Cristalino Lodge, Brazil

So much more than a place to stay, this enclave of ecotourism in the southern Amazon offers a complete wilderness immersion and the chance to help protect the surrounding, hugely biodiverse environment

- Lyn Hughes

The transfer to Cristalino Lodge from the airport at Alta Floresta starts conventionally enough, as a minibus takes you out of town and through bucolic scenes of grazing white cattle and fields of crops. But then you pass through a gate and the effect is like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia.

Here, a boat waits to take you on the 30-minute ride to the lodge, along the Cristalino River. The water is strikingly dark and clear. And there are trees, lots of them – pristine forest cloaks both sides. You may see monkeys and some of the 600-plus species of exotic birds found here before mooring up at the walkway that leads to the lodge itself.