7 Days in Rio and Beyond
A full week gives this gateway strategy room to run twice over: everything the six-day version does, plus one more domestic hop deep into the country Rio only introduces you to. For the version that spends all seven days on Rio’s own landmarks instead, our in-city 7-day itinerary covers that ground in full.
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | City essentials, ferry to Niteroi |
| 2 | Petropolis day trip |
| 3 | Buzios day trip |
| 4 | Costa Verde drive to Paraty |
| 5 | Paraty in full, back to Rio |
| 6 | Same-day Sao Paulo flight |
| 7 | Salvador day trip |
Book these before you go: check Paraty pousada rates on Booking.com before Day 4, and browse Salvador tours on GetYourGuide so the Pelourinho half of Day 7 is planned before you land rather than improvised on a tight layover-style schedule.
Land Knowing Which Brazil You’re In
Galeao (GIG), 20km out on Ilha do Governador, handles the international arrival and, later this week, the flight to Salvador. Santos Dumont (SDU), domestic-only and downtown near Sugarloaf, exists mainly for the Rio-Sao Paulo shuttle you’ll take on day six. An Uber from GIG’s arrivals hall runs R$50-90, well under the R$150-200 taxi-booth rate, and skip anyone in an “official” vest working the terminal before customs. US, Canadian, and Australian citizens need a Brazilian eVisa arranged online before flying, a rule since April 2025, so sort it before you book anything else. Riotur, Rio’s official tourism board , is a good place to confirm current entry rules before you commit to flights. And the correction worth landing with: Brazil speaks Portuguese, not the Spanish every neighboring country uses.
Day 1: City First, Then Across the Bay
Morning goes to Copacabana or Ipanema Beach and a churrascaria lunch, the right introduction to Brazilian grilled meat before this trip gets more ambitious. Early afternoon, cross Guanabara Bay on the 20-minute ferry to Niteroi for Oscar Niemeyer’s saucer-shaped MAC museum, a cheap first exit from the city that costs almost none of the day. Evening, sunset at Arpoador Rock, then dinner in Ipanema and a caipirinha, cachaca-based, not rum, however much it looks like one.
Day 2: Petropolis, the Imperial Retreat
Petropolis sits 1 to 1.5 hours by bus from the Novo Rio terminal, and it’s worth knowing exactly why an imperial family built a palace up in these cooler hills: between 1808 and 1821, the entire Portuguese royal court ruled its whole overseas empire from Rio’s bay after fleeing Napoleon’s invasion, the only time in history a European monarchy has governed from the Americas. Petropolis is where that same court retreated once Rio’s heat got old, and Dom Pedro II’s actual palace, now a genuine museum, turns that history into a room you can stand in rather than a paragraph you skim past. Evening, back in Rio for dinner.
Day 3: Buzios
Buzios, an upscale peninsula about 2.5 to 3 hours by car from Copacabana, hands you a completely different beach: calmer water, boutique shopping, a slower small-town pace than anything the city itself offers. Commit to both legs of the drive and start early, it’s a long day if you treat it as a there-and-back. Evening back in Rio, pack for two nights away.
Day 4: Down the Costa Verde to Paraty
This is the day the trip actually leaves Rio behind. Paraty, a preserved colonial port town, sits roughly 3 hours 20 minutes by car or about 4 hours 40 by bus down the Costa Verde. UNESCO listed its historic center jointly with the Atlantic Forest around Ilha Grande back in 2019, a designation that folds in a stretch of the old Caminho do Ouro, the Gold Route that once shipped Minas Gerais gold to Portuguese ships before pirate raids made the sea crossing too dangerous. Leave Rio mid-morning, arrive by late afternoon, and spend the evening on cobblestones that only go quiet once the day-tripping buses clear out, the actual reason this town rewards an overnight instead of a rushed there-and-back.
Day 5: Paraty in Full, Then Back to Rio
Morning goes to a schooner trip through the bay’s islands, the classic Paraty activity and the best way to actually see the Costa Verde coastline rather than just its main street. Afternoon, walk the historic center properly, the converted sobrado mansions and colonial facades are the reason people come here at all. Head back to Rio in the late afternoon, arriving in time for dinner, because tomorrow starts with an early flight rather than a slow morning.
Day 6: A Day in Sao Paulo
Santos Dumont, not Galeao, is where this day starts, on the Rio-Sao Paulo shuttle that runs roughly every half hour and clears close to 50 flights a day between the two cities’ downtown airports, under an hour in the air each way. It’s an absurdly easy way to see Brazil’s other major city without checking a bag. Spend the day around Avenida Paulista, and get a correction out of the way early: MASP, the country’s best-known art museum with its concrete-and-glass frame straddling the avenue, is here in Sao Paulo, not Rio, a mix-up that persists in a lot of older travel writing about both cities. Catch an evening shuttle back, you’ll be asleep in your Ipanema bed without ever needing to change hotels.
Day 7: Salvador, Brazil’s First Capital
This one leaves from Galeao instead of Santos Dumont, a roughly two-hour flight north to Bahia’s capital, with one-way fares often landing near $75-85. Salvador was Brazil’s first capital, 1549 to 1763, before the seat of government moved south to Rio, and it remains the country’s clearest center of Afro-Brazilian culture: the pastel-fronted Pelourinho historic district, capoeira circles working the squares, food built on dende palm oil rather than anything on a Rio menu. An early flight out and a late one back makes this a genuine day trip, tight but real, provided the Pelourinho and a proper Bahian lunch stay the only fixed plans and everything else stays loose. Land back in Rio for one last night in Ipanema, a final caipirinha, and pack for the flight home in the morning.
Where to Stay
Ipanema for the entire week, it’s closest to the ferry terminal, the Novo Rio bus terminal, and both airport runs on days six and seven, so nothing about this trip forces a hotel change mid-way. The one exception is Paraty on night four, where a pousada in the historic center puts you inside the colonial town instead of a drive away from it.
Getting Around
The metro covers Copacabana through Ipanema for R$7.90 a ride, contactless tap-in, useful for reaching the Niteroi ferry terminal at Praca XV. Uber and 99 handle the Novo Rio terminal, the Buzios pickup point, and both Santos Dumont and Galeao on the final two days. Skip city buses across a trip this length, the route boards are genuinely confusing without reading Portuguese.
Things to Know
Credit cards cover almost everything in Rio, Sao Paulo, and Salvador, but carry some cash for Paraty’s smaller vendors and Costa Verde bus stops, where card readers are less reliable. If your dates land anywhere near February or March, double-check the actual Carnival dates for that year, they shift with the Easter calendar, and a week-long trip that unknowingly overlaps peak Carnival looks completely different from the one above, booked and priced accordingly.
One concrete tip: lock in both domestic flights, Sao Paulo on day six and Salvador on day seven, before you finalize anything else on this trip. They’re the only two genuinely fixed-time commitments in a week that’s otherwise flexible, and booking them last is how a Costa Verde delay quietly costs you a flight you already paid for.