Eco-lodges and camps.

The 20 stays in this collection share one trait: the lodge is the trip. Many are reached by boat or a long road, and about half sell packages rather than nights, with meals, guides and transfers in the price. Tucan Amazon Lodge on Lake Acajatuba includes meals, daily excursions and the transfers from Manaus. Inkaterra Reserva Amazónica, about 45 minutes by boat from Puerto Maldonado, includes meals and guided excursions. Sukau Rainforest Lodge on the Kinabatangan sells three-day, two-night packages from RM 2,650 a person with the boat safaris built in. Compare package with package, not one lodge's package with another place's nightly rate.

The lodges cluster in a few regions. Peru has four: three in the lowlands of Tambopata (Inkaterra, Posada Amazonas and Refugio Amazonas, the last two about an hour by road and an hour by boat from Puerto Maldonado's airport) and Cock-of-the-Rock Lodge at about 1,600 m in the cloud forest on the Manu road. Sabah in Borneo has four: Sukau and Tungog on the Kinabatangan, Borneo Rainforest Lodge inside the Danum Valley Conservation Area, and Sepilok Nature Lodge in the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve. Sri Lanka has two, the Rainforest Ecolodge at the edge of Sinharaja and a tented camp near Yala. Colombia has three: Calanoa on the Amazon, Mundo Nuevo above Minca and Ecohabs inside Tayrona. Brazil, Puerto Rico and Belize have two each, and Ecuador one, Sani Lodge in Yasuní.

Several are owned or run by the communities around them. Posada Amazonas belongs to the Ese-Eja community of Infierno. Sani Lodge is owned by the Kichwa community of Sani Isla, which protects 31,178 hectares of forest. Tungog Rainforest Eco Camp is run by KOPEL, the Batu Puteh village cooperative, and its revenue funds forest restoration.

Daily life runs on the lodge's schedule: set meal times, early starts for clay licks and bird displays (the cock-of-the-rock lek performs beside its lodge each morning) and, at the remote ones, little or no phone signal. Tungog has none and lights its platforms with gas lamps. Comfort ranges from Tucan's air-conditioned stilted chalets and Sepilok's chalets with hot water to the three tented chalets and candlelit dinners at Tree Tops Jungle Lodge. Each stay page carries what our record holds and links to the lodge's own site, where current packages and rates are published.