A journey through Brazil's wonders: 11 best places to visit in Brazil

It is both a blessing and a curse that Brazil is packed with so many visit-worthy destinations. Immensely vast, the country is a tableau of urban centers, charming towns, and superb natural wonders. You could handily stay a month (albeit, a privilege few travelers have) and still leave plenty of stones unturned. To design a meaningful trip that won’t have you crisscrossing the country on multiple domestic flights, we recommend whittling down to a few core experiences. Here are the cities and wonders that consistently rank among the best places to visit in Brazil.  

Straddling the border of Argentina and Brazil, the superlative Iguaçu Falls is one of the country’s most popular travel destinations. A spectacular torrent of 275 individual cascades, a stunning 62,010 cubic feet of water flows across this 1.5-mile-wide system of waterfalls every second. Visitors stand in awe, watching as white water spills out of a lush rainforest bathed with mist in a scene that emulates Eden. 

• Ideally, we like to combine a visit to both the Argentine and Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls because they are so different. On the Argentine side, traverse a network of catwalks that lead to a viewing platform with jaw-dropping, top-down views of the tumbling water. From the Brazilian side, zoom out to admire the grandeur in widescreen. 
• Stay just paces from the falls, at Belmond Hotel das Cataratas, a handsome pink property located within Iguaçu National Park.  
• Iguaçu Falls can be visited year-round but if you’re looking for the most epic cascade, October and December experience the highest volumes of water.  

Brazil’s premier wildlife viewing area is the Pantanal, a flat, grassy floodplain, threaded by rivers and overlaid by a mosaic of lagoons, forest, and wetlands. Base yourself at a luxury eco-lodge and then cross your fingers for a jaguar sighting. (Your odds are very good.) Other resident wildlife includes tapir, anteater, capybara, and marsh deer—all taken together, they’re dubbed the Pantanal Big Five. Without a doubt, the Pantanal is one of the best places to visit in Brazil for animal lovers.  

• The best wildlife viewing opportunities occur during the dry season, from May through October.
• The Pantanal is a “working wetland” that has a unique, frontier ranching culture. Get a little taste of it while saddling up at our favorite regional lodge, Caiman.
• We recommend against visiting the Pantanal during the wet season. (Keep reading about the best time to visit Brazil.) 

Seated on a sandy stretch of Atlantic coast overlooked by a crown of green peaks, Rio de Janeiro dazzles. Bathed in sun, blessed with beaches, and steeped with a laid-back attitude, the city has a palpable ease. Busy yourself in Rio’s neighborhoods, in its parks, tour its museums, go restaurant-hopping, shop, or simply pull up a chair beneath an umbrella and drink in some Sugarloaf views. There’s no better sunset than the one that paints the sky behind Ipanema’s Dois Irmãos in pastel.  

• First, get your bearings at the beach. Rio’s two most famous beaches are Copacabana and Ipanema—must-see destinations in Brazil. Find a vendor, take a seat beneath a parasol and sip, snack, and shop the steady parade of vendors who march by.
• Inevitably, you might want to tick some boxes—Christ the Redeemer and the Selarón Stairs, for example—but then we recommend digging deeper into Rio’s neighborhoods. Shop for trendy threads in Ipanema, meet the artists of Santa Theresa, or learn about 500 years of city history in the Centro district.
• Rio is enveloped by forest. In fact, Tijuca National Park is the largest urban forest in the world. There are countless options for stretching your legs on a guided hike.  

Tucked into the verdant Green Coast, Paraty is a charming town west of Rio de Janeiro. Within the picturesque historic center, 18th-century storehouses have gentrified into handsome shopfronts, restaurants, and boutique hotels. Whitewashed, hand-painted, and decorated with wrought-iron galleries, Paraty’s historic buildings and cobblestone streets feel like walking a movie set.  

• Paraty lies at the terminus of the Caminho do Ouro (Gold Trail). Its port oversaw inordinate wealth in the form of gemstones and gold that streamed from the state of Minas Gerais to Europe.
• The UNESCO-designated historic center of Paraty has remained almost unchanged since its colonial construction. Take a guided walking tour to hear what life was like for young enterprising Portuguese settlers and enslaved peoples.
• Pass splendid days cruising to islands enveloped by radiant turquoise waters or hike to forested waterfalls within the Atlantic Forest Biosphere. 

The beating heart of Afro-Brazilian culture—and one of the best places to travel in Brazil—is the city of Salvador de Bahia. The blackest city outside of Africa, it’s a place that thrums, shouts, dances, and sizzles. Train your camera at the cheery, pastel-painted buildings of the Pelourinho neighborhood before confronting Salvador’s sobering history as the first slave market in the New World. Out of darkness, there is light, and today, Bahia is the best place to experience some of the things that Brazil is most celebrated for: capoeira, samba, Afro-Bahian food, and the roots of Carnival.  

• Attend a capoeira class to learn about this transfixing Brazilian martial art form that combines acrobatics, dance, music, and song.
• Tour the ornate Convento e Igreja de São Francisco where gilded interiors mingle with Candomblé shrines.
• Save your appetite for dusk, joining an expert guide for a savory food tour of Salvador, sampling moqueca or vatapá (seafood stews). 

Located in the state of Bahia, Trancoso is Brazil’s artsy, barefoot-luxe beach enclave. At the center of this small town is the Quadrado, a generous stretch of green lawn anchored by the humble São João Batista church where you’ll find people gathering, socializing, and playing soccer. While Trancoso’s vibe might lean rustic, makers, designers, and mavericks of all spades find inspiration here. Find sanctuary in a design hotel, savor gourmet meals, and shop for all manner of things, handmade and handcrafted.  

• Stay at UXUA Casa Hotel for the most memorable Trancoso hideaway.
• Located nearer to the Equator, the state of Bahia boasts a tropical climate and temperatures are reliably hot. Sun-seekers should avoid June and July’s showers.
• Nip into nearby Pau National Park to go rafting, hiking or mountain biking. 

Perhaps the least-known on our list of best places to visit in Brazil is the Inhotim Museum. An open-air contemporary art museum and botanical garden, its location in the state of Minas Gerais is part of the experience’s impression—perhaps you didn’t expect to find a cultural Disneyland here. Cradled within an unassuming expanse of Atlantic Forest, large-scale outdoor installations, there are some 700 works spread out across nearly 2,000 acres, with artists contributing from nearly 40 countries. Likewise, the botanical garden is an international cross-pollination of more than 4,300 rare botanical species from all continents.  

• A golf cart makes quicker work of navigating Inhotim and an expert guide will help you tackle what to see based on your interests.
• Most visitors will come for a few hours, but art lovers might visit across the span of two days. The recently-opened Clara Arte hotel—the only luxury option in the area—affords guests the ease of staying on-site.
• Include Inhotim on a luxury Brazil road trip itinerary that starts in Belo Horizonte and ends in Rio for a trip through lesser-touristed Minas Gerais.  

Home to gardens, tropical forests, and precious gems, the state of Minas Gerais is situated in Brazil’s wild and lush mountainous interior. Fertile soil also makes the area a major producer of agricultural goods, coffee, and timber. It means that resource-exhuming industries in Minas Gerais often encroach on sensitive wildlife habitat.

An oasis of conservation, Comuna do Ibitipoca offers guests an opportunity to “travel for good” while proving the viability of sustainable tourism as an alternative to extractive development. Part countryside retreat, traditional village, and rewilding initiative, the Ibiti Project wears many hats. Aside from its appeal as a nature-steeped sanctuary, each guest stay contributes to the preservation of this special place while creating meaningful employment for the local community.  

• Cradled within the 14,800-acre private reserve, stay in a remote backcountry cottage or Engenho Lodge, an eight-room farmhouse-style accommodation circa 1715.
• With on-site organic herb and produce gardens, farm-to-fork dining is a gastronomic highlight of the Ibiti Project experience.
• In neighboring Ibitipoca State Park, swim crimson-hued rivers, hike, and explore hidden caves. On-property, ride a Mangalarga horse through the countryside, hike in the forest, cycle, and learn about ongoing conservation initiatives.  

A buzzy concrete jungle, São Paulo is an incubator of Brazilian art, design, and food trends. To really get under the skin of the city, let a local guide introduce you to its neighborhoods. Walk the leafy streets of Jardim, an affluent district with concept stores, restaurants, and cafes; on Avenida Paulista (the city’s main artery), admire art suspended on “crystal easels” at São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP)—an architectural landmark unto itself; and in boho, Vila Madalena, stroll the art-splashed Beo do Batman alley and peruse street art vendors. 

• Use Avenida Paulista to orient yourself; neighborhoods and attractions are usually referenced as “north of” or “south of” the broad boulevard.
• Site-hop iconic buildings and outdoor installations that best exemplify Brutalism and Art Deco design.
• São Paulo is home to both fine fusion food and simple staples like churrascaria (grilled meat); from high-end to humble, we recommend you eat it all up.  

The planet’s citizens as a collective owe much to the Amazon Rainforest—often dubbed the “lungs of the Earth” and one of the best places to visit in Brazil. Rather than a wildlife parade, the experience is best described as nature immersion—an opportunity to forest bathe, navigate watery labyrinths, and learn how a diversity of flora can be used as natural remedies for a variety of ailments on guided walks.  

The heart of the Brazilian Amazon travel experience is Anavilhanas National Park where a braid of islands that choke an 80-mile section of the Rio Negro. Travelers navigate the channels of this massive river archipelago on boat trips to spy pink dolphins, on after-dark “night safaris,” and while paddling traditional canoes. How it all looks depends a lot on when you. Don’t shy away from the wetter months, when the archipelago becomes more accessible and you can boat right into inland lakes and forests. Cradled within the forest and featuring two stunning forested swimming pools and a riverside dock lounge, our favorite hideaway is Anavilhanas Jungle Lodge.  

Alternatively, travelers might look to the southern end of the Amazon Basin for a more wilderness-set Amazon experience. Arrive at Cristalino Lodge by boat which borders a state park of the same name where more than 600 species of birds call the surrounding Alta Floresta rainforest home.  

Imagine a golden sweep of dunes as far as the eye can see, set with radiant turquoise gemstones. This is the phenomenon that awaits travelers at UNESCO-designated Lençóis Maranhenses National Park. Situated next to the Atlantic Ocean, this broad swath of sand floods with the arrival of the winter rains, with crystal-clear water pooling in each of the depressions. The contrast between the sand and the crystalline freshwater creates a sublime, dreamlike setting that makes Lençóis Maranenses one of the must-see destinations in Brazil.  

• Remember, winter in Brazil is opposite to the United States. Visiting in July and August offer the best opportunities for flooded dunes. 
• Pack your swimsuit; you can swim in the pools. Guided quad tours and dune hiking are popular pastimes, too.
• Add an optional scenic flight for an aerial appreciation of the dunes’ dazzling expanse.