Attraction
Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor)
The Art Deco statue of Christ on the summit of Corcovado, dedicated in 1931 and reached by a rack railway that has run since 1884.
Brazil is the largest country in South America, and its size brings huge variety. Rio de Janeiro is the classic introduction, with its beaches, mountains and samba, but the country also offers São Paulo, a vast city of museums and restaurants, the colonial towns of Minas Gerais such as Ouro Preto, and Salvador in Bahia, with its Afro-Brazilian culture and historic centre. Nature is a major draw, from the Iguaçu Falls on the border with Argentina to the Amazon rainforest and the wetlands of the Pantanal. Along the coast, beach towns and islands stretch from Paraty and Ilha Grande near Rio to Florianópolis in the south and Fernando de Noronha off the north-east. Carnival, football and music are central to everyday life, and distances are large, so many visitors focus on one or two regions.
Attraction
The Art Deco statue of Christ on the summit of Corcovado, dedicated in 1931 and reached by a rack railway that has run since 1884.
Attraction
São Paulo's best-known art museum, raised above Avenida Paulista on Lina Bo Bardi's suspended concrete structure and holding more than 8,000 works from Raphael to Portinari.
Attraction
São Paulo's best-loved park, opened in 1954 for the city's 400th anniversary, with 158 hectares of lawns and lakes and a complex of buildings designed by…
Attraction
The 396-metre granite peak at the mouth of Guanabara Bay, reached by Brazil's first cable car, which opened in 1912 and stops at Morro da Urca.
Attraction
A 215-step staircase between Lapa and Santa Teresa covered in more than 2,000 tiles by the Chilean artist Jorge Selarón between 1990 and 2013.
Attraction
The city's oldest art museum, founded in 1905 in an exposed-brick building beside the Jardim da Luz, with more than 12,000 works centred on Brazilian art.
Café
Isabela Raposeiras's specialty coffee café, roastery and barista school in Vila Madalena, focused on traceable microlots from named producers.
Café
A Belle Époque café founded in 1894, with Antwerp mirrors, carved furniture and a stained-glass skylight above its upstairs tea room.
Café
The café in the courtyard of the Parque Lage mansion, serving breakfast, brunch and lunch at tables beside the old pool beneath Corcovado.
Café
A specialty coffee brand founded in Pinheiros by Diego Gonzales, roasting all its own beans and running a free barista training project for young people.
Café
A Jardim Botânico bakery-café opened in 2014 on a quiet cul-de-sac, serving breakfast all day and named Rio's best brunch spot in 2026.
Café
A producer, roaster and café run by champion barista Boram Um and SCA instructor Garam Um, serving coffee from the family's own farms in Bom Retiro…
Hotel
A symbol of Rio, opened facing Copacabana Beach in 1923, with a half-Olympic pool, the Michelin-starred Mee and a guest list of legends.
Hotel
A luxury hotel in the restored Matarazzo maternity hospital and a new vertical-garden tower near Avenida Paulista, with 160 rooms and suites and around 450 commissioned…
Hotel
Philippe Starck's first project in Brazil, an 89-room hotel facing Ipanema Beach with a rooftop infinity pool and Gero restaurant.
Hotel
A five-star Oetker hotel opened in 2017 beside Parque Burle Marx, on the former estate of Baby Pignatari, with 141 rooms and a Michelin-starred Jean-Georges restaurant.
Hotel
A 375-room five-star hotel on Copacabana Beach, with an infinity pool facing Sugarloaf, a spa and a beach club.
Hotel
The Fasano family's flagship hotel in Jardins, designed by Isay Weinfeld and Márcio Kogan, with 60 rooms, a 21st-floor pool and the Fasano restaurant and Baretto…
Bar
A three-floor live music house on Rua do Lavradio that began as an antiques shop in 1999 and now hosts samba, gafieira and choro.
Bar
A Pinheiros noodle bar turned cocktail bar, founded in 2015 by Thiago Bañares and the highest-ranked Brazilian entry on The World's 50 Best Bars list.
Bar
A downtown bar founded in 1948 at the corner of Avenida Ipiranga and Avenida São João, immortalised in Caetano Veloso's song Sampa and known for live…
Bar
A Lapa samba house in a traditional old house on Avenida Mem de Sá, with live samba from Tuesday to Saturday and a bar food menu.
Bar
A Copacabana bar founded by Portuguese brothers in 1957, famous for draught beer and around 70 petiscos sold by the kilo.
Bar
The rooftop bar and restaurant of Ruy Ohtake's Hotel Unique, with DJs, a red pool and panoramic views over Parque Ibirapuera and the Avenida Paulista skyline.
Restaurant
An Ipanema Portuguese restaurant opened in 2014, known for 17 salt-cod dishes in sharing portions and named the city's best Portuguese restaurant in 2026.
Restaurant
Ivan Ralston's seasonal tasting-menu restaurant, one of the first two in Brazil to win three Michelin stars, with menus that change four times a year.
Restaurant
Chef Luiz Filipe Souza's three-Michelin-star restaurant, serving a single Oriundi tasting menu that explores the meeting of Italian and Brazilian cooking.
Restaurant
Felipe Bronze's two-Michelin-star restaurant a block from Leblon beach, where fire is the heart of creative menus rooted in Brazilian cooking.
Restaurant
Alex Atala's restaurant in Jardins, open since 1999 and the first in Brazil to win two Michelin stars, built around Amazonian and other native Brazilian ingredients.
Restaurant
Alberto Landgraf's Michelin-starred Botafogo restaurant, serving a seasonal tasting menu in a high-ceilinged, brick-walled dining room.
Thing to do
A 4-kilometre curve of white sand along Avenida Atlântica, framed by Roberto Burle Marx's wave-patterned promenade and two historic forts.
Thing to do
The city's grand 1933 food market, designed by Ramos de Azevedo's office, with stained-glass windows, more than 290 stalls and a mezzanine of restaurants.
Thing to do
Walk the 2.8-kilometre avenue that symbolises modern São Paulo, closed to cars on Sundays and holidays and lined with museums, cultural centres and a small forest…
Thing to do
A 2.6-kilometre beach between Arpoador and Leblon, celebrated in The Girl from Ipanema and framed by the twin peaks of Dois Irmãos.
Thing to do
A car-free alley in Vila Madalena whose walls are covered in constantly changing graffiti, named after a Batman stencil painted there in the 1980s.
Thing to do
Rio's historic hilltop tramway, opened in 1877, which crosses the Lapa Arches from the centre and climbs through Santa Teresa in replica cars.
Tour operator
A Rio food tour company running since 2011, with a five-hour daytime tasting walk, an evening bar and samba tour and a Brazilian wine experience.
Tour operator
Tip-based walking tours of São Paulo's old downtown, Vila Madalena and Avenida Paulista, run in English and Portuguese by local guides several days a week.
Tour operator
A Rio walking tour company founded in 2013, running tip-based tours of downtown Rio and its African heritage, plus a Lapa pub crawl and food tour.
Tour operator
A daily guided tour of São Paulo FC's Morumbis stadium, run by the club's official travel agency, taking in the memorial, dressing room, tunnel and pitch.
Tour operator
A guided tour of Palmeiras's Allianz Parque in Perdizes, visiting the dressing rooms, press room, luxury boxes and pitch, with a penalty challenge at weekends.
Tour operator
A private operator running three-hour visits to Rocinha and Vila Canoas since 1992, with hotel pick-up and support for community schools.
Distances are large, so domestic flights are the quickest way between regions, while long-distance buses connect most cities and towns.
It depends on the region: the south-east is hottest from December to March, the north-east has sun for much of the year, and the Amazon and Pantanal have distinct wet and dry seasons.
São Paulo, the Iguaçu Falls, Salvador, the colonial towns of Minas Gerais, Paraty and Ilha Grande, and the Amazon or the Pantanal for nature.