Cariocas, as Rio’s residents are known, love street life. Like embellishments on a carnival costume, there are many separate facets to life on Rio’s streets that make the whole, indescribably fabulous and seductive. Whether its shimmying to samba at the world’s biggest and most famous carnival, biking along the sun-drenched beachfronts of Copacabana and Ipanema, hearing the distant strains of bossa nova as you wander up Selarón’s mosaic stairway in Lapa, or exploring the street art of Santa Teresa, Rio gets under your skin and stays there.

And like no other metropolis in the world – it has that killer combo of big city intrigue and natural beauty, surrounded as it is by rainforest covered mountains, Atlantic beaches, and the tropical lagoons that make up the geography of the Guanabara bay.