Of special note from this year’s Jewish film festival: a trio of uniquely personal biodocs. The festival runs February 9-20. Visit the SDJFF website for more information. Eddy’s World (2020) What a joy! We open …

June 2020 UPDATE: The Brazilian state of Amazonas has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic – with the capital, Manaus, having the only intensive care beds in the state. Read more about how …

After months of continuous Olympic coverage two years ago, the questions still being asked about Rio de Janeiro likely include: "Wow! Rio looks incredible - is it really that beautiful?" And: "Wow! Is Rio really …

A chance encounter at the Doheny Blues Festival two years ago proved to be a pivotal moment for North Park blues woman Whitney Shay, who met a Brazilian guitarist/concert promoter named Igor Prado. “A couple …

I’ve been traveling around the world for years and always attempt to practice socially responsible tourism. I had read about the Ariau Amazon Towers for several years and decided to make it my eco-lodge destination …

My head was pounding. Fireworks crackled overhead. Hordes jeered, screamed, waved and then broke into joyous whirls of samba. The smell was unbearable, an open sewer ran beside our Sambódromo warm-up lane, and yet thousands …

I picked the wrong year to stop sniffing glue – but of that, later. The following post makes me vulnerable A) because I'm not given to beauty salons anywhere, and B) you'd never find it …

Those who abide in the coastal state of Bahia in northeastern Brazil live according to something like "tidal time": when it ebbs, and it ebbs hundreds of meters, it's time for business; when it flows, …

Below the heat and subtropical savannas that spread out across millions of acres of the sub-Amazonian Brazilian interior is the Serra Gaúcha. "Serra" is a Latin American subtropical forest. The Gaúcho is the Latin American …

Warning: the following may make you feel the full weight of the modern guy/gal's addiction to well-produced, low-cost goods consumed en masse. (Yes, Starbucks.) Our last night of holiday travel, we were in Ipanema and …

When I was a young San Diego grom, long weekenders meant the following: My dad piled me, my brothers and some friends into our VW van and we camped and surfed in San Clemente. Despite …

Paraty (pada-chee), a town on the southeast coast of Rio state, is like a top-shelf drink — from the aged, distilled waterfront of Brazil’s colonial history, to the calm, primal ecological beauty of the coastal …

After several months of lodging in hostels throughout Brazil, we (my wife and I) decided to let our cash cascade into the Hotel das Cataratas Iguassu — a beautiful, if somewhat corporate, upscale resort with …

“Thirty percent of Brazilians live in favelas,” says Michael David Lynch, proprietor of Albergue Pedras da Sereia in Salvador, speaking of neighborhoods like the one he moved to 25 years ago. Basically, favelas are built …

“They tried to make me go to rehab: I said meow, meow, meow…” Here's a cure for the common Hollywood rehab story: Deep in the Brazilian cerrado lies a rehabilitation center for eight species of …