The Most Beautiful Botanical Gardens in the World

Sat at the foot of Corcovado Mountain, roughly in the shadow of Christ the Redeemer’s right arm, is a sprawling gardens that has been for over 200 years. As well as over 6,500 plant species, this place has long been a key research centre, with a huge library dedicated to botany, as well as numerous monuments of historical, artistic, and archaeological significance. Keep an eye in the sky, too, as there are around 150 different species of bird flapping about, including toucans and hawks. There’s even the occasional monkey swinging from branch to branch! You’ll get to visit this Unesco-listed gardens on our nine-day Brazil trip, which spends four days in Rio de Janeiro. The country’s most iconic city is famous for beaches and a vibrant culture, but it’s also a nature lover’s haven, with Sugarloaf, Corcovado, the botanical gardens and Tijuca Forest, the largest urban forest on Earth, all of which you’ll visit on our trip.

The tightly packed streets of old Marrakech are hardly synonymous with greenery, but tucked away a little outside the old medina is this striking botanical landscape garden. The site was created by noted French Orientalist artist Jacques Majorelle over a 40-year period starting in 1923. It’s a pretty small space, about one hectare (or two acres), centred around a charming bright blue cubist villa designed by Fresh architect Paul Sinoir. The gardens are embellished with cacti, sculptures and fountains, as well as around 15 endemic North African bird species. Indoors, meanwhile, is the Berber Museum and a selection of Majorelle’s own paintings. You’ll have a free afternoon in the city on the last full day of our 11-day Morocco tour, and we can’t think of a better place to reflect on the adventure of a lifetime.

While many botanical gardens are found in major cities, Helia Bravo Hollis Botanical Garden couldn’t be more off the beaten path, in the area of Zapotitlan Salinas deep in the central heartlands of Mexico. The gardens were named after a female botanist, who herself has six species of cacti named after her. It’s plants of the prickly variety that dominate this landscape, with countless cacti sprouting amid unique rock formations in the region’s rugged valleys. What’s most joyful about this garden, as well as the fact it’s just so unique, is that the plants are well within their natural habitat, as part of the wider Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve, an area that still looks like a classic stretch of the old west. This eight-day Mexican extravaganza includes a visit to the gardens en route to Oaxaca.