NICARAGUA

Nicaragua is one of those destinations that sophisticated travelers have been quietly circling for years, and for good reason. It has the colonial architecture of Granada and León, two of the finest Spanish colonial cities in the Americas, without the crowds that have somewhat diminished similar cities elsewhere. It has Ometepe, a figure-eight island formed by two volcanoes rising from the middle of a freshwater lake, which is the kind of thing that sounds made up until you're standing on it. It has a Pacific coast with surf breaks that still reward the traveler willing to get there before the infrastructure catches up.

What Nicaragua doesn't have yet is the tourist apparatus that flattens a destination into a series of managed experiences. That window won't stay open indefinitely, which is part of why we think now is the right time to go.

We design itineraries that move through the country's distinct registers: the colonial cities with their cathedral rooftop views and rum culture, the volcanic landscapes of the interior, the biological reserves along both coasts, and the slower rhythms of island and lake life that don't appear in most people's version of Central America. Nicaragua rewards curiosity and a tolerance for the genuinely unpolished, and those happen to be qualities we look for in our clients.