel Tower hidden in the sertão.
Mist lifts off tabletop mountains and a waterfall drops so far the water turns to vapour before it hits the ground. Chapada Diamantina in Bahia smells of wet rock and wild orchid, and every trail leads somewhere that makes you stop walking and simply stand there.
The Cachoeira da Fumaça drops three hundred and eighty metres — so high the water atomises into smoke, which gives the falls their name. Beneath the plateau, the Gruta do Lapão extends over five kilometres as the largest quartzite cave in South America. The Poço Encantado, an underground lake, receives a shaft of light between April and September that turns the water electric blue. The region's history is written in its abandoned diamond-rush villages — places like Igatu, built from unmortared stone, surviving intact in the valleys below. The base town of Lençóis, with its cobblestoned square and craft beer brewpubs, serves as both gateway and reward after days on the trail.
Solo
Multi-day treks across the plateau connect waterfalls, caves, and ghost villages with overnight stays in local homes. The trails demand self-reliance but never feel lonely — other hikers share the route and the evening meal.
Friends
The combination of abseiling into caves, swimming in underground rivers, and scrambling across tabletop summits turns every day into a shared story. Lençóis' Praça Horácio de Matos handles the debrief with cold beer and wood-fired pizza.
- The Cachoeira da Fumaça drops three hundred and eighty metres — so high the water atomises into mist before reaching the bottom.
- The Gruta do Lapão is the largest quartzite cave in South America — its mapped passages extend over five kilometres.
- The Poço Encantado receives a shaft of light that illuminates the underground lake only between April and September.
- Abandoned diamond-rush villages like Igatu, built from unmortared stone, survive intact in the valley below the plateau.
Godó de banana — green bananas stewed with sun-dried beef — the signature dish of Lençóis town.
Queijo de cabra and rapadura at highland farm stays in the Vale do Capão.
Cold craft beer and wood-fired pizza at Lençóis' cobblestoned Praça Horácio de Matos after a day's hike.
Pedra de Lume
Cape Verde
Float in a salt lake inside an extinct volcano, crater walls rising on every side.
Vale do Paúl
Cape Verde
Sugarcane terraces spill down a volcanic crater into the greenest valley in the archipelago.
Monastery of St. Anthony
Egypt
Earth's oldest inhabited monastery, wedged into a Red Sea mountain canyon since the fourth century.
Hoang Su Phi
Vietnam
Rice terraces so vertiginous they look like topographical maps carved directly into the sky.
Jericoacoara
Brazil
Windswept dunes where the sun melts into the sea from a natural stone arch.
São Luís
Brazil
Entire streets tiled in Portuguese azulejos, crumbling colonial facades baking in equatorial heat.
Novo Airão
Brazil
Wild pink river dolphins nudging your hands in the tea-dark water of the Rio Negro.
Bom Jesus da Lapa
Brazil
A cathedral built inside a limestone cave above the São Francisco where millions come to pray.