Leaving Colorado for Ecuador last year, it felt like we were making a huge jump without a net. The middle-of-the-night jitters would wake me with all kinds of “What if?” questions.

It’s Sunday morning and chef Susan Pasko is at the big six-top gas stove at Café Bahia. She’s got six tickets on the board, including five orders for her signature weekend dish, eggs Benedict.

Everyone knows about the treasures in Europe’s great national museums, but exquisite wonders lurk undetected in smaller, overlooked collections.

I just bought a house on the beach in northeast Brazil. Now, for the first time, I can walk out my front door, cross the white sand, and dive into warm, turquoise waters.

If you stroked my feather-soft alpaca blankets from Ecuador’s Andean highlands, you’d long to snuggle into them. To the Incas, alpacas—which look like miniature llamas—translated into wealth. Alpaca fleece is similar to sheep’s wool, but much softer.

Beachfront property not only makes sense as a pure investment—after all, they’re not making any more of it—but it can also make an ideal second home.