★★★★★★★★★★ Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado Train
★★★★★★★★★★ Sugarloaf Cable Car Official Ticket
Rio takes three days. Brazil takes rather longer.
Which Corcovado ticket skips the van queue. What the boat out to Ilha Grande costs. Whether the falls are better from the Brazilian side. Reviews of every tour you can book in Brazil.
Corcovado, Sugarloaf, the falls, and a boat to the islands.
The four bookings a first Brazilian trip is built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
- 01The first morningChrist the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado TrainThe cog train up through Tijuca forest to the statue. Take an early slot, before the cloud settles on the peak.
- 02The second eveningSugarloaf Cable Car Official TicketTwo cable cars to the top of Sugarloaf. Go an hour before sunset and watch the bay light up on the way down.
03The two-country dayFull-Day Tour of Brazil & Argentina SidesBoth sides of Iguaçu in one long day out of Foz. Brazil gives you the panorama, Argentina puts you over the Devil’s Throat.
04The island dayAngra dos Reis and Ilha Grande Full-Day TourAngra dos Reis and Ilha Grande, green water and no cars. The day everyone comes home talking about.
The statue, the sugarloaf and the forest between them.
Three ways to spend a first day in Rio, each with its own queue, its own weather window and its own price. Corcovado wants the morning, Sugarloaf wants the last of the light, and the forest in between wants boots.
Six Brazilian cities, and the day out that earns the flight.
A bay with a mountain in it, a waterfall the size of a weather system, the coffee capital, a colonial port on the Costa Verde, the Atlantic-facing capital of Bahia, and a river you can spend a week on.
Half of Brazil is reached by hull.
Schooners out of Angra, speedboats under the falls, the slow crossing to Ilha Grande and the green coves of Arraial do Cabo. Book the boat days first, because they are the ones the weather moves.
- 1Angra dos Reis and Ilha Grande Full-Day Tourfrom $77
- 2Sunset Sailing Tourfrom $75
- 3Sunset Sailboat Tour with Open Barfrom $57
Iguaçu: one day on the Brazilian side, one on the Argentine.
Everything in Foz do Iguaçu →
The Brazilian bank gives you the whole horseshoe in one view and takes half a day. The Argentine side puts you on catwalks over the Devil’s Throat and takes a full one. Almost nobody regrets doing both.
Both sides, or just the panorama
The one-day double crosses into Argentina and back, so bring the passport and expect queues at the bridge. If you only have a morning, the Brazilian trail is the one with the postcard.
Parque das Aves, across the road
Toucans and macaws at arm’s length in walk-in enclosures, five minutes from the park gate. It fills the half day the Brazilian side leaves over.
Macuco Safari, under the falls
A jeep run through the forest, then a rigid inflatable straight into the spray below Salto Três Mosqueteiros. Dry bag for the phone, swimsuit under the clothes.
Brazil’s most popular days out.
Every Brazilian tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than any other day out in the country. What each one is, what it costs, and who it suits.
1
6-Stop Highlights of Rio with Lunch
Cover Rio’s essential sights in eight hours with hotel pickup, entry to Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, plus outside visits to Maracanã, the Sambadrome, and Selarón Steps. Multilingual guides such as João, Carlos, Ursula, and Roger lead the day, while an all-you-can-eat buffet keeps the schedule moving.
From · $130
Read our review →
2
Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado Train
from $45
3
Sugarloaf Cable Car Official Ticket
from $46
4
Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf, Selaron & BBQ Lunch
from $69
5
Half-Day Rocinha Favela Walking Tour
from $35
6
Angra dos Reis and Ilha Grande Full-Day Tour
from $77
7
Full-Day Tour of Brazil & Argentina Sides
from $63
8
Beginner Samba Lesson in Ipanema
from $25
The rainforest starts inside the city limits.
Tijuca is the biggest urban forest in the world and it begins twenty minutes from Ipanema. Jeep tracks to waterfalls, a trail up Pedra Bonita, the slab at Pedra do Telégrafo with the whole coast behind it.
What you actually pay for a day out here.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. A surprising number of the best Brazilian days come in under the price of dinner in Ipanema.
Entry tickets, favela walks, samba lessons, city walking tours and the cable cars.
The full-day standards: both sides of Iguaçu, the island boats, jeep days in Tijuca.
Helicopter circuits, tandem flights off Pedra Bonita and private guides for a whole day.
- 1Hang Gliding Adventurefrom $229
- 2Helicopter Tourfrom $220
- 3Hang Gliding Tandem Flightfrom $301
Three days out that exist only here.
Beaches and viewpoints exist everywhere. Launching off a mountain onto a city beach, a hillside neighbourhood that runs its own tours, and a rehearsal hall the size of an aircraft hangar do not.
The flight from Pedra Bonita
A wooden ramp juts out of the rock above São Conrado, and pilots run off it in tandem with a passenger strapped in front. The glide lasts ten to fifteen minutes over forest and apartment blocks and finishes with a walking landing on the sand at Praia do Pepino. Flights go in the morning, when the air is smooth, and are called off at short notice when the wind swings onshore.
- 1Hang Gliding Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 760 reviews
- 2Hang Gliding Tandem Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 426 reviews
- 3Paragliding Tandem Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 186 reviews
Tours the neighbourhood runs itself
Rocinha holds a hundred thousand people on a hillside above the tunnel to São Conrado, and the walking tours are led by residents who grew up in it. You go up by moto-taxi and come down on foot through the alleys, past the bakeries and the rooftop views, with a stop at the workshops and stalls that take the money directly. The tone is matter-of-fact rather than sentimental.
- 1Half-Day Rocinha Favela Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,272 reviews
- 2Favela Santa Marta Top Tour with Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 488 reviews
- 3Favela Santa Marta Tour with Resident Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 220 reviews
Behind the Carnival floats
The big schools build their floats in warehouses in the docklands, and several open the doors year round. You see the costumes at close range, the float chassis mid-build, and usually get a lesson on the drum line. In the weeks before Carnival the rehearsals move to the Sambadrome and the whole thing gets louder.
- 1Beginner Samba Lesson in Ipanema★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,071 reviews
- 2Pub Crawl in Lapa with Cachaça Tasting and Live Samba★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 881 reviews
- 3Carnival Backstage Tour at Samba City with Cocktail★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 520 reviews
Four bookings that run on somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast for the same afternoon. These four run on timed entry, match calendars and a weather window that closes without asking.
- 01Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado TrainEntry up Corcovado is timed and capped. The morning slots go first, and they are the ones with the view before the cloud arrives.
- 02Maracanã Stadium Official Entrance TicketThe stadium tour closes on match days and the day before a big fixture. Check the fixture list before you pick a date.
- 03Hang Gliding AdventureTandem flights go in the calm morning air and are cancelled outright when the wind turns onshore. Book the first day of your stay so there is room to try again.
- 04Carnival Backstage Tour at Samba City with CocktailCarnival week sells out months ahead and prices roughly double. The rehearsals in the weeks before it are the cheap way in.
Summer in Rio ends most afternoons in a downpour.
December to March the heat builds all morning and lets go around four, and the cloud sits on Corcovado for days at a time. The answer is to move the sightseeing early and put the afternoon under a roof: a samba hall, a churrascaria, the stadium, a workshop where somebody teaches you the steps.
The Costa Verde: green water, no cars, four hours of coast road.
Angra dos Reis counts its islands in the hundreds. Ilha Grande banned cars altogether. Arraial do Cabo has the clearest water on the whole coast and Búzios has the restaurants. All four are a day trip from Rio, and all four are better as a night or two.
Every day out south of Rio →
Manaus is a city in the middle of the river.
An opera house eleven hundred miles upstream, and the Meeting of the Waters just outside town where the black Rio Negro runs alongside the brown Solimões for miles without mixing. Lodges take you further in: canoe channels, night caiman spotting, a hammock and a long boat ride.
- 1One-Day Amazon Jungle Experiencefrom $100
- 2Presidente Figueiredo Waterfalls Daytripfrom $90
- 3From Manuas: Full-Day River Tourfrom $100
By place — coast, falls and river
By kind of day - up a mountain, out on a boat, into the forest
Rio, the Costa Verde, the falls, Bahia: the two weeks most people do first.
Ilha GrandeThe reviews we added most recently.
The rest of this month’s reviews →
Trindade Day Trip: Nature and Sea Adventure from Paraty
Read our review →
Official Ticket: Oceanographic Museum Univali – Piçarras – SC
Read our review →
Art Of Wine – Travel Through The So-Called Wine Route Visiting Various Wineries
Read our review →