There are places where the landscape becomes part of the experience long before arrival. The Amazon is one of them.

In 2028, Seabourn invites you to experience this extraordinary region on a new 30-day Amazon Explorer: Rivers & Rainforests luxury ocean voyage. Sailing roundtrip from Miami, the itinerary visits 15 destinations across seven countries, combining scenic cruising along the Amazon River with calls at riverside communities and two days in Manaus, a historic city surrounded by rainforest and the region’s cultural heart.

Stretching across northern South America, the Amazon is home to remarkable biodiversity, one of the world's most legendary waterways, and communities whose lives are shaped entirely by its currents.

This is not an expedition. It's something rarer: a chance to see all of that unfold from the deck of a ship built for ease as much as discovery, during Seabourn's 40th anniversary Ruby Jubilee year.

Following the River

The voyage begins in familiar territory, threading through Caribbean calls at Saint Barthélemy, Trinidad and Grenada, before the water itself begins to change. Somewhere past French Guiana's Devil's Island, the ocean gives way to river, and the horizon starts to close in with green.

From here, the journey becomes something more intimate. You will cruise the Amazon itself, watching the landscape shift by the hour — dense rainforest canopy, stilted riverside villages, fishing boats moving along water the color of strong tea. At Santarém, that water tells its own story: this is where the muddy brown Amazon meets the clear blue-green Tapajós, the two rivers running side by side for miles before slowly blending into one. Farther along, a stop at Boca da Valeria offers a rare, unhurried look at daily life in a small community shaped entirely by the river's rhythms.

It's about as close to a destination as travel gets, not because you are roughing it, but because the ship's intimate scale lets it reach places larger vessels simply can't.

Manaus: The Amazon's Unexpected Cultural Capital

If the river is the spine of this voyage, Manaus is its heart. Most itineraries treat this Brazilian city as a brief port call. This one gives it room to breathe: an overnight stay that stretches into nearly two full days, enough time to actually get to know a place many travelers never expect to find in the middle of a rainforest.

Manaus rose to prominence during the rubber boom of the late 1800s, when fortunes made in the jungle were spent importing the finest materials Europe had to offer, and the city still wears that history. At the Teatro Amazonas, the opera house at the center of it all, marble floors and hand-painted ceilings arrived by ship from across the Atlantic, assembled deep in the Amazon basin as a monument to ambition. The Customs House came from just as far: prefabricated in Liverpool and shipped across the ocean more than a century ago, it's stood on the riverbank ever since. Nearby, the Rio Negro Palace — built for a German rubber baron and later home to the state's governors — hints at just how much wealth once passed through this port.

Beyond the landmarks, Manaus reveals itself through its senses. At the Municipal Market, a local guide can point out fish pulled from the river that morning, fruit that exists nowhere outside the Amazon basin, and medicinal herbs used by river communities for generations. When evening falls, the city's restaurants bring those same ingredients to the table, and its streets fill with music and life along the Rio Negro waterfront.

Guests on this special voyage can also look forward to these included curated tours that reveal two very different sides of Manaus:

With two days here, there's time to see it all — museums and markets by day, a performance or a stroll along the water by night — and still have room to wander at your own pace, whether that means lingering at the opera house or simply watching the city go by from a riverside café. It's the difference between checking a box and actually getting to know a place.

Beyond Manaus: The Amazon's Many Faces

Manaus may be the highlight, but it's far from the whole story. At Parintins, one of the river's most vibrant destinations, guests will experience the Boi Bumba Show, one of the greatest folk festivals in Brazil. It is a world full of magic, bright colors, music, dance and folklore — a feast for the senses. The luxurious costumes and floats, comparable to those seen at Rio's Carnival, are a spectacle. Today, performers dance and sing, celebrating the joy of life in a mesmerizing display of revelry, while the captivating story of disputing families — the Cids and the Monteverdes — unfolds.

The Seabourn Experience

What makes this possible is the ship itself. You return each evening to an ocean-front suite, most with a private veranda, and to the kind of personalized service that anticipates your every need. Regional cuisine inspired by the journey appears on menus, local entertainment comes onboard after dark, and Seabourn Conversations — our enrichment program of presentations and discussions with leading thinkers, cultural voices and subject-matter experts — adds context to everything you have seen that day.

It's this balance that defines the voyage: the wonder of the world's largest rainforest, met with the comfort, thoughtful design and understated luxury that have long defined Seabourn. You don't have to choose between discovery and comfort here — sailing deep into the Amazon, you get both.