Mexico
Mexcaltitán
Shrimp boats and narrow lanes circle a tiny inhabited island in Nayarit wetlands.
The island is a tidy oval of streets in a wetland of herons and shrimp boats. It is compact enough to circle before lunch, and watery enough that the lanes themselves flood in the heaviest rains.
Mexcaltitán is a small lived-in island in Nayarit's wetlands where shrimp fishing is the main livelihood and the kitchen proves it, from shrimp meatballs to shrimp tamales. Heavy summer rain can flood the streets, though canal-paddling imagery is occasional reality rather than daily spectacle. The island's association with Aztlán, the Mexica origin place, remains tradition rather than established fact.
Solo
Circle the island lanes on foot and eat shrimp in every form the kitchen knows.
Couple
Take the boat across, share the museum and the waterside shrimp table.
- Mexcaltitán is a compact inhabited island of lanes, boats and shrimp-based cooking in Nayarit's wetlands.
- Heavy rain can flood streets, though canoe imagery is occasional reality rather than daily spectacle.
- Aztlán associations are a debated tradition rather than an established archaeological fact.
Shrimp is the island's whole economy and menu: albóndigas de camarón, shrimp tamales and tlaxtihuilli broth.
Dried shrimp travel in barcinas, bundles woven of manta cloth and palm leaves.
Manuel Antonio
Costa Rica
Capuchins patrol the sand beneath dozing sloths where rainforest walks into the ocean.
Tortuguero
Costa Rica
Jungle canals where green sea turtles haul onto black volcanic sand under a moonless sky.
Kadavu
Fiji
Manta rays circle the world's fourth-largest barrier reef, off villages the road barely reaches.
Monuriki
Fiji
The island from Cast Away truly belongs to crested iguanas brought back from the brink.
Calakmul
Mexico
A Maya capital's towers still stand above an unbroken sea of forest.
San Cristóbal de las Casas
Mexico
Highland mist, amber workshops and arcaded streets meet in a walkable Chiapas city.
Copper Canyon
Mexico
The Chepe rides through canyon country that runs deeper than the Grand Canyon.
Chichén Itzá
Mexico
Each equinox a serpent of shadow slides down the pyramid to its stone head.