The Blue Lagoons
Endless Lagoons in the Brazilian Desert

Just over that next dune, there is a mystical place.

Hundreds and hundreds of lagoons in every direction, accessible only by foot. With some crucial backup from a four-wheeler.

Introducing Lençóis Maranhenses, an ATV tour of Brazil’s northern coast that includes at least one lagoon-filled desert, taking reservations now.

All told, you’ll be trekking through 400 miles of tropical Brazil over the course of a single week. After flying into São Luís and bedding down in a restored colonial hotel, you’ll be handed the keys to your chariot for the next few days: a four-stroke ATV. And you’re off.

Along the way: endless scenic bluffs. A riverboat float down the Rio Parnaíba—yes, you can bring your ride on board. Lunch stops at the country’s best caranguejo shacks. (They involve crab, and they’re delicious.) And some dune buggy-ing and kite-surfing in Jericoacoara, the kind of town that puts hotel rooms in eucalyptus trees.

But the crown jewel is the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park: if you’re booking your trip after June, you’ll find 400 square miles of windswept desert whose heavy summer rainfall creates hundreds of sky-blue pools popping up between all the dunes.

Luckily, you brought your portable cabana.