The third and final stop of our trip to Brazil was Rio de Janeiro. Rio is Brazil’s most visited destination for foreign tourists, and yes, we must admit, it is as beautiful as you see in all the photos and videos. We spent 3 days in Rio de Janeiro in October 2023 and share some tips to help you plan your trip.
Where to Stay:
Fairmont Rio de Janeiro Copacabana
We stayed at the Fairmont during our stay and we would highly recommend staying here due to its location, the service, and the amenities. The Fairmont is located right on Copacabana Beach near the spot where Ipanema Beach starts, making it very convenient for walking to things. The hotel has all the amenities you can expect and want at a 5 star resort, but with the access to all the things you want to experience in Rio de Janeiro. We stayed in a King One Bedroom Suite with amazing views from each of the 4 balconies. We were also very lucky to be placed in an area that was not as close to the restaurant and pool area, as on weekends, they play music until 02:00. We also enjoyed the breakfast and dinners at the hotel, and found the food and beverage options to be very good.
Copacabana Palace, a Belmond Hotel
The Copacabana Palace Hotel is probably the most well-known in Rio de Janeiro. It become famous in Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire’s 1933 hit film, “Flying Down to Rio”. The hotel has maintained its charm as a historical hotel with modern amenities as well. The Copacabana Palace Hotel has a great location on the beach as well, but also comes at pretty high price tag. Even if you don’t stay here, you can consider coming to experience it by having a drink at the bar.
Hotel Fasano is located on Ipanema Beach and all the rooms have balconies. The hotel has a rooftop pool with stunning views, and amenities like a spa, wellness centre, restaurant and bar. It is also conveniently located within 5-15 minutes walk to a variety of restaurants and bars in Leblon.
The Pestana Rio Atlantico is a budget friendlier hotel located on Copacabana Beach. The reviews are somewhat mixed for some things but it has a rooftop pool and bar with panoramic ocean views and each of the rooms has a balcony.
The Grand Hyatt Rio de Janeiro is located about a 30 minute drive/metro ride/ bus ride away from Leblon, in Barra da Tijuca, a newer beach community. If you plan to stay here, you can visit Rio’s sites, but you will need to drive further distances. Barra da Tijuca has a nice stretch of beach and amenities like shopping, bars, and restaurants. The Grand Hyatt has nice rooms and a quieter resort setting for those who want to be in Rio but also away. Barra is also known as being very safe.
Other Options:
There are other hotels to stay at but we focused on the ones that have a balcony to enjoy the warm weather and nice views you get in Rio. If a balcony is not a high priority for you, you may enjoy: The JW Marriott Rio de Janeiro, Hilton Copacabana Rio de Janeiro, or Emiliano (some rooms have balconies but they are a little enclosed).
Safety:
For some metrics, Rio has a poor reputation when it comes to safety. As you start to research your trip, you may become apprehensive about safety, or even reconsider your travel plans to this city. Generally, we felt safe walking around in Rio de Janeiro during the day, and we did end up feel safe enough to walk around in some areas at night. We stuck to our usual strategies: we were very situationally aware about taking out our phone on the street to take photos and look up directions, did not wear any jewelry, wore casual clothing that did not look very expensive, secured personal belongings when walking or sitting on patios and inside restaurants, had a decoy wallet, and carried our payment methods/phone in a money belt when walking at night.
We also spent most of our time in Leblon, Copacabana and Ipanema, known as the safest neighbourhoods in Rio. That being said, there is a lot of security in Leblon, Copacabana and Ipanema at some of the higher end restaurants and bars. It is common to see security people walking around with batons and handguns outside of restaurants. From a comparison standpoint, we found Rio de Janeiro similar to Cape Town but the difference between the two is that we always found the streets of Rio had more people out walking. As a result, we also felt more comfortable walking and did not use Uber as much as we did in Cape Town.
The local people we spoke to also explained that visiting favelas is generally not a good idea from a safety perspective. There might be some circumstances where visiting a favela is warranted but it is not common and should be avoided. We can understand why people may want to visit a favela but the dynamics of poverty tourism are complicated and there are other way to support communities that need help.
From experience, we do believe that the media overhypes things that happen to tourists and some of the things that happen are targeted or due to opportunity. Overall, there were no instances we felt unsafe, but we did take precautions that other visitors did not seem to be taking. It was also very convenient to pay with credit card, which made it easy to explore without having to bring lots of cash.
How long to Stay:
We only had 3 days in Rio and feel that we would have needed at least 2 more as we ran out of time to do all the things we had on our list.
Our short and busy days were spent swimming at the beach, walking around Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon, and sampling lots of great food and drinks. When not doing that, we got to relax and enjoy great views from our room at the Fairmont Copacabana. Waking up early was worth it, the sunrise was definitely one of the most beautiful and peaceful times of the day.
We are not party-on-the-beach people, but still enjoyed the beach scene very much. Ipanema is a bit livelier, while Copacabana was slightly quieter. We spent more time at Copacabana because our hotel had its own small beach club with chairs, umbrellas, and towels, along with its own food and drink offerings. This made it easy to walk across the street and use this beach. Sundays are especially great as the road by the beach is closed to cars and only open to pedestrians and bikes.
Between both Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf Mountain, we were more interested in Sugar Loaf Mountain, and we had planned to take the gondola up but the weather was too mixed: the cloud was very low one day, and there were thunderstorms on the other. We also planned to visit the Botafogo nighbourhood but many things on our to-do list were closed on the Sunday we were hoping to visit. After watching “Someone Feed Phil”, we were also interested in doing the food tour with “Eat Rio” , but decided to check out spots we found on Google Maps.
If you want to take it easy by the beach and visit a few touristy sites without visiting anywhere else in Brazil, you would enjoy a week in Rio de Janeiro. If you are visiting other spots in Brazil, 3 days is the minimum you want to stay, with 5 being optimal.
If you need some additional tips to help you plan things to do in Rio de Janeiro, we recommend checking out Along Sandy Beaches, as Laura and Jens wrote a great blog post about it.
Weather:
It is generally pretty warm in Rio de Janeiro year-round, with the summer being the warmest. It can also rain a lot in Rio de Janeiro. While we were there, we had one day with cloud cover and showers but the sun came out around 5:00pm, one perfect sunny and clear day, and the other day was mixed with thunderstorms that cleared.
Getting Here/Getting Around:
We flew in and out of SDU – Santos Dumont Airport, not only because it was convenient, but as aviation geeks, it is one of these very unique approach with amazing views of the city, sea, and mountains. We flew on Gol and LATAM and had no issues and we were generally impressed with Brazilian aviation. Things ran on time and even bus gates were handled efficiently.
To get from the airport to our hotel and back, and within Rio de Janeiro, we took Uber. As mentioned in our other Brazil posts, Uber/Lyft was cheap and reliable in Brazil. We did wait about 20 minutes for an Uber/Lyft when we arrived to SDU Airport due to how busy it was.
Places to Eat/Drink:
Here are a few of our highly recommended places to enjoy some food and/or some drinks.
Malta Beef Club: The meat game is very strong in Brasil, but if you want to skip the food coma inducing churrasco experience while enjoying high quality steak, Malta Beef Club is a good choice. We highly recommend ordering the picanha steak, which is a popular cut in Brasil, with a salad, or whatever else you are in the mood for.
Boteca Rainha: This small restaurant/bar with seats out on the side walk is a good place to have seafood or even grilled meats. It is very popular and you should arrive close to opening at 12:00, or else you will need to wait. A “boteco” is a small restaurant that serves up Brazilian bar food, and they are popular everywhere in Brazil, especially Rio. Boteca Rainha also serves up “taberna” style food.
Polis Sucos: A simple but very tasty spot to get acai.
Spirit Copa Bar at the Fairmont Hotel: We ended up having dinner and drinks here twice because of how nice the setting is, the service is excellent, the food is really good, and the cocktails were also very good and unique.
Summary:
Even with mixed weather conditions and a lot of low cloud during our visit the scenery was still always spectacular. The city also has an interesting vibe that mixes all the pros and cons of a big-city with those long stretches of beautiful beach and towering green mountains. One moment you can have your toes in the sand (and perhaps a Caipirinha in hand!), and minutes later you can wandering the bustling streets of Leblon while sampling Brazilian/Portuguese specials on sidewalk patios, enjoy large cups of deep purple Acai from a corner fruit store, or struggle to choose refreshments from the artisan market in Ipanema.
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