🇧🇷 Brazil · Complete Activity Guide
🇧🇷
Things to Do in Brazil
The Amazon, Rio de Janeiro, Iguazu Falls, and a country that does everything at maximum volume
The Amazon, Rio de Janeiro, Iguazu Falls, and a country that does everything at maximum volume
Brazil is the fifth-largest country on Earth — a place of such staggering scale and diversity that picking eight things to do feels almost inadequate. The Amazon alone covers 60% of the country. Rio de Janeiro is one of the most visually spectacular cities in the world. Iguazu Falls makes Niagara look modest. And then there's the Carnival, the football, the beaches, the food, and the Brazilians themselves — whose warmth and appetite for life is the most consistent impression every visitor takes home.
This guide covers the best things to do in Brazil in 2026 — eight experiences that between them capture the full extraordinary range of this country.
The Brazilian Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth — 3.3 million square kilometres of jungle, river systems, and biodiversity that contains approximately 10% of all species on the planet. The Amazon River itself carries 20% of all the fresh water that flows into the world's oceans. To travel into it by river boat is to enter a world operating at a completely different scale and pace from anything most people have experienced.
A multi-day river expedition from Manaus — the city at the confluence of the Amazon and Negro rivers — takes you deep into the jungle on smaller boats and on foot: spotting piranhas, pink river dolphins, anacondas, caimans, sloths, and hundreds of bird species with guides who grew up in the forest. Night canoe trips with headlamps reveal caimans glowing orange-eyed in the water. Shaman ceremonies with riverside communities give access to knowledge systems that have sustained human life in this ecosystem for thousands of years.
Manaus is the main gateway, served by direct flights from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Most expeditions last 4–7 days — shorter stays don't give the forest time to open up. Book through Viator for packaged expeditions with licensed guides, or choose a specialist Amazon lodge operator. The dry season (June–November) is easier for wildlife viewing; the wet season (December–May) allows boat access into the flooded forest.
The Chapada Diamantina is one of Brazil's most extraordinary and least-known landscapes — a vast plateau of sandstone escarpments, hidden waterfalls, cave systems, and crystal-clear swimming holes carved by millions of years of erosion in the highlands of Bahia. The name refers to the diamond rush of the 19th century that brought prospectors to these remote highlands; today the national park preserves a landscape of dramatic canyons, endemic wildlife, and waterfalls that drop from 600-metre cliff faces into turquoise pools.
Multi-day treks from the gateway town of Lençóis take you through some of the most dramatic scenery in Brazil: the Cachoeira da Fumaça (smoke waterfall) where water vaporises before reaching the ground, the Poço Encantado (enchanted pool) where light enters through a cave entrance and illuminates an impossibly blue underground lake, and the Morro do Pai Inácio plateau with views across the entire Chapada. The swimming holes alone — fed by clear mountain water, set in sandstone canyons — are worth the journey from anywhere in Brazil.
Lençóis has its own small airport with daily flights from Salvador (1 hour) and connections from São Paulo. Overnight buses from Salvador take 7 hours. Guided trekking tours from Lençóis are essential — the trails are unmarked and local guides are mandatory for most visitor sites. Book through Viator for multi-day guided packages with accommodation included.
Tandem hang gliding off Pedra Bonita — a granite launch ramp in the Tijuca National Park above Rio — delivers one of the great urban flight experiences in the world. You run off the edge of a cliff into the Atlantic rainforest canopy, catch a thermal, and glide over the forest as the city, beaches, and Guanabara Bay unfold below. The flight lasts 8–12 minutes and lands on Pepino beach in São Conrado, with the ocean rushing up to meet you.
The combination of landscape — Atlantic rainforest below, Copacabana and Ipanema stretching along the coast, Sugarloaf and Corcovado visible in the distance — makes this one of the most scenic urban flights available anywhere in the world. No experience is required: you are attached to a certified pilot throughout, running off the ramp together on their count of three.
Flights operate year-round from Pedra Bonita, about 30 minutes from Ipanema. Transport from your hotel is included in most tour packages. Flights are weather-dependent — operators offer flexible rescheduling. Book through Viator to ensure you're using a licensed operator with certified equipment and pilots. All ages and fitness levels can participate.
Rio Carnival is the largest street party on Earth — five days of music, dance, and colour that transforms the entire city. The centrepiece is the Sambódromo parade: twelve samba schools, each with 3,000–5,000 participants, compete over two nights in the 700-metre purpose-built stadium designed by Oscar Niemeyer. The choreography, costumes, floats, and drumming are the result of an entire year's preparation by communities that live and breathe samba.
The energy inside the Sambódromo on parade night is unlike anything else in the world — the drums hit you in the chest before the school rounds the corner, the colours of the costumes are so saturated they seem impossible, and the collective joy of 70,000 people responding to 3,000 dancers moving as one is overwhelming in the best possible way. It is not a spectator event — it is a participatory cultural explosion, and being inside it changes you.
The Champions Parade (Saturday night) and Champions' Night (following Saturday) are the two main parade nights. Tickets range from affordable bleacher seats to premium boxes — book months in advance through official channels or through Viator. The street parties (blocos) run for weeks before official Carnival and are free to join. Book Rio accommodation at least 6 months ahead for Carnival week.
Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world — 275 individual falls stretching 2.7km across the border of Brazil and Argentina, with a combined water volume that dwarfs Niagara Falls three times over. Eleanor Roosevelt, on seeing it for the first time, reportedly said "Poor Niagara." The Brazilian side of the park provides the full panoramic view from elevated walkways — the entire 2.7km arc of the falls spread before you, with the constant roar and mist rising above the jungle.
The boat ride — operated from the Brazilian side — brings you into the spray zone directly below the falls, soaking everyone aboard to the skin. The Argentine side, across the border, offers a different experience: elevated walkways above the water leading to the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat), where you stand at the edge of the most powerful section of the falls looking directly into the abyss. Ideally, do both sides on consecutive days from Foz do Iguaçu.
Foz do Iguaçu has its own airport (IGU) with direct flights from São Paulo (1.5 hours), Rio de Janeiro (2 hours), and other Brazilian cities. The national park is 20 minutes from the city by bus or taxi. Day tours from São Paulo or Rio are possible but overnight stays allow more time at the falls. Book through Viator for guided tours that cover both the Brazilian and Argentine sides.
Copacabana Beach is 4km of white sand facing the Atlantic, backed by one of the world's most famous urban seafronts — and at any hour of the day or evening it is one of the most joyful public spaces on Earth. At sunset, the beach kiosks set out their plastic chairs, the vendors work the sand with cold drinks and biscoito globo (airy rice flour crackers), and the entire population of Rio seems to converge on the waterfront to watch the light change over the ocean.
The caipirinha — Brazil's national cocktail, made with cachaça (sugar cane spirit), fresh lime, and sugar — is the correct drink for this experience. Made properly at a beach kiosk in Rio, with fresh limes muddled in a plastic cup and a level of sugar calibrated exactly to the heat, it is one of the best drinks in the world in one of the best settings. No booking required, no tour needed — just find a chair, order a drink, and stay until dark.
The kiosks along the Copacabana seafront all serve caipirinhas from around midday onwards. Arrive by 5pm for the best sunset light. Ask for "duplo" (double) for a stronger pour. Biscoito globo from the beach vendors are the essential snack. Stay for at least two hours — the light changes through gold, pink, and purple before darkness falls. Bring only what you're comfortable carrying on the beach.
The 38-metre Art Deco statue of Christ the Redeemer on the summit of Corcovado mountain — arms outstretched over Rio de Janeiro at 700 metres — is one of the seven wonders of the modern world and one of the most recognisable images on Earth. Standing at its feet, with the entire city spread out below: the beaches, the favelas cascading down the hillsides, Sugarloaf in the harbour, and the Tijuca forest surrounding everything, is genuinely moving — the scale of both the city and the statue working together in a way that photographs never quite capture.
Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar) — the dramatic granite plug rising from the entrance to Guanabara Bay — is reached by two cable car stages from Praia Vermelha. The summit, at 396 metres, gives a different perspective on Rio: the harbour entrance, the Niterói bridge, Corcovado with Christ visible across the bay, and at sunset, one of the most beautiful urban panoramas in the world. Doing both on the same day — Corcovado in the morning, Sugarloaf at sunset — is the perfect Rio day.
Christ the Redeemer is reached by the Corcovado cog railway (20 minutes from Santa Teresa) or by van from Cosme Velho. Book tickets in advance at agendamento.trem.rio — it sells out on peak days. Sugarloaf cable cars depart from Praia Vermelha — book in advance at bondinho.com.br. Combined guided tours covering both are available through Viator.
The Maracanã is the cathedral of football — built for the 1950 World Cup, once the largest stadium in the world with a capacity of 200,000, now modernised to 78,000 seats but still carrying the weight of its history in every concrete curve. Pelé scored his 1,000th goal here. Brazil won the 2013 Confederations Cup here. The 1950 World Cup final — when Uruguay beat Brazil in front of 200,000 people in what Brazilians call the Maracanazo — is still the most traumatic sporting event in the country's history, discussed three generations later.
A Flamengo match at the Maracanã — the most supported club in Brazil, with a torcida (fan section) that produces some of the most extraordinary atmosphere in football anywhere in the world — is an experience that transcends sport. The drums, the flags, the choreographed sections of the crowd moving as one, the volume when a goal goes in: it is collective human experience at a level that very few events anywhere produce. The Fla-Flu derby (Flamengo vs Fluminense) is the most intense of all.
Tickets can be bought through the official Flamengo website (flamengo.com.br), Fluminense website, the Maracanã website, or through Viator for guided match experiences that include transport, tickets, and a local guide who explains the culture and navigates the stadium. Guided match tours are strongly recommended for first-time visitors. Book in advance for derbies and top-of-table matches.
Brazil is a continent-sized country — the best time varies enormously by region and activity.
