Fernando de Noronha

Fernando de Noronha is one of the most picturesque, naturally beautiful place we've ever seen. It's a volcanic archipelago off the coast of Brazil near Recife.

It was absolutely stunning everywhere you looked, with gorgeous turquoise water, clean, secluded beaches, and it was not at all busy. It felt like we could have had any beach we wanted to ourselves.

It was extremely hot, punishingly humid, but we powered through every day to make the most of our short time in such a beautiful place.

The seas didn't cooperate with us, however. The wave surges were quite large, to the point they shut down the port, and snorkeling was pretty much a no-go on all but one beach most days.

We didn't let that stop us, though. We hiked, we did manage some time snorkeling and some incredibly gorgeous beaches, and generally spent our week exploring the island - by foot, and by dune buggy.

We really wanted to scuba dive here, but it just wasn't in the cards with the sea conditions, but that's OK! We had a marvelous time! We saw sharks come right up to the beach, we even saw a huge tiger shark chasing a turtle from the shoreline. We are happy to say the turtle got away!

Almost every local we met asked us how we heard about Noronha. It's not very common to have foreign tourists here, we think. It feels a lot like Brazils best-kept secret.

We were also treated to an incredible breakfast every day by our lovely hosts, which was enough food we were even able to make our lunches and be set all day. It was a nice treat!

We were able to enjoy a nice full-moon party on our last night, and we were absolutely exhausted from walking around the heat all week, but it was absolutely worth it!

This place is amazing, gorgeous, clean, and calm, and we feel extremely privileged to have been able to visit this Brazillian marvel.Read more