Two mountains, six beaches, and a city that climbs both.
Which Corcovado slot beats the cloud. What the Sugarloaf cable car costs once you skip the queue. Whether Arraial do Cabo is worth the four-hour bus. Reviews of every tour you can book in Rio.
Corcovado, Rocinha, the Tijuca waterfalls, a night in Lapa.
The four bookings a first week in Rio is built around. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningChrist the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado TrainThe rack railway up through the forest to the statue. Take an early slot, before the cloud settles on the peak.
02The city as it livesRocinha Favela Walking Tour with Local GuideRocinha on foot with a guide who lives there. Twelve percent of Rio lives in a favela; this is how you see one honestly.
03The forest dayTijuca Forest Small Group Hike to Caves and WaterfallsWaterfalls and caves inside the Tijuca rainforest, twenty minutes from Ipanema. The city disappears entirely.
04The night outPub Crawl in Lapa with Cachaça Tasting and Live SambaThe Lapa arches, cachaça poured at the bar and a samba band that starts late. Eat first.
Christ the Redeemer or Sugarloaf. Most people book both, in the wrong order.
Corcovado is best early, when the cloud has not closed in and the terrace is still empty. Pão de Açúcar is best late, when the light drops behind the Serra and the city switches on. Three ways to buy the pair, and what each costs.
Rio is six or seven cities, and they do not share a postcode.
A statue on a granite spike, a bare rock over the harbour mouth, rainforest inside the city limits, hillsides that built samba, and the sand everybody flies for. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Rio is the rare capital you can climb before breakfast.
Trails leave from the end of a bus route. Hang gliders launch off the Pedra Bonita ramp and land on São Conrado sand eight minutes later. Helicopters loop the statue at eye level. Nothing here needs a whole day.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Rio.
Every Rio tour we have reviewed →Corcovado tickets, the Rocinha walk, the Ilha Grande boat and the Lapa crawl. What each one costs, and what earns it the slot.
1
6-Stop Highlights of Rio with Lunch
Spend eight hours seeing Rio’s essential sights by air-conditioned minivan, with a multilingual guide such as João, Roger, or Ursula. Ride to Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf, visit the Cathedral and Selarón Steps, view Maracanã and the Sambadrome from outside, and stop for a buffet lunch.
From · $130
Read our review →
2
Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado Train
from $45
3
Rocinha Favela Walking Tour with Local Guide
from $36
4
Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf, Selaron & BBQ Lunch
from $69
5
Half-Day Rocinha Favela Walking Tour
from $35
6
Angra dos Reis and Ilha Grande Full-Day Tour
from $77
7
Beginner Samba Lesson in Ipanema
from $25
8
Sunset Sailing Tour
from $75
Samba is not a show in Rio. It is a Friday.
Under the Lapa arches the bars pour cachaça into plastic cups and the band sets up on the pavement. Copacabana studios teach the steps in an hour. Cidade do Samba builds the Carnival floats all year in a warehouse the size of an airport.
- 1Beginner Samba Lesson in Ipanemafrom $25
- 2Pub Crawl in Lapa with Cachaça Tasting and Live Sambafrom $33
- 3Sunset Sailboat Tour with Open Barfrom $57
Four bus rides that end somewhere better than a beach towel.
Arraial do Cabo has water the colour of the Caribbean and a boat that stops three times to swim. Angra dos Reis opens onto Ilha Grande, where there are no cars. Petrópolis is where the emperor went to escape the heat, and it still works. Búzios is the fishing village Bardot made famous.
- 1Angra dos Reis and Ilha Grande Full-Day Tourfrom $77
- 2Angra dos Reis Boat Trip with Lunchfrom $63
- 3Full Day Tour to Angra dos Reis and Grand Islandfrom $90
What a day in Rio actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Rio days come in under the price of dinner in Ipanema.
Entry tickets, samba classes, favela walks and the bar crawls under the arches.
The full-day standards: both summits with lunch, the Tijuca jeep, the Arraial boat.
Hang gliding off Pedra Bonita, helicopter loops and private cars for the whole day.
- 1Hang Gliding Adventurefrom $229
- 2Helicopter Tourfrom $220
- 3Hang Gliding Tandem Flightfrom $301
Three things that only happen in Rio.
Beaches and viewpoints exist everywhere. A rainforest with a bus stop, a launch ramp above a residential suburb, and a staircase one man tiled for twenty years do not.
The Tijuca Rainforest
The hills behind Rio were stripped for coffee, then replanted by hand from the 1860s on, seedling by seedling, to protect the water supply. What grew back is the largest urban forest in the world: waterfalls, jackfruit trees, capuchins and sloths, all of it inside the city boundary and twenty minutes from the beach by road.
- 1Christ, Selaron Steps, and Tijuca Park Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 857 reviews
- 2Guided Jeep Tour through Tijuca Rainforest★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 740 reviews
- 3Jeep Adventure: Guided Tour through Tijuca Rain Forest★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 554 reviews
Flying from Pedra Bonita
A wooden ramp juts off Pedra Bonita, 510 metres above the suburb of São Conrado. You run four steps and the ground stops. Tandem flights ride the sea breeze along the ridge for eight or ten minutes and land on the sand between the surfers, which is the only part anyone rehearses.
- 1Hang Gliding Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 760 reviews
- 2Hang Gliding Tandem Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 426 reviews
- 3Hang Gliding or Paragliding Flights★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 132 reviews
The Selarón Steps
A Chilean painter started retiling the steps outside his door in Lapa in 1990 and never stopped, swapping tiles for the next batch sent by strangers from 60 countries. There are more than two thousand of them, mostly red, and the work was still unfinished when he died on the staircase in 2013.
- 1Christ the Redeemer, Sugarloaf, Selaron & BBQ Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,428 reviews
- 2Christ, Selaron Steps, and Tijuca Park Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 857 reviews
- 3Santa Teresa, Lapa, and Cinelândia with Tram Ride and Selarón Steps★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 274 reviews
Four Rio bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this city can be sorted over breakfast. These four run on timed entry slots, wind, tide and a train with a fixed timetable, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Christ the Redeemer Entry Ticket by Corcovado TrainThe rack railway sells timed departures and the early ones, the only ones that beat the cloud, go first.
- 02Hang Gliding AdventureFlights only run when the wind comes off the sea. Operators rebook rather than refund, so leave a spare morning.
- 03Angra dos Reis and Ilha Grande Full-Day TourOne boat, one departure, four hours of road either side. Miss the pickup and the day is gone.
- 04Skip the Line Maracana Stadium Entrance TicketThe stadium closes to visitors on match days and the tour timetable moves with the fixture list.
Rio hides its viewpoints for days at a time. Have a wet plan.
Corcovado stands at 710 metres and spends a good part of the summer inside a cloud, which means the terrace sells a view of white. The rain arrives hard in the late afternoon and stops as fast. Keep the summits flexible and put the indoor days on the wet ones.
By landmark — the places you already know the shape of
By kind of day — on foot, on water, or in the air
The order that keeps the statue clear and the sunset on the right mountain.
Arraial do CaboThe newest Rio tour reviews.
More new Rio reviews →
Museum of Tomorrow Guided Tour, Admission & Transfer
Read our review →
Surf lessons with local instructors in Copacabana/ipanema!
Read our review →
Sunrise at Morro Dois Irmãos + Vidigal Favela Experience
Read our review →
Rio Bike Tour – Discover the Beaches and Lagoon
Read our review →
Walking tour of the bohemian neighborhoods of Santa Teresa and Lapa
Read our review →
City Tour Full VIP – Corcovado Train + Churrascaria Rodízio
Read our review →
Pedra Do Telegrafo and Grumari Beach with Photos
Read our review →
Pedra do Telégrafo Hiking Tour ( Telegraph Rock – Avoid Crowds) – Rio de Janeiro
Read our review →
