from $10,245* per person	19 Days	January, September
Boutique accommodations		Exertion level: 4
Operator: Geographic Expeditions		18 people max

More foreigners visit China every day and a half than visit Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana in a year. Combined. But we assure you: these three countries are a huge, unexpected, and extremely rare treat for inquisitive, beauty-loving, culture-enjoying travelers.

In Guyana, South America’s only English-speaking country, we visit the mammoth Kaieteur Falls (inspiringly featured in Werner Herzog’s lovely film The White Diamond); we explore the country’s vast rainforest and its wildlife (caimans, manatees, and a host of colorful avians) from gracious riverside timber cabins; we drive along jaguar-haunted roads to a series of 100-foot tall jungle canopy walkways and visit an Amerindian village, staying at its locally owned and operated, ecologically adept lodge; we’ll visit and lunch with Jean and Glenn Allicock, longtime residents of a gloriously faraway home near the Burro Burro River; at a forested, island-like lodge in the midst of Guyana’s vast Rupununi Savannah we’ll get to know Colin Edwards, a passionate advocate of local culture; and at the Karanambu Lodge, we’ll dally with the renowned Diane McTurk and the giant otters she has done so much to help flourish.

After flying back to Georgetown, we make a short flight west to Zorg en Hoop airport in Paramaribo, World Heritage Site capital of Suriname, a country of great and peaceful cultural and racial diversity (surely one of the few places on the planet where a synagogue, mosque, and Hindu temple co-exist, jowl-to-jowl). We’ll get a good look at this fascinating city (which was transferred to the Dutch by the English in 1667 in return for a bit of land further north, now known as New York), and make a river cruise to see the endangered pink and grey river dolphins of the Pomona River. We’ll fly south to the homeland of the Saramaccan Maroon tribes (whose ancestors escaped plantation slavery at the end of the 19th century, and who have maintained a unique, stalwart culture), staying at the serene Awarradam River Lodge on the Gran Rio River, enjoying deeply relaxing yet eventful river cruises.

And on Day 16, we head along the seacoast road to French Guiana. Though we referred to it as a country, French Guiana is actually an overseas department of France, and as we cross the border at Albina, we’ll be, technically, entering the European Union. Highlights of our three days in this marvelously unusual enclave: a visit to the Guiana Space Center, from which the European and French space agencies and a number of private companies launch satellites. We end with a visit to the three Isles de Salut (one of which is the infamous Devil’s Island), touring this now pacific prison complex, and overnighting at the Ile Royale Guest Lodge, whose tranquillity and beauty are a welcome counterpoint to the islands’ grim history.