After spending a week traversing the jungle and savannah in one of the most biodiverse countries on earth, I felt that nothing in Guyana could surpass what I had already experienced: encountering anteaters in the wild, swimming with capybaras, spotting rare birds in the rainforest, and searching for jaguars at night.

Aaron Kellum gestured toward the Colorado River sliding past the banks of Camp Eddy, a collection of vintage Airstreams and custom tiny homes perched on the water's edge in Grand Junction, Colorado. The general manager and former raft guide could have been describing the whole Western Slope when he said, "To be in a place where we get to share that with other people is something I'm never going to take for granted."

“Watch us come back with a dog,” I joked to my partner as we packed our things for four months on Mexico’s Pacific coast. As it turned out, it was less of a joke than I thought. When you think of Mexico, street dogs probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind. But outside of the resorts and villas that most tourists associate with Mexico, things are different. The country has the largest number of Mexican street dogs in Latin America. The National Institute of Statistics and Geography estimates that about 70 percent of the 18 million dogs in Mexico live on the street, born as strays or simply abandoned. It’s a statistic that becomes overwhelmingly evident as you walk around.