Beaches in Brazil

Brazil has thousands of kilometres of coast, and the beaches at either end of it have almost nothing in common. Sort them by conditions and access, not by name.

The north-east runs warm and bright most of the year, with reef pools and wind that draws kitesurfers. The south-east is greener and steeper, with rainforest running down to the sand and islands close offshore. The south has a shorter season and a colder sea.

Within any one stretch, the two things that decide your day are exposure and access: how much open ocean reaches the sand, and whether you park beside it, walk down to it or need a boat.

What goes in this category

Sea beaches, grouped by what the day is actually like:

Sheltered coves — calm, shallow, the ones that suit small children and first days.
Open surf beaches — waves, current and space, with rip currents as a normal feature.
Beaches reached on foot, through forest, where the walk buys the emptiness.
Beaches with no road, reached only by boat, which are the days people remember.

How to choose inside it

Decide who is swimming before you decide where. A beach that is a pleasant swim on a flat morning is a hazard on a day with swell, and no amount of supervision changes that. Read the flags where there are flags and ask locally where there are not.

The coast, stretch by stretch

The north-eastern coast, from Maranhão to Bahia, has the warmest and clearest water, with reefs forming pools at low tide and the steady wind that created the kitesurfing destinations. The south-east, from Espírito Santo to São Paulo, is the green and broken coast: Atlantic forest running down to the sand, coves between rocky headlands and islands in sight. The south, from Paraná to Rio Grande do Sul, has long straight beaches, colder water and a season squeezed into a few months.

The seasons invert between the ends of the country, and that catches planners out. In the south-east and the south, summer is both the beach season and the season of late-afternoon rain. Along much of the north-eastern coast the wettest months fall in the southern autumn and early winter, exactly when the south-east dries out.

For an itinerary this means there is no single good month for the Brazilian coast. There is a good month for the stretch you chose.

Safety in the water

What actually gets visitors into trouble here is rarely what they were worried about:

Rip currents: a channel where water returns seaward. You leave one by swimming across it, not against it.
Sandbars: the bottom rises and falls without warning, and the false shallow fools anyone who cannot swim.
An empty beach is not a safe beach — usually it is empty because the sea there is not inviting.
Flags, where they exist, are information rather than decoration; where they do not, ask someone local.
Late afternoon with a running swell: from the sand the waves always look smaller than they are.