Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Beaches between granite peaks, samba until sunrise, and the biggest party on the planet every February.
Best time to visit
Weather by month
| Month | High | Low | Rain | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 31° | 24° | 236 mm | prime |
| Feb | 31° | 24° | 179 mm | prime |
| Mar | 30° | 23° | 186 mm | prime |
| Apr | 28° | 22° | 100 mm | prime |
| May | 26° | 19° | 73 mm | prime |
| Jun | 25° | 18° | 45 mm | |
| Jul | 25° | 18° | 47 mm | |
| Aug | 26° | 18° | 48 mm | |
| Sep | 27° | 19° | 79 mm | prime |
| Oct | 28° | 20° | 113 mm | prime |
| Nov | 28° | 21° | 192 mm | prime |
| Dec | 29° | 23° | 216 mm | prime |
30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.
Cost
Serves travellers at Backpacker→Ultra-luxury level. Typically around $100 a day on the ground.
Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.
What's on
Carnaval February
Sambadrome parades and 500 street blocos
Réveillon at Copacabana December
Two million people in white on the beach
Worth knowing
Cards work almost everywhere, including beach vendors who carry readers. Brazil runs day to day on instant bank transfers that visitors cannot easily use, so keep some cash for markets and small kiosks. Service is usually added to restaurant bills.
money · editorial
The beach is divided into numbered postos and each one has its own crowd, which is how locals arrange to meet. Corcovado and Sugarloaf are both weather lotteries; keep a spare morning rather than booking the only clear slot you have. Outside hotels, very little English.
know before · editorial
Carnival week fills the city and every bed in it, at multiples of the usual rate and with a minimum-stay rule attached. High summer, either side of it, is humid enough that the afternoon is for the sea and nothing else.
when not to go · editorial
Copacabana is big, busy and where most of the hotels are. Ipanema and Leblon are calmer and more residential with the same sand. Santa Teresa is a hilltop of cobbles and old houses, atmospheric and a long way from a beach. Botafogo and Flamengo face the bay rather than the ocean and have the better bars. Barra is modern, flat and spread out enough to need a car.
where to stay · editorial
The metro runs from the centre through Copacabana and Ipanema and out towards Barra, which covers most of what visitors want. App taxis for the rest. A car in the south zone is a parking problem with a view.
getting around · editorial
Galeao takes the international flights and sits about an hour from the south-zone beaches. Santos Dumont handles domestic routes and is ten minutes from the centre, on the bay, with the best approach of any runway in the Americas. Arrive at Santos Dumont if the schedule allows.
getting there · editorial
Quests
Icon
Christ the Redeemer
Go up before nine. After that the queue is bigger than the view.
Pão de Açúcar
Two cable cars. The second is the one that counts; the first is only Urca from above.
Leblon beach
From posto 11 to posto 12. A whole afternoon with no plan at all.
Copacabana
The Burle Marx pavement, end to end, on foot.
Maracanã
Empty it counts. Full it counts far more.
The Selarón Steps
215 steps, tiles from more than sixty countries. Climb to the top.
Arcos da Lapa
An eighteenth-century aqueduct that became a tram viaduct. Only in Rio.
Jardim Botânico
The avenue of imperial palms. Go early, before the heat.
See
Ride up Sugarloaf late in the afternoon and come down after dark
Eat
Eat feijoada on a Saturday, and make no plans for afterwards
Pastel and sugarcane juice at the street market
Saturday morning, standing up, no rush.
Saturday feijoada
Lunch. After that the day is over, and that is fine.
Moment
Be at Arpoador when the sun drops and the beach applauds
Sunset at Arpoador
Arrive half an hour early. At the end everyone applauds, and so will you.
Trail
The Pedra Bonita trail
Forty minutes uphill for the view photographers sell as though it were hard.
Pedra da Gávea
Four hours, an exposed scramble and real vertigo. Do not go alone.