Adventurers are rewarded with a mostly-empty beach to soak in the sun and short hikes to nearby waterfalls.

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Gadwood, like 1, 200 researchers, was stranded like a shell on an empty beach.

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"Picture this, " he says later, standing near an expanse of mostly empty beach, stretching as far as the eye can see.

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That changed in 1996 when a small group of dedicated volunteers with the Topsail Turtle Project stood on an empty lot in Topsail Beach, N.

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Picinguaba is every Brazilian-beach fantasy come to life: laid-back, sultry, simple, with seemingly endless empty beaches and dense rain forest both close by.

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