Morgan's Rock Hacienda & Ecolodge

What does it even mean to be an ecolodge in this day and age? On the Pacific side of Nicaragua, just to the north of the Costa Rican border, you’ll find your answer. Morgan’s Rock Hacienda & Ecolodge occupies 4,000 acres of jungle alongside a beautiful crescent-shaped beach, and fully half the land is a private reserve — which means not only do sea turtles nest and hatch here, but the woods are full of howler monkeys, white-tipped deer, and sloths. With neighbors like these you’d settle for an ordinary hotel, if not a tumbledown shack — which makes Morgan’s Rock’s bungalows and villas all the more impressive by comparison.

To be fair, they’re impressive by any standard; under their thatched roofs they’re all clean-lined woodwork and bare-bones luxury. Ocean-view bungalows perch on the cliffside above the beach, and have hanging daybeds on their balconies. Others add a terrace with a plunge pool, and the villas add a second bedroom. You’re immersed in nature even within your bungalow, with the sights and sounds of the jungle all around. But you didn’t come all this way to stop there — the reserve’s flora and fauna are astonishing, and to get out and about on your own, you need only pull on your boots, or borrow a mountain bike or a kayak from your obliging hosts.