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Can you go on a day trip from Rio de Janeiro to Paraty?
Yes, you can go to Paraty on a day trip. And you can also spend multiple days in Paraty. We would recommend you to spend at least 2-3 days in Paraty. Especially if you like small and pretty cities. Paraty is a coastal city in the state of Rio de Janeiro. It has a well-preserved colonial old town. And because of that, Paraty is considered one of the most beautiful towns in Brazil. It’s located halfway between Rio and Sao Paulo.
Tourists often visit it on their way from Rio to Sao Paulo, or vice versa. It is a very convenient location. You can go to Paraty:
- on a self-organized day trip (by bus or car),
- or book a guided tour to Paraty.
It’s a very long and exhausting day-trip, but it is doable.
Table of Contents
1. Day Trip From Rio de Janeiro to Paraty By Bus (The Cheapest Option)
It takes nearly 5 hours to get from Rio to Paraty by bus.
This means – 10 hours both ways. It’s a long and exhausting trip, but it’s possible to do it in one day (in 20 hours or so). Book the earliest possible bus, and take the last or one of the last buses back to Rio de Janeiro. If you are planning on doing a day trip to Paraty, purchase both your bus tickets in advance.
You can use queropassagem.com or costaverdetransportes.com to book bus tickets from Rio de Janeiro to Paraty.
When you are buying bus tickets online in Brazil, you might be asked to provide a CPF number. It’s a taxpayer registry identification number in Brazil, and, of course, as a tourist, you don’t have one. You can use an online CPF generator to create one for yourself. Write it down somewhere, and use the same CPF for booking all your bus tickets.
At first, we used a different CPF every time we bought a bus ticket online, and because of that our profile in queropassagem.com was blocked once. We had to contact their customer support to unblock it. That’s why it’s important to use one CPF. Otherwise you might be blocked — as it looks very, very suspicious that the same person has several different taxpayer ID numbers. It is done to prevent fraud.
So, as I mentioned earlier, take the earliest possible bus, and, for the way back, take the last or one of the last buses back. Here are a couple of examples I see at the moment.
- You can take the earliest possible bus from Rio de Janeiro to Paraty (4:00 am), or the second one (7:00 am).
- There are two evening/night buses back to Rio – at 5:20 pm and 7:00 pm.
If you don’t mind having a long day, take the 4:00 am bus to Paraty, and 7:00 pm bus back to Rio de Janeiro. This way you’ll be able to make the most of your day trip to Paraty.
1.1 Day Trip From Rio de Janeiro to Paraty By Bus + Bus TO Sao Paulo
If you don’t plan to go back to Rio, you can travel onwards to Sao Paulo.
Here are the options for a late evening bus. While Costa Verde buses offer regular seats, the companies servicing Sao Paulo, in addition to “regular seats”, offer “semi-bed” (semileito) and “bed” (leito/leito-cama) seats. Those type of seats can be reclined. “Leito-cama” seats can be reclined almost all the way, almost like a bed.
1.2 Sao Paulo – Paraty – Rio de Janeiro by Bus
It could also be done as a day-trip from Sao Paulo.
You can go on a day trip from Sao Paulo to Paraty, and then continue onwards to Rio de Janeiro. But, unfortunately, there’s no early morning bus from Sao Paulo to Paraty. So, you’ll arrive at 2 pm, and you’ll have max 5 hours in Paraty, as the last bus to Rio de Janeiro leaves at 7 pm.
2. Day Trip From Rio de Janeiro to Paraty: Guided Tour
There are no great day trip options from Rio de Janeiro.
Mostly because Paraty is quite far away for a day trip.
But you can book a shared transfer, like this one, and, likely, have more time in the city. It’s also a good option, if you don’t like traveling by bus. In this case, the car picks you up from the airport or from a hotel in the South Zone, and drive to Paraty. It’s a one-way transfer. There’s also a similar service from Paraty to Rio de Janeiro.
You can book a shared transfer to Paraty from Sao Paulo (or vice versa).
3. What to Do in Paraty in a Day?
Of course, we would recommend you to spend at least 3 days in Paraty, but if you are short on time, you can see some of the landmarks and attractions in a day too.
3.1 Paraty Old Town
The most popular and best thing to do in Paraty, is to explore its old town. It is filled with well-preserved Portuguese colonial buildings, and has old cobblestone streets that flood during a heavy rain. When we arrived in Paraty, it rained heavily the day before, and the old town’s streets were flooded. It’s built like this on purpose, to clean the streets.
A few people were even kayaking in the streets! We hadn’t seen anything like it before!
3.2 Beaches in Paraty
There are two beaches in Paraty.
One beach (Praia do Pontal) is located right next to the old town. On your way to the beach, you can enjoy beautiful river views, and take some beautiful photos. The second beach, Jabaquara Beach, is located some 1.3 miles / 2 km away from the Paraty old town. It’s a 20 to 25-minute walk.
3.3 Boat Trips from Paraty
Paraty is a coastal city with picturesque surroundings.
It’s situated right next to the world’s only tropical fjord. There are some very cool boat trip options from Paraty. While most shared boat tours leave in the morning, and are rather long, you can always go on a private boat trip. Tell the captain how much time you have, and agree on a tour that suits your plans for the day.
If you are only for a day in Paraty, including travel time, you can manage to explore the old town and visit the city’s beaches. If you are staying more than one day, there are a few more things you can do (mostly natural sights).
3.4 Paraty Vlog
We went to Paraty on a 2 day 1 night trip from Rio de Janeiro. But upon seeing the city ourselves, we quickly decided to stay one more night (having enough time we would stay longer) — to see more of Paraty. To get a better idea what it’s really like in Paraty, check out our Paraty vlog on Youtube.
4. Paraty in Three Days
Here’s a simple 3-day Paraty itinerary.
Day 1 – Paraty
Spend the first day exploring the old town and the nearest beaches.
Day 2 – Laranjeiras
On your second day, go to Laranjeiras.
There are a couple of beautiful beaches there. The easiest one to access, is Praia Das Laranjeiras. It’s a 1.5 km hike from the town of Laranjeiras to the beach. The trail goes through the jungle.
There’s another beach (Praia do Sono) nearby which is accessible only by trail or boat. We hiked there. It took us about an hour to get to the beach. Praia do Sono is a beautiful, secluded beach with clear water and strong waves. When we were there, swimming was not possible due to strong currents. But other than that, we had a wonderful time by the beach. We would recommend the Praia do Sono hike.
You can get to Laranjeiras by a local bus from Paraty bus station. If you have an early start, you can make it to Praia Trindade, too. It is a beautiful beach located 8 km from Laranjeiras. You can take a bus from Laranjeiras almost to Trindade.
You’ll have to walk the remaining ~ 2 miles / 3 km, though.
There are also tours to Trindade and Sono beach.
Day 3 – Saco do Mamanguá
On your third day, head to Saco do Mamanguá.
It’s one of the most remarkable natural wonders in Brazil — it’s the only tropical fjord in the world. Despite this fact, it’s not a very popular destination for tourists, and still it’s not on most tourists’ radar.
You can get to Mamanguá only by a speedboat. You can arrange a private transfer for you, or book a guided tour online or from your hotel. Alternatively, you can go by a local bus to Paraty Mirim, and from there hire a boat to Mamanguá.
The hike to Mamangua starts from Praia do Cruzeiro (beach). This is where you’ll be dropped. If you have booked a tour, it could include a lunch and snorkelling equipment. The beaches of the fjord are pretty, with white sand and emerald-green water. The waters there are good for snorkelling.
Have you been to Paraty? Was it a day trip from Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo? How long did you stay there for? Did you hike to Mamanguá?
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