9 Best places to stay in The Amazon

Set on a creek surrounded by rainforest, AmazonEcopark feels like the heart of the wild, yet it’s only a ten-minute boat ride from suburban Manaus. Rooms are spread out among the trees, linked by illuminated paths that lead to the restaurant, pier and four natural pools.

With a range of comfortable rooms, easy light adventure tours (including walks in the rainforest and night safaris) and a small beach, the lodge is a good choice for first-time visitors and families with children.

This beautiful eco lodge sits in pristine, remote forest in Ecuador’s lower Pastaza Basin – one of the headwaters of the Amazon. The land belongs to the Achuar indigenous nation who regard the region as sacred. While transfers and infrastructure are managed in conjunction with an experienced tour operator in Quito, the Achuar own and run the lodge and use the income to protect their livelihood and land.

Rooms sit in thatched bungalows built to traditional Achuar designs (but decked out and furnished for Western comfort). They sit over bird-rich wetlands in primary rainforest, but stays focus on indigenous culture as much as wildlife.

Lodge locations don’t get much better than this – rooms are perched on the upper branches of giant trees and connected by rope bridges. All have 360-degree viewing balconies and the largest is big enough for a family – with three separate bedrooms. You’ll wake up to sunrise over the Amazon rainforest, and capuchin monkeys and macaws eating fruit from the trees right outside your window.

The lodge itself sits next to a small Amazon tributary, the Yarapa, on the edge of the 2-million-hectare Pacaya Samiria national reserve – the biggest protected area in Peru.

Sacha sits on the edge of extensive lowland rainforest adjacent to the 112-hectare Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, overlooking Pilchicocha – a beautiful black-water lake connected by backwaters to the Rio Napo, Ecuador’s principal Amazon tributary.

With plantations a few kilometres away, the lodge is not heart-of-the-wild. But few rainforest stays come with more comfort. Rooms are decked out in warm woods and come with quality linens, en suites and balconies with rainforest views.

The food, wildlife guiding (especially for birds) and overall services are excellent; the lodge has its own canopy walkway, and offers seamless rainforest and Galapagos cruise packages.

This upscale rainforest hotel with beautiful views out over the Madre de Dios river (a tributary of the Amazon proper) is only a 45-minute boat ride from the hub town of Puerto Maldonado.

Though set in its own recovered, secondary forest preserve, it’s too close to human settlements to be pristine: there are jungle lodges in wilder Amazon settings – even nearby. But none are more comfortable than Inkaterra: huge, airy and secluded high thatch-roofed wooden cabanas/bungalows, some with their own plunge pools, soft cotton sheets and hypoallergenic pillows. There’s even a spa.

Reachable from Iquitos in less than an hour, and with a swimming pool, water slide and Jacuzzi. Ceiba Tops is a popular choice for visitors looking for a brush with the rainforest rather than wilderness immersion. It’s very popular with families from Iquitos – who flock here at weekends.

Rooms – simple air-conditioned cubes housed in bungalows – feel more hotel than jungle lodge. Tours are family-friendly and include light rainforest walks, boat trips on smaller creeks and a full-day excursion to the Explorama Canopy walkway, owned by the hotel and one of the longest in the Amazon.

This is one of the best lodges for wildlife, guiding and ecotourism practice in the Amazon, with rooms floating on a river in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve – part of the 52 million-hectare Central Amazon Ecological Corridor, one of the largest protected areas on the planet.

This is the heart of the wild. Rooms sit on the water (you can hear river dolphins and caiman-crocodiles in the water as you lie in bed), with the suites linked by floating bridges. Pristine rainforest lies all around. Boat trips, hikes and other activities provided at the lodge are first class.

For Amazon landscapes, locations don’t get better than this: balcony rooms offer views over the Rio Negro and the myriad forest-covered islands of the Anavilhanas archipelago.

Nor do Amazon stays get more comfortable. Rooms in thatch-roofed cabins come in lush woods and hammock-slung balconies, beds come with high thread count linens front walls are entirely glass-fronted. There’s a cocktail bar and the food is excellent. Best of all are those magical sunsets over the Anavilhanas – when millions of birds flock into the archipelago to roost.

If you want to see lowland Amazon wildlife, there is no better rainforest location than Cristalino – this is where scientists come to study the Amazon.

The service and facilities are second to none – with expert naturalist guides, canopy towers and hides next to salt and clay licks, used by endangered wild animals.

The accommodation – in beautifully designed, glass-fronted bungalows – is as comfortable as it gets. Visits can be combined with the Pantanal Wetlands – the best place in the world to see wild jaguars.

It’s great for families with kids (aged five and over only), with bungalows sleeping up to four. The lodge provides guides to take kids on wildlife-spotting treks into the forest, regaling them with stories.