“There’s hope in the wilderness.” Many a time during our travels through South America, we have found ourselves coming back to these words from Paul Theroux.

Whether snorkelling with a family of curious sealions off the Galapagos Islands, the world’s foremost wildlife destination, or trekking through the highlands of Brazil’s interior, among plants that could hold the cure to countless diseases – immersing yourself in the planet’s few remaining wilderness areas never fails to fill your soul with a sense of optimism.

Mountain biking past Inca ruins? Learning capoeira in Salvador? Taking a hot air balloon over the Atacama desert, then sandboarding down its dunes? Following the wind with a kite-surfing adventure in Ceará on Brazil’s north coast?

 

If anywhere lives and breathes passion, it’s South America. The region that brought us the tango, salsa, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Pablo Neruda gives us plenty to work with when planning your dream honeymoon. But romance can’t be prescribed simply by adding rose petals and a swan towel.

Whether you want a private sailing boat around Colombia’s secret Caribbean islands, to road trip the Uruguayan Riviera in a vintage Chevrolet, or be blessed by a shaman with a coca leaf ceremony in Peru, your honeymoon is sacrosanct time, and every moment should be extraordinary.

Stay in a 500-year old hacienda and learn about Singani production in Bolivia, explore the vineyards of Chile’s Bío Bío Valley by quadbike, take part in a private barrel tasting at one of Mendoza’s top wineries, check out the quinoa lab in a plant-based restaurant in La Paz, or learn traditional costeño home-cooking in Cartagena – If there’s one thing we know about travel, it’s that you have to taste a culture to understand it.

We’ve built up a black book of the best chefs, wine producers, cocktail makers, street-food specialists and baristas from Colombia to Argen

You don’t get under the skin of Buenos Aires by watching a tango performance staged for tourists, but from a private lesson and a night at the milongas with a famous tanguero. You won’t be able to unpick the mysteries of the ancient Peruvian civilizations with a two-a-penny tour guide, but accompanied by a world-renowned expert in Moche pottery. Nor will you experience the thrill of the Rio carnival like a carioca by merely watching it from the grandstands.

A cruise is the only type of holiday in which the journey is the destination. You can forget check-in queues, boring car rides and setting an alarm clock.

You can fall asleep in a state room with panoramic views of the Strait of Magellan and awake to sunrise on the fjords of Tierra del Fuego, on the southernmost tip of the continent.

Brits say, “just my cup of tea,” Americans, “that floats my boat,” and Brazilians, “é minha praia” (“that’s my beach”) which tells you something about national values in a country with over 3,000 km of coastline. And we wholly agree.

Nothing heals a work-weary soul faster than a good old-fashioned beach break. Since we first laid down our towels in Rio de Janeiro two decades ago, we’ve never stopped seeking the next sliver of unspoilt shoreline.

Sometimes what we value most, we experience the least in our day-to-day lives. Between busy careers, after-school activities and unrelenting digital chatter, modern life offers fewer chances than ever to take stock and revel in the rare gift of travelling somewhere new with the people you love the most.

Many of our clients’ family holidays amount to one or two weeks out of fifty-two in a year. It’s crucial that our meticulous planning creates a seamless experience of that precious time.