Nothing says 鈥渇or better or for worse鈥� like forcing your wedding guests to trek 60 miles to a ceremony deep in the jungle. While many people dream of nuptials involving elegant dresses, long-winded toasts, and tasteful floral arrangements, others hear the call of the adventure wedding. The more hardcore the experience, the more meaningful it is for all involved鈥攐r something like that. In this episode, we bring you the story of a union forged in the Guatemalan rainforest, where a creature came in the night to drink the blood of one of the guests.

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I lie half naked and miserable in a puddle of my own sweat. I open the tent flap to breathe but there鈥檚 no relief, even at midnight. Who comes to the Guatemalan jungle in July?

Yesterday鈥檚 hike was rough, but the 15 miles today were raw pain. The mosquitoes were so vicious that by mile two even our local guides had asked to borrow our 100 percent deet. Bugs here suck down lesser repellent like an aperitif. Nothing provides complete protection.

Our destination is La Danta, one of the largest pyramids on earth. It鈥檚 located in the ruins of El Mirador, a centerpiece of Maya civilization from 800 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. that was abandoned nearly 2,000 years ago. There are no restrooms, no gift shops. In fact, the site is still being excavated.

This is where Angela and Suley want to get married. So, accompanied by a pair of guides, a half-dozen pack donkeys, and their ten toughest (or least informed) friends, the brides are determined to march us 60 miles over five days through Parque Nacional El Mirador in northern Guatemala to La Danta to say 鈥淚 do.鈥� It鈥檚 our second night on the trail.

I close my eyes and wait for Tara, a.k.a. Tent Dawg, to start snoring. I met her 48 hours ago. Broad shouldered and sharp jawed, she looks like she could win a car-tossing competition or spit and hit Mars. A major in the U.S. Army, she鈥檚 been training soldiers on how to survive in the field since before Survivor was a tiki torch in Mark Burnett鈥檚 eye. Back in the small town of Flores, the night before we all set off, she鈥檇 said something about a kidney condition with a shrug. Nothing fazes Tent Dawg.

I slip out of our nylon cocoon to pee, swimming through the liquid night. Humidity 83 percent. Cicadas buzz from thick-vined shadows鈥攖he jungle鈥檚 24-hour booty call.

The misshapen moon shimmers like a mirage. I drop my underwear and flash a rounder moon at the donkeys. A languid tail whips a fly. Because my body temperature nearly matches the outer world, it鈥檚 hard to feel the boundary line. So I watch to be sure the piss is pissing. At least it runs clear; I鈥檝e been pounding water to replenish the gallon I sweat off every hour.

No sound emerges from our five tents, just green-black humming in all directions, 1.6 million acres of primeval rainforest teeming with the richest biodiversity in Central America. I shake my hips, pull up my skivvies, and float back to my tent.

I flop down and remind myself, This is the opportunity of a lifetime, when a mosquito the size of a Winnebago chomps my left butt cheek. The pain is electric but passes quickly. After frantic swatting and cursing, I drift off, anesthetized by this single dart.

It was not a mosquito.

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Starting on June 17, Brazil will join the ranks of countries that don鈥檛 require a tourist visa from Americans. This will save travelers from having to track down one of only ten Brazilian consulates in the U.S. and pay the听$40 fee (which we recommend putting toward post-swim caipirinhas, the country鈥檚 tart national cocktail).

The change in policy has been a long time coming. For the past several years, Brazil has experimented with streamlining entry requirements for citizens of the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Japan, four countries deemed a significant source of tourism revenue.

Brazil鈥檚 Ministry of Tourism听first tested the waters with visa waivers during the 2016 Rio Games. Then in January 2018, it introduced an electronic visa program for the four countries mentioned above and slashed the fee to a quarter of its original cost, from $160 to $40. The move paid off, helping contribute to a听 in travelers compared to 2017. Now听you鈥檒l be able to enter and stay for up to 90 days鈥攚ith the possibility to extend to 180 days total鈥攚ithout having to do any paperwork.

鈥淭his is one of the most important achievements of the Brazilian tourism industry in the last 15 years,鈥� said Marcelo Alvaro Ant么nio, the country鈥檚 minister of tourism, in a听. 鈥淲e are confident that it will be extremely beneficial to the country.鈥�

Meanwhile, if you鈥檙e looking for this kind of hassle-free international adventure, you鈥檙e not limited to Brazil. Americans have long been able to visit our closest allies, like Canada and the European Union, with only a valid passport, and globally there鈥檚 a fairly even split between nations that require visas听and ones that don鈥檛. Here are six听other outdoor meccas for Americans that don鈥檛 require a visa in advance. 听

Thailand

Want to deep-water solo this Southeast Asian nation鈥檚听? You鈥檙e in luck. You can vacation in Thailand for up to 30 days without a visa鈥攑lenty of time to climb in the famed Railay Beach area, then hightail it to the country鈥檚 southern islands to dive world-class coral gardens among angelfish, manta rays, and whale sharks. Just ensure you have a passport that鈥檚 valid for at least six months past your date of entry, as recommended by the U.S. State Department. 听

Guatemala

While this is not the only Central American country that lets you duck the red tape鈥攖he whole region is pretty much fair game鈥攊t鈥檚 a rising听hub for mountain biking and a longtime surf mecca. As long as you have a return ticket booked, you鈥檙e free to ride its jungle singletrack and catch consistent surf at at El Pared贸n for up to 90 days.

New Zealand

It may take 12 hours or more on a plane to get there, but trust us鈥攊t鈥檚 worth it. New Zealand鈥檚听jaw-dropping scenery provides an epic backdrop for hiking, biking, and backpacking, and from the听famous Milford Track in the South Island鈥檚 Fiordland National Park to the rugged Tongariro Alpine Crossing up north, adventuring in Kiwi country is unlike anywhere else. And you鈥檒l have 90 days to play as long as your passport is valid for three months after your date of departure.

Morocco

This North African nation is famous for its Atlantic coast, which is lined with year-round surf spots in places like Taghazout and Imsouane. Morocco has great climbing, too. Head inland to the听, a 1,300-foot-tall rift between the High Atlas Mountains and the Sahara, to send听. There鈥檚 a 90-day limit on your stay, and you鈥檒l need a passport that鈥檚 valid for six months and has one empty page.

Japan

If you get depressed scrolling through the proliferation of posts on Instagram every winter, know that a quick trip to Hokkaido is actually pretty easy鈥攅xcluding the international flight. Lift tickets often cost less than elsewhere in the world, too. Once you鈥檙e there, you can stay for three months sans visa. Just make sure there鈥檚 at least one blank page in your passport for the entry stamp before packing your bags.

Tahiti

Voyaging to French Polynesia may seem like a pipe dream, but it鈥檚 relatively easy to get there these days. Not only is there the standard 90 days of visa-free travel, but with the introduction of a new direct route to Tahiti from San Francisco, courtesy of the budget airline听 (from $329 one-way), a direct last-minute trip is within the realm of possibility.

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It might one day be to the world鈥檚 great fortune that Jacob Glanville, a young immunologist trying to make a name for himself in the field of universal vaccines, went online and found Tim Friede, a mechanic who into his bloodstream for going on two decades. It may also prove to be yet another stroke of terrible luck for Friede.

But let鈥檚 start at the beginning. It was March 2017. Glanville, who left a to launch a startup called , had just developed a novel method for accelerating the creation of new drugs by extracting patients鈥� antibodies, the blood proteins vertebrates use to counteract the threat of viruses, bacteria, and toxins. He thought he鈥檇 apply the technique to cancer research. So one day, while sitting with a meditative view at San Francisco鈥檚 Japanese Tea Garden, he took to Google in search of a melanoma survivor. Chasing a thought, he typed in 鈥渞epeat venom survivor鈥� instead and found Friede.

Friede, who has spent 19 years promoting his quest to help researchers create a universal antivenom, takes up an inordinate amount of space on the internet. Glanville soon stumbled upon a newspaper story that described , the one he says proves his immunity to two of the deadliest snakes in existence. In the video, Friede holds the head of a Papua New Guinea taipan, one of the world鈥檚 most potently venomous snakes, against his forearm. Blood is already dripping from fang marks on his right arm, left there moments earlier by a ten-foot-long black mamba. Now the taipan bites. An attack from either snake can stop a person鈥檚 heart in a couple of hours. Other symptoms, including drooping eyelids and paralysis of the tongue, develop in seconds. But Friede calmly puts the snake back in its cage and says to the camera, 鈥淚 love it. I love it. I love it.鈥�

Glanville watched this with the appropriate mix of discomfort and grim fascination. 鈥淛esus fuck, this is my guy,鈥� he said. Friede鈥檚 immune system, it seemed, was able to neutralize dozens of different toxins. Glanville wondered whether he could use his new antibody-颅extraction method on Friede to create a universal antivenom.

Friede was driving home from his factory job building military trucks in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when he received the first call. He remembers Glanville complimenting him on his knowledge of the immune system and explaining his interest in creating an antivenom. Soon after, they made a handshake agreement. Friede would supply his antibodies, and Glanville his science, and should they bring an antivenom to market, they鈥檇 split the profits down the middle. It was a long shot, but one that could eventually net each of them millions.

It鈥檚 now early December 2018, and Friede and Glanville are meeting in person for the first time, at Distributed Bio鈥檚 new offices in South San Francisco, in a nondescript building so close to the city鈥檚 birthplace of biotechnology sign, you could hit it with a genetically modified peach. Along with four other young immunologists and Friede鈥檚 girlfriend, Gretchen Greeley, they are drinking single-malt Scotch in an office down the hall from the lab where Glanville鈥檚 team has been studying Friede鈥檚 blood. Glanville, 38, is six-foot-two, with round glasses and a round face framed by dark, curly hair. He鈥檚 wearing designer jeans and nice leather boots.

Friede, 51, is around the same height as Glanville. He has a full head of closely shaved graying hair, wispy sideburns that drip into a goatee, and a face so thin it looks blown onto his cheekbones. He鈥檚 wearing faded jeans from Goodwill and steel-toed Keens. His voice is gravelly from cigarettes, and feeling insecure in the presence of so many Ph.D.鈥檚, he plays the part of the dumb country boy. 鈥淭hat was the most terrifying few hours of my life,鈥� he says, describing what was a fairly routine flight to San Francisco. Then he proclaims, 鈥淭oday is the best day of my life.鈥� When Glanville pulls him into a fatherly side hug, Friede seems to swell.

Glanville has ostensibly flown Friede to San Francisco to plan the next steps of their multiyear antivenom project. But really they鈥檝e gathered here to meet me. Putting a new drug on the market can cost tens of millions of dollars, and Glanville knows that press can lead to funding. Having once survived a harrowing rattlesnake bite myself, I was curious whether, by some cosmic confluence of the ongoing technological revolution in immunology, Glanville鈥檚 skill set, and Friede鈥檚 unfathomable tolerance for pain, a mechanic from Wisconsin really was on the verge of becoming the dark angel of antivenom that for years he鈥檇 been saying he was.

A week earlier, I was buying Friede dinner in his new hometown of Green Bay and trying to figure out what triggered this obsession of his in the first place. A veteran of interviews, he took me to 鈥渢he steakhouse where the Packers eat鈥� and ordered a $50 rib eye. With an IPA in hand, Friede told me about his recent move from Oshkosh, where he鈥檇 lived for two years. 鈥淚 was bagging up my mamba, a big ten-foot black,鈥� he said, adding that he hadn鈥檛 injected that particular snake鈥檚 venom in several months. 鈥淎nd pop, right in the ring finger. Blood everywhere. I mean everywhere. Total accident.鈥� This was the 100th time he鈥檇 been bitten by a mamba. 鈥淪o, true story,鈥� he said, 鈥淚 walk into the kitchen and tell Gret, 鈥楪ive me 15,鈥� because normally after 15 you鈥檙e pretty good to go.鈥�

鈥淲hat鈥檚 15?鈥� I asked.

鈥淢inutes. If you鈥檙e not immune in 15, you鈥檙e out鈥攄ead. So I pass out. I thought, Son of a bitch, either I鈥檓 going down or fucking shock is getting me,鈥� he said. But he had no hives. He could breathe. Five minutes later, he was back on his feet and then, wham, down again. 鈥淚 hit my head on the damn sink. Made it through that one. That was two months ago,鈥� Friede said, and then the waitress arrived with our salads.

The son of schoolteachers he never met, Friede was adopted when he was three months old and raised by a police-officer dad and a stay-at-home mom in the Milwaukee suburbs. An intense kid, he grew up hunting snakes and fantasizing about joining the Special Forces. Shortly after graduating from high school, he broke his ankle in a car accident when he flipped his VW bug. At 19, after he fractured the ankle a second time, in Army boot camp, he gave up on the military and took a job as a high-rise window washer in Milwaukee.

Still somewhat aimless at 30, he enrolled in a class on how to milk spiders and scorpions, hoping to land a career extracting venom for medical research. A few arachnid bites later, he got a pet copperhead, and it鈥檚 been all snakes ever since. That鈥檚 also around the time he first heard about self-颅immunization. The ancient practice involves escalating exposure to any harmful substance鈥攖oxin, bacteria, virus鈥攖hat the human body produces antibodies against. It sounded smart, becoming immune to his deadly menag颅erie. So in 2000, Friede began shooting himself with snake venom in small doses, at one point using some syringes acquired from his best friend鈥檚 wife, a vet tech named Karen.

He suffered his first snakebite the day after 9/11. A few days before, Karen had died in a head-on collision that would also render her two young kids comatose for six months. Devastated and depressed, Friede got good and drunk and tried to milk his Egyptian cobra. The snake twisted and sank its fangs into his left middle finger. Having begun self-immunizing the year before, he鈥檇 already injected 0.26 milligrams of cobra venom diluted in saline鈥攁 dose large enough to ensure he could survive a cobra bite. Friede鈥檚 wife at the time snapped a picture of him in his living room. He looks fleshier and happy, with a smile on his face and his bloody hand pushed up against the nose of his dog, a pit bull mix, while his beaming six-year-old son hugs the animal. It鈥檚 one of two photos on his fridge. 鈥淭hat changed everything,鈥� Friede said. 鈥淚t was the first time I beat death.鈥�

The second time came an hour later. The freshly cobra-bitten Friede, feeling cocky, went back to the cages where he kept his snakes and picked up a monocled cobra with his bare hands. 鈥淣aja kaouthia,鈥� Friede recalled, using the snake鈥檚 scientific name, as he always does. The cobra perforated his right biceps. 鈥淚 was scared as hell,鈥� he said. Friede collapsed. Fully paralyzed, he could still hear when the medics arrived and discussed whether he was dead. They revived him with six vials of antivenom from the zoo, and Friede spent the next four days in a coma. 鈥淭hat one is hard to talk about鈥攁 fucking disaster,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 wish it never happened.鈥� It鈥檚 also the story he uses to answer questions about his obsession. Afterward, he made it a goal to survive two venomous snakebites in a single night, this time without requiring antivenom.

To do so, Friede taught himself enough immunology to self-vaccinate more safely. When he is bitten or injects himself with snake toxins, his B cells, , secrete thousands of different antibodies in an effort to counteract each of the many distinct proteins that make up a particular venom. At first very few succeed. Like random keys inserted into locks, they simply don鈥檛 fit. But inevitably, a few do. It鈥檚 evolution taking place directly in the bloodstream. Every time Friede receives a snakebite, his B cells make only those antibodies that address the now present toxin while at the same time constantly tinkering to improve the designs. The more venom Friede injects, the more effective his antibodies become.

What鈥檚 challenging about his approach is that each species鈥� venom is a combination of 20 to 70 toxic proteins and enzymes that kill or maim in their own special way. To survive bites from multiple species, Friede needs antibodies capable of turning off the deadliest toxins in the venoms injected, be it rattlesnake or cobra. He also needs a legion of them in his bloodstream at all times, although when he first began self-immunizing, he wasn鈥檛 really certain how many. Friede 颅decided that more was better, and the process he settled on required near constant exposure to venom. So he ordered a lot of snakes.

We arrived at this part of his story almost three hours after we鈥檇 sat down to dinner. The steakhouse had closed, but after we finished our meal, Friede spotted a friend, the restaurant鈥檚 baker, a cheery, pink-haired woman who loved snakes. We joined her and the rest of the waitstaff at the bar, where Friede, who is charming and funny, had them all riveted鈥攅specially when he began explaining the work he鈥檇 lined up for his antibodies tomorrow night.

鈥淪o, when I get bit by a water cobra, the most venomous snake in Africa, it鈥檚 going to be bam鈥攍ock and key, lock and key, millions of times,鈥� Friede said. Then he pivoted, explaining why his immunity wasn鈥檛 just a dubious party trick but could save millions of lives. 鈥淲hat they did in San Francisco,鈥� he said, 鈥渋s cloned all my good antibodies to mamba, rattlesnake, everything.鈥� And that, he continued, is what would become the foundation for a universal antivenom. (As it often does, his enthusiasm for the project had him getting a bit ahead of the science.)

鈥淥h, you鈥檙e a hero,鈥� the restaurant鈥檚 manager said, buying Friede a beer and a shot of whiskey in appreciation.

鈥淥h no, no, no,鈥� Friede said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not. I鈥檓 just an idiot who gets bit by snakes.鈥�

Before Glanville had even heard of Friede, he was working on cures for HIV, cancer, and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. But his real passion is the flu. As with venom toxins, the influenza virus is constantly evolving, yet with each transformation, .

鈥淓volution is ding, ding, ding, ding鈥�all the time,鈥� Glanville says. 鈥淲hether that mutation survives depends on whether it鈥檚 advantageous. The part of the protein that functions the same way across all species, that鈥檚 the part that鈥檚 conserved, because it鈥檚 already working.鈥� In other words, a virus doesn鈥檛 fix what isn鈥檛 broken. This was the scientific epiphany that struck immunology a decade earlier, and it now drives all of Glanville鈥檚 work. If an antibody could be created to target that conserved portion, almost every strain of the virus could be neutralized鈥攁 universal vaccine.

Glanville grew up in Guatemala in the late eighties and early nineties, amid the country鈥檚 36-year civil war. He鈥檚 the son of American expats, his father an 鈥渁gricultural importer鈥� (a winking euphemism) and his mother an artist whose father helped develop the engines that sent the first U.S. rockets into space. To avoid stray bullets, Glanville and his younger brother, Keith, slept on the floor of the hotel their parents owned, and to get to school they rode a boat across Lake Atitl谩n. Glanville was also brilliant, cooking up nitroglycerin in the family bathtub when he was nine and finishing high school math by the time he was 11. As an undergraduate at the University of California at Berkeley, Glanville studied computational bioengineering, a new field that used math and supercomputers to solve complex biological riddles. The immune system fascinated him. 鈥淪o I figured out how to hack it,鈥� he says.

Around 2008, computational bioengineering was in its promising infancy, and Pfizer hired Glanville a year out of college. Ever since human antibodies , scientists have considered them immunological silver bullets鈥攃ells with the elusive power to theoretically cure any disease. Isolating and engineering them became perhaps the greatest quest in medicine. Over the past two decades, scientists compiled that can be genomically sequenced, allowing researchers to read the DNA of each one. Once that鈥檚 known, any antibody can be grown in bacteria and modified to target a specific antigen.

Glanville鈥檚 major contribution at Pfizer (and the reason he was promoted to principal scientist in just four years) was writing 45,000 lines of code to optimize the process of matching antibodies to antigens. Searches that once took a team of scientists ten years to complete, Glanville says, can now be done in a week by a master鈥檚 student working alone. His software taught the computer to find thousands of matching antibodies from the tens of billions in a library. None of those matches would be perfect, but by swapping various features they share, one or a few of them could be made into something close. Glanville had developed a way to dramatically cull the number of potential candidates and then engineer the most promising ones. He transformed the search for antibody drugs from a needle in a hundred hay stacks to a needle in just one.

In 2012, at 31, Glanville took his code and left his prestigious job at Pfizer. He then founded Distributed Bio while also becoming the first Ph.D. candidate in computational immunology at Stanford University. Five years later, Glanville completed his doctorate, and business at Distributed Bio was booming. He now licenses his software and antibody library and each of nine other pharmaceutical giants for around $500,000 a year and typically receives 2 percent of the profit from any drugs developed using them. With those earnings, Distributed Bio has added a fleet of new hardware to help in the discovery, isolation, refinement, and cloning of antibodies, making his firm, which employs 20 researchers, a leader in the field.

Glanville鈥檚 baby was his flu-vaccine work, and important insights he gained during that quest would also apply to snakebites. As with the toxins in venom, influenza strains are incredibly diverse. We get flu shots every year because the virus mutates somewhere between 10 and 20 percent from one season to the next, rendering our defenses useless. To succeed with a flu vaccine, however, Glanville just needed to engineer antibodies that sniffed out the virus鈥� weak spot, that one place that doesn鈥檛 evolve even as everything around it does.

Along with his research co-lead, microbiologist Sarah Ives, Glanville bought 15 live flu viruses that were representative of the strains that had infected humans between 1938 and 2015, then locked them in cold storage. Collectively, influenza killed tens of millions of people during that span of time. Glanville wrote a computer program to identify any binding sites that were shared across all 15 viruses. And he found a region full of them, buried deep in its molecular folds. Then Glanville engineered a vaccine that would teach the immune system to produce antibodies to target that area. Back in Guatemala, at a pig farm he and his brother built on their parents鈥� property to save money on research trials, his team immunized 100 pigs (a common animal model for humans) with the designer vaccine. Then they exposed the pigs鈥� serum, the component in blood that contains antibodies, to influenza strains that the animals鈥� had never seen, those that went epidemic in humans between 2005 and 2015. The serum fought off the viruses. 鈥淭he smart money is that this is the universal flu vaccine,鈥� says Glanville. Indeed, the invited Dis颅tributed Bio to submit a grant proposal, and the company plans to go into preclinical testing at veterinary research facilities in Iowa this fall.

Given that potential breakthrough, it鈥檚 perhaps not surprising that Glanville is so confident he can succeed with snakebites, too. 鈥淲ith our tech,鈥� he told me, 鈥渂ecause of what Tim has done鈥攁s crazy as that shit is鈥攖his is an easy problem for us to solve.鈥�

Glanville had only an inkling of how crazy it really was. Starting in 2000, when Friede set his mind to immunizing himself from nearly all snakes, he turned his basement into a venom lab. He insulated the walls to keep tropical reptiles warm in Wisconsin鈥檚 winters and used spent syringes to hang a world map and a letter from a self-颅immunizer he admired beside a Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendar. Every few months, new species arrived at the Milwaukee airport, where Friede would pick up the wooden crates stamped Venomous SNAKEs.

When he got home, Friede would listen to Tool and open the crates with a screwdriver. On snake hooks or in Friede鈥檚 bare hands, out came the writhing contents. Water cobras. Taipans. Mambas. He put them in cages he stacked against a wall. Friede鈥檚 rarer venom donors were wild-caught鈥攍egally or illegally, he doesn鈥檛 know鈥攁nd often stressed or sick. Some died a few months after they came in. Friede loves animals, but whether his snakes survived long-term didn鈥檛 ultimately affect his work. Once he milked their venom he could dehydrate it into a lifetime supply.

He also began taking what he calls 鈥淒arwinian notes.鈥� On December 12, 2001, he wrote, 鈥淪ince dying was no fun, took off 鈥檛il December.鈥� That day he injected himself with the venom from the same cobra that nearly killed him, and he spiked his blood every few weeks from then on. He rated pain on a numerical scale, with entries ranging from 1 to 1,000. A common symptom was 鈥�3×3 swelling鈥�; rarer was 鈥渟welling from knee to ass,鈥� 鈥渉ives over whole body,鈥� and 鈥渁naphylactic shock鈥� (though he suffered the last of these 12 times). Within a year of starting, he was letting live snakes bite him to demonstrate his immunity. Over time he could distinguish how much venom they鈥檇 injected simply by his body鈥檚 reaction. He grew to like water cobras, because their neurotoxic venom blocked his nerve cells, making a bite less painful and 鈥渧ery easy to beat.鈥� He hated Cape cobras and rattlesnakes, whose necrotic venom dissolved his muscles.

Along the way, Friede developed a sort of stuntman-next-door persona by . Some were macho, like the one where as he films a black mamba double-nipping a sober Friede. But in most of the clips, Friede how self-颅immunization really works. He was just your average enthusiastic guy in a Slayer T-shirt, admiring nature鈥檚 deadliest snakes by letting them bite him. He recorded tagged him by surprise and to help 鈥渁 girl with a school project.鈥�

Whether he put his videos on Facebook or YouTube, haters inevitably flocked to the comments. Snake enthusiasts, leading toxicologists, and online trolls attacked his efforts as useless witchcraft and labeled Friede either a fake who鈥檇 removed the snakes鈥� venom glands or an idiot. Friede says he even got death threats. 鈥淲hat was I doing? I wasn鈥檛 hurting anybody,鈥� he says.

Before long the media discovered him, too. National Geographic filmed Friede for a TV segment in 2002. The History Channel Stan Lee鈥檚 Superhumans, and the Science Channel and a number of YouTube shows. He was also in several magazines and became a regular guest on podcasts and radio. All that attention offered something he craved: affirmation. 鈥淚 was a rock star,鈥� he says. 鈥淗ell yeah, it was fun.鈥� At one point, Friede got a lawyer and an agent to capitalize on the opportunities but has since dropped both, because 鈥渋t鈥檚 never been about the money.鈥�

What it has been about, Friede insists, is saving lives. As early as 2003, he believed that scientists could turn his blood into a universal antivenom, so he began to reach out. Friede e-mailed Nobel Prize鈥搘inning experts on the immune system, an Arizona State University professor who developed a technique for genetic immunization, and Stanley Plotkin, the author of , which Friede used to inform his own immunization.

The scientists got back to him with cursory congratulations, but he found few who were genuinely interested in what he was doing. He got a better reception among a more amateur crowd鈥攖he burgeoning online self-immunization community. Norman Benoit, the closest thing the practice has to a historian, 鈥渉as almost single-handedly taken the concept of self-immunizing to where it is today.鈥� That place seems to be in 2013. It now has 3,000 members around the world and an image gallery that could be sent as hate mail to a squeamish enemy. On it, Friede generally advises caution to newcomers while supporting鈥攖hough not providing advice on鈥攖heir DIY immunity efforts.

Friede wasn鈥檛 exactly cautious himself. Over time his experimentation grew bolder, if not downright reckless. 鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to make mistakes to get better, that鈥檚 part of it,鈥� he says. On November 29, 2015, he filmed the black mamba and taipan double bite that led him to Glanville. The video now has 11.5 million views on YouTube. Friede described the event in his notes: 鈥淥ne of the worst double bites I鈥檝e ever had. Swelling was 10″ x 10″. Took four days to heal.鈥� A week later, he repeated the experiment with the same two snakes and had a similar experience. 鈥淐ould not walk. Body was on fire. Fell down many times. Death was near. Learned a lot.鈥� Friede has now survived bites from two species of rattlesnake, two species of taipan, four types of cobra, all three species of green mamba, and the black mamba.

As might be imagined, Friede鈥檚 obsession has taken a toll on his personal life. His ex-wife has said that Friede鈥檚 self-immunizing ruined their marriage. Friede doesn鈥檛 argue the point. Though he still considers his ex-wife a close friend, he says with remorse that for long periods he hasn鈥檛 had a good relationship with his sons, who are now 11 and 22. 鈥淚 mean, I was working to save the world. I traded my life for all those people that snakes kill every year,鈥� he says. After a strained 20 years, he and his wife split in 2010. Friede moved out and transferred his snake lab to a property in nearby Fond du Lac, where he slept in a tent. 鈥淚 figured out how death works, then beat it,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the only thing I鈥檝e ever been good at.鈥�

By the spring of 2017, divorced and estranged from his kids, Friede felt that he鈥檇 had enough. 鈥淚 was done,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 was tired of the bites, tired of the pain, tired of not getting anywhere.鈥� So even while he kept posting on Facebook, he planned to wind down his self-immunizing.

Then Glanville called. In as much time as it took him to explain his intentions, Friede鈥檚 dream was revived. Glanville reaching out was 鈥渆verything,鈥� Friede says. 鈥淓惫-别谤测-迟丑颈苍驳.鈥�

Around the time Glanville and Friede connected, their cause got a publicity boost. In June 2017, after intensive lobbying by physicians, the World Health Organization as a an upgraded classification with the heft to shake loose vital funding. Every year, between 80,000 and 130,000 people and claim 400,000 limbs through amputation.

Dozens of teams around the world first developed in the late 1890s by Albert Calmette, a French immunologist who also developed a vaccine for tuberculosis. Calmette made an antivenom to cobras by doing to rabbits what Friede has done to himself. Since then sheep and horses have become the antibody donors of choice, largely because of their abundant blood supplies. Otherwise, . Serums can expire in less than two years and are expensive ( and sometimes more), and the antibodies they produce work only against select types of venom. While that last flaw is acceptable in places like the United States, which is home to only four appreciably different venomous snakes, it isn鈥檛 in a country like India, which has 60.

As Glanville soon learned, none of the researchers working on a snakebite cure expected to engineer a truly universal antivenom. Doing so would require an antibody to turn off every toxin in every known snake venom, a financial improbability for a drug that Glanville forecasts will earn just $30 million a year. Yet, as Glanville also discovered, advances in genomic sequencing have revealed that across all 700 species of venomous snakes, the most destructive proteins belong to just 13 different families. 鈥淣ot all toxins are equally bad. We just need to cure the nastiest ones to save lives,鈥� Glanville says.

, Glanville hopes to target the protein-binding sites shared among each of those 13 families. If he can find antibodies to lock onto those vulnerable sites, a so-called broad-spectrum antivenom wouldn鈥檛 need to contain several thousand distinct antibodies. An effective number, he says, could be closer to 30.

Of the half-dozen toxicologists and antivenom experts I spoke to, not one had heard of Glanville. He hasn鈥檛 published any scientific papers on venom, though more than 30 in other areas. The most heralded work in the field is being conducted by Andreas Laustsen, a young researcher in Denmark who has dubbed himself Snakebite Jesus. Last summer, using some of the same tools as Glanville鈥檚 lab, Laustsen engineered human antibodies that when injected into mice , among the most potent ingredients in black mamba venom. But his work underscores just how difficult the challenge is. Because of the sheer complexity of venom, his antibodies were effective only when injected directly into the mice鈥檚 brains.

Glanville believes Friede is the solution. His theory is that Friede has done with his syringes and snakes what Glanville had done in the lab for flu: created antibodies to sniff out the shared sites of extremely diverse proteins. 鈥淭he immune system is as lazy as the rest of us,鈥� Glanville says. 鈥淲hy make a bunch of different antibodies if you can just make one that does many jobs?鈥�

Laustsen, who is supportive of any researcher working on antivenom, is nonetheless skeptical that Friede鈥檚 antibodies are anything special. Before beginning his experimentation on dendrotoxin, he worked with a self-immunizer from London. Laustsen found that his patient鈥檚 immunity was barely above background鈥攏ot worth the effort or expense to extract antibodies, and certainly not worth the headache. Danish media had taken Laustsen to task for using a self-immunizer to develop a potentially profitable drug. 鈥淭he promotion of such work carries the risk that others will start doing something crazy to get the interest of scientists. It might be a little slower to do it in the lab, but at least nobody gets hurt,鈥� Laustsen says.

Medicine鈥檚 history of human experimentation is dark enough already. But Glanville doesn鈥檛 believe he鈥檚 made Friede into a human lab rat. Friede, he says, is the rare case where scientific curiosity drove someone to voluntarily do extreme things to their own body.

Not long after Glanville connected with Friede, on a muggy July morning in 2017, a woman in a little blue car showed up at Friede鈥檚 house in Osh颅kosh, drew 20 milliliters of his blood, and shipped it to Distributed Bio in South San Francisco. Then Friede grabbed a syringe and a vial of taipan venom from the fridge and shot it into his thigh. For the next 19 days, he injected escalating doses of western diamondback, black mamba, and taipan venom, following his normal immunization schedule. On the 28th day of the experiment, the woman in the blue car returned, retrieved more blood, and again shipped it to Distributed Bio.

The two samples gave Glanville and his team before and after snapshots of Friede鈥檚 immune system. By comparing them, Glanville could tell if Friede鈥檚 antibodies were actually evolving to better neutralize the toxins鈥攁nd if they were, how well they were doing that job. Determining that would take Glanville and his team more than a year.

Glanville was aware that Friede was injecting himself throughout the four weeks between blood draws. I asked him if he was concerned that his subject might be taking too many risks during a period when he was technically participating in a Distributed Bio study. Glanville was adamant that he鈥檇 never asked Tim to inject venom and that their research was strictly passive. 鈥淥ur conclusion was that Tim was continuing his routine practice of boosting that he鈥檇 be performing whether or not we had run the study,鈥� he wrote to me in a long e-mail explaining the rigorous biomedical-ethics considerations he thought through in advance of the study. 鈥淲e just took blood samples during his process. We asked him what his schedule was but did not influence it. Thus our study never exposed Tim to any new risk.鈥�

Glanville also pointed out that he鈥檚 taken steps to ensure that Friede doesn鈥檛 become antivenom鈥檚 , the never compensated source of one of the most significant cell lines in medical research. From the outset, Glanville said he鈥檇 make certain that Friede would have a significant stake in any future profit from his cells, and he made that legal in April 2019 when they signed an official contract.

Although he and Friede are partners there鈥檚 a vast disparity between what they each have riding on the research鈥檚 success. For Glanville, the work on a broad-spectrum antivenom is something of a side project that, even if it yields a marketable product, won鈥檛 generate anything close to the profit his work on influenza, cancer, and HIV might someday generate.

Friede, meanwhile, has gone all in. Within weeks of Glanville鈥檚 first blood draw, Friede found reason to quit the $50,000-a-year truck-assembly job he鈥檇 held for eight years. 鈥淭here are things I know on paper that are pretty sweet,鈥� he told me. 鈥淰accine wise. Money wise.鈥� He said he thought his partner had already invested 鈥減robably in the millions鈥� and that Glanville was 鈥渂anking on stuff he knows is going to work. Otherwise he wouldn鈥檛 do it.鈥� (Glanville estimates his costs so far at closer to $30,000, compared with $300,000 he鈥檚 put into influenza.) The bulk of Friede鈥檚 income between November 2017 and October 2018, when he took a job delivering pizzas, was $6,680 that Distributed Bio paid him for 鈥渞esearch funding.鈥� After Glanville discovered Friede was broke, he offered to host him at his family鈥檚 farm in Guatemala, but Friede owed so much money in child support that the U.S. government wouldn鈥檛 issue him a passport.

鈥淥bviously, it hasn鈥檛 worked yet,鈥� Friede says, betraying a hint of remorse before washing it away with his familiar optimism. 鈥淲ill it? Yes, it fucking will.鈥�

When Friede and I first talked, I had my own ethical dilemma to work through. A couple of months before meeting him in Green Bay, we discussed him being bitten by a snake for this story, something he said he was happy to do. But as we got closer to the interview date, I began to have second thoughts. What if something happened? So, the morning after we鈥檇 closed out the bar at the steakhouse, where I鈥檇 heard him boast about his big plans for a water cobra bite with me as a witness, I asked Friede not to go through with it. There was plenty for me to watch on YouTube, I explained. Friede seemed to understand and agreed.

That attitude changes over the course of our second day together. We鈥檝e just finished a late-afternoon lunch at a diner near his home, accompanied by Friede鈥檚 girlfriend of four years, Gretchen Greeley. An animal lover with a sharp intellect, Greeley works as a cook and has become something of a stabilizing force for Friede. He calls her 鈥渢he most fun part of my life.鈥�

Last fall they went through a rough patch. After a year in Oshkosh, the couple moved to Green Bay, where Greeley grew up and Friede鈥檚 ex-wife lives with their two sons. They were unable to find a rental willing to take their pit bull, however, so Friede and Greeley lived at a Motel 6 for a month with their two dogs and a polydactyl cat named Wednesday Absinthe Adams. A couple of weeks ago, they moved into the 400-square-foot attic apartment where we鈥檝e been watching YouTube videos of the 鈥渕ost brutal鈥� snakebites of Friede鈥檚 career.

And we鈥檙e drinking. A pile of empty Steel Reserve tallboys and white-wine minis crowd the garbage can. An industrial-metal band that Greeley and Friede like plays on an antique-looking radio. By the kitchen sink, in a black crate that Greeley pulled out almost two hours ago, are a pair of water cobras. Wednesday Absinthe Adams and another cat are wrestling on top of the crate, and I can sense Friede, now splayed out on the couch, plotting his move.

He takes another nip of whiskey and then stretches out his arms. At some point tonight he put on my down jacket, which is much too small for him, and he鈥檚 now making noise about keeping it in exchange for showing me what I鈥檇 asked him not to show me.

鈥淵ou didn鈥檛 come all the way out here to see nothing,鈥� he says.

I鈥檝e had a few drinks myself, and curiosity is getting the better of me. 鈥淚 do want that coat back,鈥� I say. Greeley silently fetches the crate and places it at Friede鈥檚 feet.

鈥淔ear is kind of a fucking weird thing,鈥� he says. He removes the lid, and two water cobra heads levitate above the rim to investigate, each banded black and gold. 鈥淣补箩补听补苍苍耻濒补迟补,鈥� Friede says, pausing for effect. 鈥淭he most venomous snake in Africa.鈥�

Friede thrusts his hands into the crate and comes up holding the two snakes, each about six feet long. One cobra then slides with remarkable speed and very little aggression up the baffles of Friede鈥檚 jacket鈥攎y jacket鈥攖oward his neck. He grabs it and moves his hands beneath its belly like he鈥檚 pouring sand from one hand into the next.

鈥淚t鈥檚 almost like we know each other,鈥� he says. 鈥淪ee how gentle I am with these animals?鈥� And he is, until he starts tapping one snake鈥檚 head against his wrist. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not going to bite are you?鈥� he whispers.

For the next ten minutes he pokes, prods, pats, and pets, all to elicit a bite. If he鈥檚 afraid, you鈥檇 never know it. A week ago, to prepare for this interview, he injected a lethal dose of water cobra venom. It had been 11 months since his last booster shot, and he administered it an hour before he and Greeley were supposed to be at her parents鈥� for Thanksgiving dinner.

鈥淔uck you for that, by the way,鈥� Greeley says, reminding Friede that no antivenom exists for water cobras. She says that when she saw what he鈥檇 done that night, she cried and nearly passed out.

鈥淐ome on, hon,鈥� Friede responds. 鈥淚 just wanted to know what would happen.鈥�

With the recent booster, Friede is confident that he can survive a bite from each of these cobras, but they don鈥檛 seem interested. 鈥淐ome on, bite me. Bite me,鈥� he says. Their jaws stay shut.

鈥淕et me a cup,鈥� he tells Greeley, moving to plan B. She heads to the kitchen and rummages through the empty cabinets. The scales, glass vials, and insulin syringes he usually uses when shooting venom are still locked in storage, so Greeley makes do. She grabs a plastic bag and winds it tightly around a NyQuil measuring cup. Then she gets the dirty needle Friede requested. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more hardcore,鈥� Greeley explains, passing it over the cobras to Friede.

Friede pushes a snake鈥檚 head against the bag. Fangs puncture plastic, clear venom gleeks into the cup. He repeats the procedure with the other snake, then places the cobras back in the crate. His routine thrown off by Greeley鈥檚 improvised venom receptacle, he spends the next three minutes wrestling the tightly wound bag off the NyQuil cap. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a fucking bomb, honey,鈥� Friede admonishes, his showmanship overwhelmed by childlike frustration. Venom finally flows into the syringe. 鈥淥h yeah, that鈥檚 enough to kill me,鈥� he says.

The needle goes in just behind the round bone on the inside of Friede鈥檚 left wrist. And that鈥檚 about it. Twenty minutes pass without incident. Three cigarettes go into Friede. His pit bull curls up with him on the couch, and he starts chatting about how water cobra venom is simple to beat. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really easy for him,鈥� Greeley says, pleased with the results.

I鈥檓 suddenly overcome by that special fatigue that follows an adrenaline overdose, feeling as though the three of us have just survived something profound. Reluctantly, Friede returns my coat. Then I lower myself down the attic stairs and head into snow that has just started to fall.

In the parts of the day when Ray Newland, the 27-year-old scientist who Glanville appointed to the antivenom project, wasn鈥檛 panning Distributed Bio鈥檚 antibody libraries for clients, he worked with Friede鈥檚 blood. First he segregated ten million antibodies sequenced from it, an elevated amount for a normal adult and a possible indication that Friede really had done something special to his immune system. Newland arranged these into a searchable library and then began analyzing it for venom-specific antibodies.

One morning in April 2018, about a year into the project, Glanville and Newland pulled on biohazard suits, fitted themselves with rebreathers, and mixed saline into seven different types of dehydrated venoms that Newland had ordered online from a lab in France. Some were venoms Friede had immunized himself against and some were not. The varied sample would tell Glanville if Friede鈥檚 antibodies were working against any of the venoms present, and also if they were working to neutralize a venom his immune system had never seen before. The latter scenario would suggest the type of broad-spectrum reactivity necessary to build a new class of antivenom.

Ten million is an enormous number, so to cull the herd, Newland magnetized each of the seven venoms, then mixed them with Friede鈥檚 antibodies in a test tube. After ten minutes, he stuck a magnet against the side of the tube to pull out the venom toxins along with any antibodies that were sticking to them. Over the course of the next two weeks, Newland repeated this process three times, using DNA sequencing to count and clone some 1,200 of Friede鈥檚 anti颅bodies that had stuck to the venom. To further clarify which of these were actually targeting toxins, he then dipped them all into a cocktail of venom and other chemicals. If the antibodies formed a true bond to the toxins, that area of the plate would turn blue. Newland鈥檚 first plate did so. So did his next 12. Newland let out a scream, prompting a Distributed Bio tech to shoot footage on her phone that captured Glanville and Newland in lab coats dancing something like the Macarena.

Within a week, Newland weeded out 282 binding antibodies and had hits on all seven venoms, including ones Friede hadn鈥檛 immunized against. 鈥淭im鈥檚 blood is the best chance the world has at a broadly reactive antivenom,鈥� Newland says. 鈥淲e are light-years ahead of the competition.鈥� Instead of a single antibody that worked against one toxin but not the whole venom, they had 282 that worked, in the lab, against many toxins in whole venoms鈥攁nd millions more to look through for an even better fit.

This was the breakthrough Friede had been seeking for almost 20 years. You could imagine him printing Glanville鈥檚 results, chewing the pages up into wads, and blowing spitballs into the faces of his naysayers. How good were his antibodies? In a $500,000 screener called the Carterra LSA that tests how strongly an antibody binds鈥攁 good indicator of whether it鈥檚 neutralizing its target鈥擭ewland found one that hit a toxin in black mamba venom with, he says, 鈥渁bout three times higher affinity than any drug on the market.鈥� It was a tighter bond than any Glanville had seen or been able to manufacture.

In December, Newland hosted a meeting with a consultant Glanville had hired to help Distributed Bio secure funding for more research. The company had a proposal in with the National Institutes of Health for $400,000, which included a full-time salary of $80,000 a year for Friede. It promised to do what had never been done before in antivenom research: use whole antibodies, first isolated from a human donor, to shut down black mamba and western diamondback venom in live mice. The venom of those two species contain proteins from most of the 13 deadliest toxin families that Glanville decided would need to be neutralized by a broad-颅spectrum antivenom. The antibodies would be 颅Friede鈥檚鈥攆ully human and unlikely to induce serum sickness, a problem with most existing antivenoms. And they could be dehydrated into a thermostable powder, so they wouldn鈥檛 need to be refrigerated. Glanville鈥檚 team was pitching the idea that the product could be carried by American soldiers anywhere they traveled and stocked in the rural clinics where it鈥檚 needed most.

Still, Distributed Bio鈥檚 scientists knew that landing a grant would be just the start. Drug development has notoriously low odds of success, and despite the recent surge in antivenom research spurred by the World Health Organization鈥檚 reclassification of snakebites, drug companies aren鈥檛 exactly clamoring for a new antivenom. In fact, the current single-species products on the market have earned so little revenue that Sanofi Pasteur, the industry giant, , leaving those snakebitten in large swaths of Africa to seek cures from traditional healers.

And there was that other issue hovering in the background: the murky ethics of exploiting Friede鈥檚 self-mutilation, a factor that could scare away potential investors. It鈥檚 a point Glanville still struggles with. 鈥淚f the cure really is in Tim,鈥� he asks, 鈥渨hy should 130,000 people have to die every year from snakebites?鈥�

The day after Friede first met Glanville in South San Francisco, he shows up at Distributed Bio鈥檚 offices around 2 P.M. looking rougher around the edges than usual. Following dinner and sangria at a tapas joint the night before, Glanville took Friede and me to his favorite kava bar, where we sucked down several coconut shells of mildly stimulating mud. Glanville went home, but Friede kept the party going. On the Uber ride back to his hotel, he had the driver stop at a liquor store. Now, suffering a brutal hangover, he spends the afternoon with 翱耻迟蝉颈诲别鈥�s photographer having his picture taken with Glanville. (鈥淣ot my favorite thing,鈥� Friede says.)

Later that evening, he and Greeley sit on the sidewalk in front of Distributed Bio鈥檚 offices. They鈥檙e taking a break from the company鈥檚 holiday party to smoke a cigarette. Rush hour is ramping up, and the sun is setting. Friede鈥檚 mood, full of optimism the night before, seems to have deflated all at once. Just before they鈥檇 come to San Francisco, he鈥檇 been fired from his pizza-delivery job because he鈥檇 failed to pay a ticket for a seatbelt violation. Worse was the situation with their two dogs. They鈥檇 kenneled them before they came to California, and now they鈥檙e worried they can鈥檛 afford to get them out.

鈥淚鈥檓 just glad you got to see the ass part of this whole thing and the rock-star part,鈥� Friede tells me. 鈥淚 wish I had my job, my house, my kids, my life, but guess what? I don鈥檛. And if it took that to get this done, maybe it was all worth it.鈥�

He presses his cigarette into the sidewalk and goes back inside to a Christmas party full of scientists and millionaires. Glanville, wearing an ironic holiday sweater, is chatting with an immunologist who is working to cure cancer. Friede orders a vodka cocktail from the bar and steps off to one side of the room with Greeley. It鈥檚 the last time I see them.

When he got back to Wisconsin, Friede sold his self-immunization kit and snake cages so he could afford to get the rest of his stuff out of storage. One day in January, he announced on Facebook that he was quitting self-immunizing. Hundreds of people liked the post or wrote encouraging comments. An era had ended. After an estimated 200 snakebites and 700 lethal injections, self-immunizing鈥檚 brightest star had retired.

Friede, now doing maintenance work at the steakhouse where we ate and still waiting for Glanville鈥檚 grant to go through, no longer has to punish his own body to save the snakebitten. With his antibodies in the hands of reliable scientists, he could do no more. When I reached him by phone in the spring, he told me he was making an effort to spend time with his kids. He would continue to do interviews for snake-themed websites, but only to promote the antivenom project and talk about how he鈥檇 move beyond self-颅immunizing. Life was starting anew, and it felt good.

But then, on March 13, he backslid when Greeley suffered a non-venomous bite from a python they were pet-sitting for a friend. 鈥淲asn鈥檛 going to post this. But had to,鈥� he wrote on Facebook. 鈥淢y GF gets nailed by a ball python. I laughed. Then I get hit by a water cobra twice.鈥� Old habits die hard.

Contributing editor Kyle Dickman wrote about surviving a rattlesnake bike in the June 2018 issue.

The post The Human Antivenom Project appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Itz鈥檃na Resort

Belize

Opening in April, 听is a perfect base camp for exploring the best of Belize. Night-hike the world鈥檚 only jaguar reserve in search of the nocturnal cats? Check. Swim with whale sharks during their annual migration? Check. Sail to empty isles for private snorkeling sessions? Check. Float in the waters of the iconic Great Blue Hole? Check. Cast for wahoo lurking beyond one of the planet鈥檚 largest barrier reefs? Check. But good luck prying yourself away from Itz鈥檃na鈥檚 lush 20-acre property. The 30-suite resort sits on the Placencia peninsula, a 16-mile-long finger of perfect white sand that separates a mangrove-lined lagoon from the Caribbean. It鈥檚 all too easy to spend your days bouncing from the , offering one of the largest rum selections in the country, to the , which serves reef-to-table snapper and conch on a deck over the azure water. From $325 鈥擥raham Averill

听

Guatemalan Highland Tour

Guatemala

In 2014, Vermont native Brendan James was working for a nonprofit in Guatemala when some locals loaned him a hardtail mountain bike and led him along ancient Maya paths weaving around Lake Atitl谩n. He found fast trails flowing through cool, alpine forests and a homegrown zeal for the sport that鈥檚 only flourished since. Today, Guatemala is becoming Central America鈥檚 premier fat-tire destination, with newly built singletrack and bike parks opening across the country. James now spends 150 days a year scouting those trails and leading trips for his guiding company, . This year he鈥檚 launching the , a seven-day, 96-mile cross-country epic with 29,000 feet of downhill. Along the way, you鈥檒l follow livestock trails and old agricultural paths past 14th-century ruins, crash in small-town posadas, and relax in natural hot springs. From $2,375 鈥擳im Neville

Mukan Resort

Mexico

Reaching this 听in the Riviera Maya requires a 45-minute speedboat ride through mangrove canals, so it feels far removed from the region鈥檚 hot spot of Tulum. But there are other reasons this luxurious property stands out, namely that its ten suites, bungalows, and villas are among the very few accommodations nestled inside the 1.3-million-acre , a Unesco World Heritage site containing Maya ruins, a section of the 620-mile-long Mesoamerican Reef, and a jungle filled with diverse wildlife including 356 species of birds and 318 species of butterflies. 听in search of sea turtles, scout the biosphere and add threatened birds like the reddish egret to your life list, or fish for tarpon, permit, and barracuda with local guides who have plied these waters since childhood. The day鈥檚 catch is served on a dock over Sian Ka鈥檃n Lagoon. From $420 鈥擲tephanie Pearson

Isla Palenque

Panama

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The Maya Experience, Ka鈥檃na Resort

Guatemala and Belize

Tikal, the capital of Central America鈥檚 ancient Maya civilization, was discovered in Guatemala in the mid-1800s, and its stone temples have been a popular tourist destination for de-cades. But the extensive system of roads and canals that connected Tikal to thousands of previously unknown Maya structures wasn鈥檛 uncovered until 2016, when researchers began using planes and lasers to pierce the dense jungle canopy and map what鈥檚 been dubbed the Maya Megalopolis. Fernando Paiz, whose Foundation for Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage spearheaded the research, also owns the plush 听in neighboring Belize. Last spring he blended his two passions to create Ka鈥檃na鈥檚 new , a deep immersion into the ancient culture. You鈥檒l follow guides into the jungle on the way to the 77-foot-tall temple of Cahal Pech, learn to cook traditional dishes like the citrus-marinated pork known as poc chuc, or ride in a helicopter with Paiz and marvel as he recounts how the network of structures below is just beginning to be understood by archeologists. From $1,117 for two people 鈥擥.A.

Origen Escapes

Costa Rica

This country鈥檚 pura vida energy and epic surf spots aren鈥檛 a secret. But Costa Rica still has plenty of untapped terrain. , a no-expenses-spared bespoke outfitter, specializes in taking clients to the country鈥檚 untouched corners. In December, Origen鈥檚 four owners鈥攊ncluding Ofer Ketter, a former lieutenant in the Israel Defense Force, and expert waterman and Costa Rican native Felipe Artinano鈥攗sed their years of expertise to launch the Transformational Travel Series, a group of one-to-two-week itineraries highlighting environmental responsibility and local conservation efforts. Adventurous travelers can 听or raft 16 miles of jungle-shaded rapids, while citizen scientists can head off the grid with top naturalists to document new species or track migrating hammerhead sharks. From $1,200 per night 鈥擩en Murphy

Sansara Surf and Yoga Resort

Panama

While parts of Central America sometimes feel overrun with surfboard-toting gringos, Panama has maintained an undiscovered vibe, especially along the southerly Azuero peninsula. The country鈥檚 cultural heartland, this region features Spanish colonial churches, biologically diverse national parks, and some seriously great waves from December to May. Located in the sleepy village of Cambutal, 听11 cabanas are just steps from the Pacific Ocean, and with nearby beach, point, and reef breaks, you鈥檙e sure to find the wave you鈥檙e looking for. Choose from all-inclusive weeklong , or create your own 脿 la carte trip filled with offshore tuna fishing, snorkeling, and afternoons spent lounging in the natural pools of a nearby waterfall. No matter which you pick, the use of bikes, SUPs, and kayaks is included in your stay. From $199 鈥擩.M.

Yemaya

Nicaragua

Political unrest in this country over the summer and fall鈥攄uring which protesters clashed with security forces over government corruption鈥攕cared away so many travelers that numerous lodges and tour operators had to shutter their doors. Now, as the turmoil appears to be calming down, traveling here will help these businesses get back on their feet, and resorts that were never near the unrest are enticing visitors with deals. Consider , a 16-bungalow hideaway on the northern tip of Little Corn Island, a carless, 1.2-square-mile dollop of sand 45 miles off the mainland in the Caribbean. The property was revamped in 2017 with five remodeled luxury suites, and it鈥檚 slated to reopen in time for the winter holiday season with cut rates of $95 per night, leaving you to splurge on sundowners from the beachside bar, in-room massages, and 听on its 40-foot handcrafted sailboat. 鈥擳.N.

Acantilados

El Salvador

The surf-focused Salvadorean town of La Libertad has never seen anything like . The sleek 19-room boutique hotel, which opened in November, sits cantilevered over a cliff, exponentially amping the drama of the infinity pool. Surf the classic right-hand point break of El Sunzal in the morning, with or without an expert instructor, then stave off gnawing hunger at El Casco, a renovated century-old colonial house on the property that serves pupusas, tamales, quesadillas, and 苍耻别驳补诲辞蝉鈥�sweet Salvadorean dumplings. In the evening, soak your tired muscles in the saltwater pools, then head to the hotel鈥檚 craft-cocktail bar for a Martini Albahaca y Sandia, a mix of watermelon, basil, and vodka. Hikers should make the 90-minute drive northwest to 听and summit 7,812-foot Santa Ana, the country鈥檚 highest volcano. The view of turquoise Lake Coatepeque is worth it. From $159 鈥擲.P.

Honduran Coffee Route

Honduras

Even though crime has dropped by half over the past five years, Honduras still gets a bad rap. Wandering around the city of Tegucigalpa alone at night was never a great idea, but don鈥檛 judge a country by its capital. This fall, Central America鈥檚 second-largest nation has made it easier than ever for travelers to check out one of the things Hondurans do best: grow delicious coffee. The new 听isn鈥檛 a single road but a network of sustainable farms, regional tasting labs and research centers, and more than 60 lively caf茅s in six distinct growing regions. The maps and resources on the route鈥檚 website will help you craft your itinerary. Keep it simple by focusing on one region鈥攍ike Cop谩n, home to a magnificent tenth-century Maya city and seed-to-cup coffee varietals with hints of chocolate, caramel, and orange. Get a room at (from $124), which once catered to archeologists, and spend a morning taking a hike around Finca Santa Isabel, a 200-acre family-run coffee plantation with 85 species of birds, like white-breasted hawks and bushy-crested jays. If you鈥檇 prefer to have a guide, Cop谩n鈥檚 Xukpi Tours can take care of housing and transportation. 鈥擳.N.

The Whole Shebang

For cyclists who want to see it all鈥擬exico鈥檚 Maya ruins, Guatemala鈥檚 volcano-ringed Lake Atitl谩n, El Salvador鈥檚 sublime surf breaks, Nicaragua鈥檚 colonial cities, Costa Rica鈥檚 jungle, the Panama Canal, and the unsung spaces in between鈥攕ign up for the Mexico City to Panama City leg of . For 2019, this 2,467-mile, 40-day van- and chef-supported portion of the 9,013-mile journey has been rerouted so that all but eight miles are paved (though paved is a relative term, so bring a comfortable bike with beefy tires). From $8,000 鈥擲.P.

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Last spring, I began working on a for on migration in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. I had a photography budget, and I knew I wanted to hire women. Female writers are sorely underrepresented in my profession鈥攊n 2015, in the New Yorker went to men鈥攁nd the situation is even worse for . If you care about good reporting, as I do, it鈥檚 not hard to imagine how serious and far-reaching the effects of this imbalance can be.

鈥淩ight now, women make up roughly 15 percent of the news photographers published in major western news outlets,鈥� explains , founder of , a database to promote the work of female photographers. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not just a problem of affirmative action. It鈥檚 a problem for responsible and nuanced storytelling.鈥�

Working as a reporter in Central America for the past three years, I鈥檝e gotten used to men asking if I鈥檓 married and offering unwanted advice about how to live my life. (鈥淵ou鈥檇 better hurry up,鈥� one cab driver in Mexico City suggested, 鈥渂efore you get ugly!鈥�) The advice is almost always from men I鈥檝e just met, who assume I鈥檓 lost and need their help. And while it鈥檚 usually framed within well-intentioned warnings about the dangers of traveling alone, the subtext has been obvious: If you鈥檙e a woman, you shouldn鈥檛 be doing this.

This was evident during my reporting in Tapachula, a town roughly 25 miles from the Mexico-Guatemala border that has experienced high levels of violence and crime. On my first day, I took a collective bus to Ciudad Hidalgo, on the Suchiate River, where migrants and locals cross the border on giant inner tubes, thus avoiding paperwork and fees. En route, a twentysomething guy sitting behind me leaned in and asked where my husband was. Then he asked, 鈥淒id you know eight men were beheaded in Ciudad Hidalgo this week?鈥�

It was as if, in his mind, those two questions were somehow connected. When I told him it was none of his business, he let out a howling laugh and announced his findings to the entire bus: 鈥淪he is definitely not married!鈥�

My plan was to cross the Suchiate River with migrants, and then visit a migrant shelter in Tec煤n Um谩n, Guatemala, where I could interview residents for the following five days. I traveled with photographer , and even the male migrants we interviewed at the migrant shelters on both sides of the border asked why we weren鈥檛 safely at home with our children. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have any,鈥� we would respond in unison, which prompted more than a few people to ask if we were lesbians.

The day we conducted interviews and took photos at the Bel茅n shelter in Tapachula, there was only one migrant woman present among dozens of men. Ludin G贸mez, 31, a single mother from Santa Rosa de Cop谩n, Honduras, was traveling with her three children: Daniella, 7, Isaac, 9, and Mar铆a Jos茅, 12. 鈥淚 am so glad you women are here,鈥� she told us both. 鈥淪ometimes we think that nobody cares about migrants.鈥�

In March, I spent two weeks living at a in Ciudad Ju谩rez, a town on the U.S.-Mexico border that, like Tapachula, is profoundly affected by violence and human trafficking. Most of the migrants at the Ju谩rez shelter were men traveling alone, but there were several young women with children. At the time, I worked with , a local photographer who said she was often questioned about her choice to travel alone for assignments.

鈥淲hy did you come here? Why are you alone?鈥� an indigenous Zapotec woman asked her in Oaxaca City. 鈥淎ren鈥檛 you afraid to travel alone without a husband and with your camera?鈥�

Some of the mothers at the shelter had been through traumatic experiences along the migrant trail. Itzel, who is a mother of two girls, soon approached them, began exchanging stories, and eventually started taking pictures. Her ease of interaction surprised even me, because I wasn鈥檛 sure whether they would allow their children to be photographed. It occurred to me that Itzel鈥檚 exceedingly powerful photographs might not have been possible if she had been a man.

鈥淚f photojournalists are the lens through which the general public sees the rest of the world,鈥� Zalcman says, 鈥渨e need to make sure storytellers are just as diverse as the people and issues they cover.鈥�

Photographer , my partner on the migration project in El Salvador, had a similar experience in Tunisia. While on assignment shooting video, a man approached her and said he was impressed by her professionalism. He was surprised, he said, 鈥渂ecause there are no female Tunisian photographers.鈥�

Danielle pointed out to him that it was most likely because women are not encouraged to pursue photography as a career, adding that it was like this in the United States, where she was from. He didn鈥檛 seem won over, but I hope other people might be. I hired these women because I admired their body of work, their hustle, their drive, and their faith in the power of photography to move people and create positive social change. I want to see the world represented equally鈥攖hrough our voice, as well as our eyes鈥攁nd I continue to have faith in the power of actions and words to change people鈥檚 perceptions about what women can do.

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The first-ever hammocks were听used by to escape snakes, biting ants, and other creatures they鈥檇 prefer not to wake up next to. For most of us today, however, hammocks are the embodiment of hold-my-calls rest and relaxation. Here鈥檚 where to make that happen听no matter your budget.

Roughing It

Parque Tayrona, Colombia

From $6

For the price of a few ,听you can sleep to the sounds of crashing waves on an open-air hammock overlooking the beautiful听white-sand听beaches of听. Located听on Colombia鈥檚 Caribbean, the park is听known for its snorkeling, but听also听check out the 1.5-mile听uphill hike into the jungle to the ,听a perfect precursor to the three-day 听that begins in Santa Marta, about 30听minutes away. Shell out $95 for a private room that also comes with a hammock.听

Paratay, Brazil

鈥�From $30

Paratay is a tropical beach town about four hours from both听Rio听and听Sao Paulo. Base at this bare-bones mansion听cum听guesthouse, about a 20-minute water shuttle from the town center, and you鈥檒l听get a clean, basic room and quiet beachfront bliss with hammocks.听In Paratay, you can trail bike, kayak, dive, snorkel, or hike through the rainforest on the three-hour Gold Trail through听.听

Antigua, Guatemala

From $40

This hillside escape of treehouses overlooking Guatemala鈥檚 vast volcano range听is a 15-minute taxi ride from听Antigua鈥檚 center. Get the 鈥渄eluxe room鈥� and听you鈥檒l have two private hammocks with views. Feeling social? Crawl out of your arboreal home to snag one of six hammocks scattered about the grounds. Or听grab a trail map from the front desk and enjoy wandering the surrounding countryside.

Sharing Community

Topanga Canyon, California
听
From $95

Topanga Canyon听is one of L.A.鈥檚 more bohemian reaches, as well as a paradise for . This 听is a home鈥檚 guest wing (with a private entrance) surrounded by a听native-plant garden where you鈥檒l find听a cushion- and blanket-strewn hammock over a Mexican-tile patio听with views of the Santa Monica Mountains.听

El Zonte, El Salvador
听
From听$315

Incredible breaks and uncrowded beaches make El Salvador one of the most up-and-coming surf destinations. After riding your last wave, unwind with a swing on one of听the three hammocks at this 12-person, five-bedroom cliff听house. It鈥檚 located along the western surfing corridor and comes with a pool.

Big Island, Hawaii

From听$350

If you鈥檝e never road-tripped around Hawaii鈥檚 Big Island, put it on your to-do list. From the turtle听diving in Kona and hiking in 听to the hidden falls near Hilo and sightseeing in听, it鈥檚 one of the most incredible drives in the United States. Afterward, park yourself in this听hammock with unobstructed views of . The house听comes with its own private beach, Jacuzzi, and swimming pool, and sleeps up to eight.

Splurge

Guadeloupe

From $130

One of the lesser-traveled islands in the Caribbean, Guadeloupe is known for its spectacular beaches, great diving in听the听, and top-notch hiking up the 4,049-foot, still-active听La Soufri猫re volcano. Base out of听,听set on a rainforested hill overlooking the sea.听All the brightly colored rooms are open听air and equipped with hammocks for spontaneous napping.听

Mountain Pine Ridge Reserve, Belize

From $279

In the open-air听Francis Ford Coppola Villa at the听, one of the walls is actually a hammock听affording private rainforest views and sounds from the river below.听Coppola鈥檚 intimate hideaway in the , the first national park in Belize,听is a great base for visiting Mayan sites like (in nearby Guatemala) and exploring the mysterious听.听

Sumba, Indonesia

From $900

This new, much-buzzed-about retreat on the island of Sumba offers surfing, sportfishing, diving, and sunbathing on a private 1.5-mile white-sand beach鈥攁ll the pleasures that drew travelers to nearby听Bali (a 90-minute flight away) before it became overrun. The best spot for apr猫s-adventure lounging: one of 鈥檚听colorful hammocks, which staff set up with pillows and towels, and then deliver freshly picked coconuts with edible听papaya straws.听

听

Three Free Hammock Parks for City Slickers

Governor鈥檚 Island, New York

Governor鈥檚 Island is听New York City鈥檚 favorite听quirky summer playground. It鈥檚听an uninhabited island a from Manhattan with a garden of听red rope hammocks鈥攁听perfect break between biking around the island and kicking back at the (man-made) beach club.听

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania听

,听a lawn of 38听hammocks听on the , is听relaxing way to end your day听听down lively South Street from the University of Pennyslvania campus to Penn鈥檚 Landing.

Vienna, Austria听

The Viennese sure love their hammocks鈥攖he city has a four-story installation in the 听and a 听in the . But for pure open-air swinging bliss,听the place to go is , where a slew of hammocks have been installed every May to October听since 2011.

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Many of the world鈥檚 volcanoes are scattered around the Ring of Fire鈥攖he coastlines and islands that border the Pacific Ocean, from southwestern South America up to northeast Asia鈥� but you鈥檒l find action on every continent. Of course, you鈥檒l also find mule rides, Jeep guides, eco-tours, and every bell or whistle you can conceive of. But there鈥檚 still room on these mountains for hiking purists.

Pacaya, Guatemala

Pacaya is a Central American classic. Just outside Antigua, it鈥檚 a short, steep climb, generally busy with tour groups and touts offering horse rides to the top. But never mind the crowds and commerce: The two-mile trail will get your blood pumping, and the last stretch covers some more challenging volcanic terrain. The highlight is the trail鈥檚 proximity to red-hot, active lava flows. Get into the tourist-trap spirit and toast a marshmallow or two at the top.

Eyjafjallaj枚kull, Iceland

Call this one the current affairs option. This Icelandic volcano made its name in 2010, when ash from its most recent eruption wreaked havoc on global air travel for several days. It鈥檚 a long day trip from the capital, Reykjavik, with big views of the island’s mountains, glaciers, and coastline as you climb. Eyjafjallaj枚kull is just shy of 5,500 feet, and the upper portions of the hike require crampons and crevasse awareness. There are plenty of guided outfits; some will even let you ski back down.

Mount Fuji, Japan

Japan鈥檚 famous cone sees crowds of climbers during the peak months of July and August. In summer, . In winter, it’s an alpine climbing excursion. Hiking Fuji-san is far from a wilderness experience鈥攖he trail is dotted along the way with rental huts and vendors, although there are alternate routes with fewer intrusions (and fewer hikers). But the mountain tops out at nearly 12,400 feet, so climbers need to be aware of the altitude and the possibility of severe weather. If you want to get the full Fuji experience, plan to climb overnight and reach the summit in time for sunrise.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii

Kilauea, one of two volcanoes in the , is riddled with trails. The Crater Rim trail is a demanding 11-mile circuit of Kilauea鈥檚 open mouth, complete with steam vents, volcanic gasses, and a quirky mixture of rainforest and desert. Intersecting with that trail is Kilauea Iki, a four-mile loop that drops hikers right onto the steaming caldera floor. Visitors with respiratory problems should talk to a ranger before attempting either trail.

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Krasnodar, Russia — Russians, it would seem, do not particularly like, nor do they expect, a jogger to be trotting along the side of one of the narrow streets that wind through this city of 750,000. Admittedly, this is a rather rash generalization, but I’ve nearly been hit twice during the first five minutes of my morning run. One time, I’ll admit, was at least partially my fault. Apparently, it’s legal, or at least socially encouraged, to go right on red without making any attempt to slow down out here. Noted. But the other driver鈥攖he one in the old, dirty BMW鈥擨 would swear that dude (that comrade?) was aiming directly for me. I avoided him by jumping over a ditch onto the barely-there sidewalk, but it was touch-and-go for a couple of terrifying milliseconds.

My plane landed in this southern Russian city eight hours ago in the pitch black of the Eastern European night. It’s lighter now, but only marginally so. A thick fog replaced the inky sky around 6:30 this morning. I’m running鈥攖aking my life in my hands, or feet, or something鈥攂ecause I find it’s the best way to get a feel for a new place. It’s too much to say that a five-mile jog through an unfamiliar location offers any hard truths, but what, other than a sustained life in a certain place, actually does? On faster-than-walking foot you will gain plenty of initial impressions you wouldn’t in a car, a taxi cab, or any other means of transportation. Running forces you to pay attention in a very specific way, one that forces some kind of insight into your immediate situation.

Under normal circumstances, these self-psychologizing observations are generally focused inward鈥攖he zen of jogging or some such鈥攂ut strange, unfamiliar territory forces you to focus on what鈥檚 around you鈥攖he different buildings, the unsuspecting local pedestrians, the unexpected cracks and bumps and depressions. It’s helpful and, quite frankly, a smarter way to run. After all, you never know when a car will come flying unexpectedly around a corner. (Pro tip: Leave your headphones home. You need all your senses about you.)

Krasnodar is cold and grey, both the buildings and the people on the streets; it’s the stuff of James Bond films and Cold War stereotypes. It’s an initial impression that is confirmed over the next 48 hours when countless citizens, or at least pretty much everyone who speaks English, ask me whether is important back home because of the non-war war our countries fought more than 20 years ago. I don’t have the heart to tell them most Americans care even less about the Cold War than they do about the beautiful game.

In Thiruvananthapuram, India, the capital city of the country’s Kerala state, however, citizens very much do care about football. They wear jerseys everywhere, Lionel Messi’s blue-and-red Barcelona kit mixing with Wayne Rooney’s only-red Manchester United top. The owners of the uniforms may support different clubs, but they are united in the quizzical looks I got while jogging through the streets on a midsummer day last year. No one does this. No one really does anything in the middle of the day. It’s too hot.

There’s also too much construction. I expected the Indian city to be bustling, a growing center of commerce like much of the rest of the country, but this is ridiculous. Workers dig up something on nearly every road. Traffic backs up and cars careen through narrow lanes. This is mid-progress鈥攁 town in transformation. The reality is even more apparent on foot where you can really feel the non-stop pulse of the change. It continues, mile after mile, turning a normally confusing network of roads into an unnavigable mass. The transition to a first-world country comes at the expense of jogging paths, it appears. Not a bad trade, except for yours truly. (It also makes recording the run in an absolute nightmare, albeit an amusing one.)

Running in strange cities helps a newcomer like myself understand the tenor of the citizens and gives some general insight into the socio-economics of a place, but it also helps with the geography. In Guatemala City, the surprisingly thin air at the high altitude was noticeable. Mexico City was even more dramatic. It took half-an-hour to regain my breath after a morning jog, although being 8,000 feet above sea level wasn’t the issue; it was the pollution and smog.

Really, what running does is it gives you a different perspective on the same place. You have no option but to observe your surroundings, to get a sense of where you are. If you do it right, you move relatively slowly but consistently down streets, across parks, and over bridges. The never-ending tableau changes faster than it does when you are walking, allowing you to cover more ground, but not in the fits, starts, and sensory depravation that comes with motorized transportation. Running might be an abnormal way to travel through a city, but for me there’s no better way to begin to understand one. It doesn’t always work, and the lessons are limited by the nature of how they are learned, but it’s effective. San Francisco, Mendoza, Honduras, etc. all made more sense more quickly than they otherwise would have. I’ll trade Lonely Planet for a long run any day.

Back in Krasnodar, I had one more main drag to cross before reaching my hotel. Instead of going alone, I waited with a elderly man in a Russian army uniform. Cars flew by. Finally, we saw an opening, and then sprinted across the street together. There’s strength in numbers. You learn something every day.

Noah Davis () is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.

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It鈥檚 awfully hard鈥攖hough not impossible鈥攖o find a long network of decently paved roads in most island and tropical countries. Your mountain biking options are somewhat better: mostly uncrowded trails through scenery that will make all of your gearhead friends at home jealous. Here are my on- and off-pavement recommendations. I鈥檓 sticking to the Caribbean and Central America because they鈥檙e the most accessible. If you’re going solo, bring your bike or make sure to figure out where you’ll rent one beforehand鈥攎ost outfitters in these parts only rent rigs to people taking one of their guided tours.

Turrialba, Costa Rica
The tiny town of Turrialba, about an hour east of San Jose in the Central Valley, is the inland adventure capital of Costa Rica. Though most people think of it as a whitewater rafting hub for the roiling Pacuare and Reventazon rivers, it鈥檚 also mountain biking central. custom-plans mountain biking trips for all levels, on everything from dirt plantation roads to snaking singletrack on the flanks of the rumbling, and still very much active, 5,400-foot Arenal Volcano. Their nine-day mountain-to-Caribbean tour starts at $3,000 per person. operates a five-day all-inclusive biking, hiking, and rafting tour through the area starting at $1,000 per person.

Blue Mountains, Jamaica
If you stand on the highest point of the 7,400-foot Blue Mountains on a clear day, you can see almost the entire length of Jamaica. Considering that its tallest ridges lie barely more than 10 miles from the coastline, you get an idea of how precipitous its jungle-laden slopes are. leads three-hour downhill rides that switchback on pavement from top to bottom. The ride isn’t challenging, but the scenery as you descend through alpine jungle zones makes the trip completely worthwhile. Bonus: you get to end the day with a waterfall swim. Tours start at $98.

Curacao
The most vibrant cycling community in the Caribbean is on the 40-mile-long by 9-mile-wide, moustache-shaped island of Curacao. Its paved roads are home to the annual 45-mile Amstel Curacao Race, which attracts some of the world鈥檚 top cyclists. It’s also home to several different mountain bike networks that vary in difficulty from .听 Viprides rents bikes for $20 a day, and can give you advice on where to go. operates mountain bike tours starting at $40 for a half day.

Antigua, Guatemala
Between the nearby 12,000-foot volcanoes and its proximity to the Pacific coast, the 500-year-old Spanish settlement of Antigua, Guatemala, is an ideal base camp for adventure. It鈥檚 also the mountain biking capital of Central America, home to hundreds of miles of singletrack and old jeep roads in the surrounding highlands. leads everything from half-day to multi-day rides.

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