Five days in Rio de Janeiro: Where the rainforest comes down to the beach
Four nights in one city, taken a neighbourhood at a time: Copacabana, Arpoador and Ipanema, Corcovado and the botanical garden, the rebuilt port district, Santa Teresa and Sugarloaf, then a stadium on the way to the airport.
- Length
- 5 days, 4 nights
- Where you stay
- Rio de Janeiro
- Places
- 13 across 5 days
Rio is built in the gaps between mountains. Granite peaks come straight out of the sea, the Atlantic forest grows down their sides into the middle of town, and the flat bits between them hold the beaches, the tunnels and about six and a half million people. Nowhere else has a city this size crammed into a landscape this obstructive, and the obstruction is the whole appeal.
It also means geography decides your day. Getting from Ipanema to the centre means going around a mountain or under one, and doing it twice in an afternoon wastes the afternoon. Stay on one side at a time: the beaches, then the forested slopes behind them, then the old port and the centre, then the hill above it.
Four nights covers the two viewpoints everyone comes for, the museums almost nobody expects, and enough beach time to work out why residents treat the sand as a public square rather than a day out.
Highlights
- Christ the Redeemer at opening time, before the platform fills and the cloud comes in
- Sugarloaf in the last hour of daylight, when the cable car is a sunset ticket
- The Selaron steps, one Chilean artist's forty year tiling project up a Lapa hillside
- Valongo Wharf, the landing point for close to a million enslaved Africans, rediscovered under a car park in 2011
- Copacabana walked end to end, four kilometres of a single curve with a kiosk whenever you need one
- Arpoador rock at dusk, where a whole beach applauds the sun going down
Where to stay
Rio de Janeiro
The city runs in a long arc around Guanabara Bay and out along the ocean, split into zones by the mountains in between. The South Zone holds the beaches, Sugarloaf and most of the hotels in a strip only a few kilometres wide. The centre and the old port sit north of it around the bay. Behind both rises Tijuca, a national park of Atlantic rainforest inside the city limits, with Corcovado and the statue on one of its peaks.
Four nights is the least that covers all three without rushing. One day goes to the beaches, one to the forested side, one to the centre and port, one to Santa Teresa and Sugarloaf, and a last morning to the North Zone on the way to the airport.
Day by day
Day 1 in Rio de Janeiro
The whole southern shore, walked from Copacabana to Ipanema
Land, drop the bags, and go to the beach. It is the fastest way to understand what Rio is for, and the flight will have been long enough that nothing more demanding is going to work.
Start at the Copacabana end and walk south. The two great beaches are one continuous strip of sand broken by a single headland, about six kilometres end to end, and doing it on foot in an afternoon teaches you more about how the city arranges itself than any museum will. The crowd changes every few hundred metres and the beach changes with it.
Sit down when you get to Ipanema. Take a chair and a parasol from a kiosk operator, buy a beer or a coconut from whoever walks past, and stay put until the light goes.
Late in the afternoon go back up onto the headland you crossed earlier. This is the one fixed appointment of the day, and it is worth setting an alarm for.
- 13:30
Copacabana Beach
NatureFour kilometres of sand in one unbroken curve, backed by a wave-patterned promenade and a kiosk every hundred metres or so. It is older, louder and more mixed than the beaches south of it, with grandmothers, footballers and vendors sharing the same stretch. Walk it southwards, towards the point that closes off the far end.
- 15:30
Ipanema Beach
NatureThe beach that gave the bossa nova song its name, and still the one residents choose. Posts 8 and 9 are the busy, sociable stretch; walk west towards Leblon for space, with the twin peaks of Dois Irmaos closing off that end. Vendors sell everything from grilled cheese to bikinis without you having to stand up.
- 17:30
Arpoador
OtherThe low rocky headland between the two beaches, and the best free view in the city: the whole curve of Ipanema one way, Sugarloaf and Corcovado behind it. Locals gather here for sunset and clap when it lands. Go up forty minutes before.
- 20:00
Dinner in Ipanema
EatThe streets a block or two back from the beach, around Rua Farme de Amoedo and Rua Vinicius de Moraes, are full of botequins and small restaurants that fill from about eight. No booking needed on a weeknight.
With more time: The old fort at the southern tip of Copacabana is open to the public and has a cafe on the terrace with the whole beach lined up behind it, which is the photograph everyone wants and few find. Past the last post at the other end, Leme is the same bay with a fraction of the crowd on it. On a Sunday the beachfront road is closed to cars and the walk is far better.
Day 2 in Rio de Janeiro
Corcovado first thing, then the gardens below it
The statue is the reason most people come and the queue is the reason most people regret it. Book a timed slot for the first train of the day and you get the platform half empty, the light on the right side of the bay, and a good chance of being above the cloud that builds later.
The cog railway from Cosme Velho is the way to go up. It takes about twenty minutes through the forest and the ticket has to be bought for a fixed departure, often days ahead in high season. Vans from the visitor centre are the alternative when the train sells out.
The rest of the day stays on the same side of the mountain, which is the whole point of doing it this way. Two gardens sit at the foot of Corcovado, ten minutes apart, and both are free or nearly so.
- 08:00
Christ the Redeemer Statue (Corcovado peak)
NatureA 38 metre statue on a 700 metre granite peak, finished in 1931, with the entire city laid out below it. Everyone photographs the statue and then spends far longer looking the other way. Take a layer: it is noticeably colder and windier up there.
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- 11:30
Parque Enrique Lage
LeisureA pink mansion at the edge of the forest with an Italianate courtyard, a swimming pool and a cafe in it, and rainforest trails starting from the back gate. One of them climbs all the way to Corcovado, which is a serious two to three hour ascent rather than a stroll.
- 13:00
Lunch at the Parque Lage cafe
EatTables in the arcaded courtyard, with the mountain filling the gap above the roofline. Busy at weekends and worth the wait; there are also cafes on Rua Jardim Botanico five minutes away.
- 14:30
Botanical Garden
LandmarkPlanted in 1808 as an acclimatisation garden for spices brought from the East, and still a working research institution. The avenue of royal palms is the picture, but the orchid houses, the Amazon section and the resident marmosets are the reason to give it two hours.
With more time: The lagoon between here and Ipanema has a seven kilometre path around it, flat, and lined with kiosks selling beer and grilled things in the evening. Walking or cycling it at dusk with Corcovado lit up above is one of the better free hours in Rio.
Day 3 in Rio de Janeiro
The rebuilt port, and the centre behind it
The docks were derelict for decades and hidden behind an elevated motorway. That came down before the 2016 Olympics, and the waterfront underneath turned out to be the most interesting square kilometre in the city: two new museums, a restored warehouse strip, and an archaeological site that changed how Brazil talks about its own history.
Take the metro to Uruguaiana or the light rail to Maua and start at the water. The two port museums are 300 metres apart and could each absorb half a day, so pick one to do properly.
Afterwards walk south into the old centre. It is a strange, dense grid of colonial churches wedged between banks and office towers, and it works best on a weekday when it is full of people at lunch. At the weekend it is dead and worth skipping.
- 10:00
Museum of Tomorrow
CultureA Calatrava building that looks like a fish skeleton reaching out over the water, holding a science museum about what the next fifty years do to the planet. Short, well made and unusually honest about Brazil's own part in it. The plaza outside is free and the building is the best part.
- 12:00
Valongo Wharf Archaeological Site
HistoricFound under a car park during the port works in 2011: the stone quay where slave ships unloaded in the early nineteenth century, close to a million people through this one wharf. It is a small excavated pit with very little to look at and it is the most affecting thing in Rio. Read the panels.
- 13:00
Lunch in the centre
EatThe lanes around Travessa do Comercio and Rua do Ouvidor are lined with old bars serving a set lunch to office workers, and they are cheap, fast and good. Anything advertising comida a quilo is the safe bet.
- 14:30
Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian
ReligiousA concrete cone 75 metres high, built through the 1960s and 1970s and modelled on a Mayan pyramid, which sounds terrible and is not. Four stained glass strips run floor to ceiling on each face and the inside is a vast, coloured, almost empty space holding twenty thousand people.
With more time: Two more port district stops if the day has room: the art museum on Praca Maua, which joins an old palace to a modernist school building under one wave of a roof and has the best view over the docks from its top floor, and the Candelaria church a few blocks east, gloomier and far older than it looks from outside.
Day 4 in Rio de Janeiro
Santa Teresa by tram, and Sugarloaf at sunset
Santa Teresa sits on a ridge above the centre, reached by a tram that crosses the old aqueduct on its way up. The neighbourhood was where wealthy Cariocas built in the nineteenth century, was largely abandoned in the twentieth, and is now cobbled, steep, leafy and full of studios and small restaurants.
Start at the bottom, at the tiled staircase that has become the most photographed object in Rio, then take the tram up and walk back down through the streets. Free hours in the middle of the day here are well spent.
Then get across town to Urca, because the last item is timed. Sugarloaf takes two cable cars, the first to Morro da Urca and the second to the summit, and the ticket queue is longest in the hour before sunset. Go up earlier than you think and come down in the dark.
- 09:15
Selarón Steps
OtherA staircase of 215 steps that the Chilean artist Jorge Selaron covered in tiles sent to him from all over the world, and kept changing until he died on them in 2013. Busy from mid morning; earlier is better and quieter.
- 10:15
Santa Teresa Historic Tramway
ArchitectureA yellow open-sided tram that has been climbing this hill since the nineteenth century, over the arches of the old aqueduct and up into Santa Teresa. It runs from Carioca in the centre, costs almost nothing, and the ride is the attraction. Hold on properly; nobody is allowed to hang off the sides any more.
- 12:30
Lunch in Santa Teresa
EatLargo do Guimaraes and Largo das Neves, the two little squares on the ridge, have most of the neighbourhood's restaurants between them. Several do a proper Bahian moqueca, which is worth ordering if you are not going north.
- 14:30
A beer at Armazem Sao Thiago
EatAn old grocery shop turned into a bar without anyone bothering to redecorate: high ceilings, wooden shelves to the roof, and beer poured properly cold. Everyone calls it Bar do Gomes, after the family who ran the shop, rather than the name over the door.
- 16:30
Sugar Loaf Mountain
Nature396 metres of bare granite standing in the mouth of the bay, climbed by two cable cars that have been running since 1912. The middle station has a terrace, a bar and half the view; the top has the other half, with the beaches on one side and the bay and the mountains on the other. Stay for the lights.
With more time: If the weather has closed in and the summit is pointless, the Claudio Coutinho trail runs along the base of the same hill at sea level, flat, shaded and full of marmosets, and it is free. The old presidential palace at Catete and the modern art gallery beside Santos Dumont are both a short ride away and both work in the rain.
Day 5 in Rio de Janeiro
The stadium, on the way out
Galeao is in the North Zone, and so is Maracana, which makes the last morning easier than it sounds. Tours run through the morning, take about an hour, and put you on the pitch side and in the dressing rooms.
If there is a match on while you are in Rio, go to that instead. A Sunday afternoon game between two of the four Rio clubs is a better experience than any tour, tickets are cheap by European standards, and the noise is the point. Buy through the club rather than on the street.
Leave two and a half hours for the airport if you are flying internationally, and more on a Friday.
- 09:00
Maracanã Stadium
ArchitectureBuilt for the 1950 World Cup and packed with something close to 200,000 people for the final that Brazil lost to Uruguay, a defeat still discussed here as a national wound. Now seated and much smaller. The tour covers the stands, the tunnel, the dressing rooms and the pitch itself.
With more time: With a later flight, the imperial park and zoo one metro stop further north are easily an extra two hours. If you would rather not move at all, go back to the beach: the kiosks open early and the water is at its calmest before nine.
Before you go
Getting in and getting around
Almost every international flight lands at Galeao, about 20 km north of the beaches, and immigration and baggage can take a while. Santos Dumont, the small airport on the bay right beside the centre, handles the shuttle from Sao Paulo and a handful of other Brazilian cities, and the approach over the water is the best landing in the country. Check which one your onward flight leaves from before you book anything.
The metro is the useful bit of the transport system for visitors: two lines, clean, air conditioned, and running from Ipanema through Copacabana and Botafogo to the centre. That corridor covers most of the South Zone. Buses go everywhere the metro does not, and there are hundreds of routes, so use an app rather than trying to learn them. Both take the prepaid Bilhete Unico card, sold at station booths.
Ride-hailing is cheap and is what most residents use after dark. Take it rather than walking between neighbourhoods at night, particularly around Lapa and the centre once the offices empty.
Staying safe
Rio has a real reputation for crime and it is not invented, but the version that affects visitors is almost entirely opportunist theft rather than anything worse. The rules are simple and locals follow them. Carry the day's money and one card, not everything you own. Keep the phone in a pocket rather than in your hand on the street. Wear no watch and no jewellery on the beach, and take nothing to the sand you would mind losing.
The centre is busy and fine on a weekday and empties out at the weekend, when it is worth being somewhere else. Do not walk up into a favela on your own initiative; the tours that go in are a different question and there are serious arguments both ways about whether to take one.
If you are unlucky enough to be robbed, hand it over. Nobody wants a fight over a phone, and the standing local advice is to carry a small amount of cash for exactly this reason.
The beach, and how it works
Rio's beaches are divided into numbered posts, and the post you sit at says something about who you are. Ipanema's Posto 9 is the young, political, loud one. Posto 8 is the surfers, Leblon at the far end is families, and Copacabana next door is everybody at once. Nobody brings a towel. The kiosk operator rents you the seat and the shade, brings you a beer, and keeps an eye on your things while you swim.
The Atlantic here has a serious undertow and the waves break hard on a steep shelf. Swim where other people are swimming, look for the lifeguard posts, and treat a red flag as final. Do not leave a bag unattended on the sand, ever.
On Sunday mornings the beachfront road closes to traffic along the whole southern shore, and the city comes out to run, cycle and push prams along it.
When to go
Rio is south of the equator, so December to March is the hot, wet, crowded summer. It is also when the city is at its best and most expensive. Carnival falls in February or early March, moves with Easter, and doubles or triples every hotel price for a week; if you want it, book the room the better part of a year ahead, and if you do not, check the dates before you book anything at all.
April to June and August to October are the sweet spots: warm, drier, and cheap by comparison. July is the Brazilian school holiday and busy with domestic travel. Winter here still means high twenties by day, so the beach season never really stops.
Rain in Rio arrives as a violent afternoon downpour rather than a grey day, and the mountain tops go into cloud with it. Keep the Corcovado morning flexible if you can, because a view of the inside of a cloud is a wasted ticket.
Where to stay
Ipanema is the default and deserves it: safest of the beach neighbourhoods to walk at night, well served by the metro, with restaurants that are not aimed only at hotel guests. Leblon next door is quieter, smarter and slightly further from everything.
Copacabana has the most rooms at the widest range of prices and four kilometres of beach in front of them, and it is scruffier and more mixed, which some people want and some do not. Botafogo and Flamengo are cheaper again, well connected, and put you closer to the centre and to Sugarloaf.
Santa Teresa has the charm, in restored mansions up the hill, and the drawback that you cannot walk anywhere from it after dark. Lovely for a second visit, awkward for a first.
Eating and drinking
Lunch is the big meal and the best value. Look for a por quilo restaurant, where you build a plate at a buffet and pay by its weight, and for the Saturday feijoada, a black bean and pork stew that takes all afternoon to eat and is treated as a social occasion rather than a dish.
A botequim is the everyday bar, and the good ones are old, tiled, and serve cold beer with small fried things. Order a chopp, draught beer poured with a proper head, and pasteis or bolinhos de bacalhau to go with it. The kiosk on the beach sells coconuts with a straw in them and fresh juice from fruit you will not recognise.
Dinner runs late by northern European standards but not by Argentine ones: from about eight, busy by nine.
Rio rewards patience with the weather more than any other big city. A morning that starts grey can be brilliant by eleven, and a clear noon can be cloud by three, so keep the two mountain tickets loose and swap them between days if the sky says so.
What people remember afterwards is rarely the statue. It is the ordinary bits: a chair on the sand at four in the afternoon, a cold beer in a tiled bar in Santa Teresa, the sound of the whole beach clapping at sunset.
Make it your trip
Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.
Common questions
- How many days do you need in Rio de Janeiro?
- Four nights is the honest minimum for the two viewpoints, the centre and some beach time. Three works if you accept that one of Corcovado or Sugarloaf will be squeezed, and a week lets you add Tijuca forest, Niteroi across the bay and a day at Ilha Grande or Petropolis.
- Is Rio safe for tourists?
- Most visits pass without incident, but street theft is common enough that residents change their own behaviour for it. Carry little, keep the phone away on the street, take nothing valuable to the beach, and use ride-hailing after dark rather than walking between neighbourhoods. The South Zone and the daytime centre are the parts this plan uses and they are the parts most people find comfortable.
- Do you need to book Christ the Redeemer in advance?
- Yes. The cog railway sells fixed departure slots and the popular morning ones go days ahead in summer and around holidays. Book the earliest one you can face: the platform is small, the crowd triples by mid morning, and cloud often closes the view after lunch.
- Copacabana or Ipanema?
- Ipanema and Leblon are calmer, better for walking at night and better for eating. Copacabana is longer, louder, cheaper and more mixed, with far more hotel rooms. They are neighbours, separated by one headland you can walk over in ten minutes, so the choice is about where you sleep rather than where you swim. The first day here goes along both of them.
- When is Carnival, and should you plan around it?
- It moves with Easter and falls in February or early March. Prices double or worse and rooms go a year ahead, so it is something to aim for deliberately or avoid deliberately, never to stumble into. Check the dates for your year before booking flights.
- Can this plan be changed around?
- It is built to be. Copy it into your own trip and move the days, since the only one with a fixed order is Corcovado in the morning and Sugarloaf at dusk, which is worth keeping whichever days they land on.