Rio de Janeiro beaches

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

With Rio de Janeiro located right on the seafront, it has many beautiful beaches to visit. 

Copacabana and Ipanema beaches are the ones we visited. Copacabana beach stretches around 2.5 miles and is a fairly busy beach all year round. The beach is extremely busy at carnival time, as is most of the city. Copacabana is probably a better beach for families, the sand isn't hilly so you have a good view of the sea from lying down and you have a lovely mix of skyscapers and mountains as the backdrop to the sea. The sea tends to be quite sandy until you go out a little deeper and be warned to not set up camp for the day too near the sea as the tide tends to come right in late afternoon, where we saw many towels and picnics ruined. Copacabana beach has many lovely beach bars serving grilled meats and seafood on hot dishes as well as cocktails and beers if you are just after a drink. There is also a whole array of shops and restaurants in the road behind the beach, so you are never far from something to eat or drink - of course there are always sellers on the beaches that will be happy to serve you.

Both beaches will have on sellers trying to entice you with treats. What they sell varies from drinks to jewellery and sun cream to umbrellas. Everything you need on the beach, they sell. Popular in Brazil is chai ice-tea with lemonade. Sellers will have one canister filled with chai ice tea and the other with home made lemonade where you pay for a glass and decide the measurements of each yourself. Also popular are the snacks made from local companies who use people to sell on the beach. These snacks range from pastries filled with meats or cheese, sandwiches or burgers.

Other sellers will sell cans of drink and general snacks such as crisps and nuts. They will normally do deals if you are prepared to pay for more than one of what they are selling. They are also generally friendly and will take a simple no as an answer if you aren't interested.

Ipanema beach was our favourite. We found it not to be as busy and we found the sea was clear and had lots of fun waves! This beach is sectioned and reading guidebooks, we foundthat different numbered sections were frequented by different groups of people. Section 9 is meant for 'the beautiful people' - couples and confident folk lived here. Section 11 is for the gay community, which there was more on this beach than Copacabana and other sections that divided the beach but we found there was a mix of everyone everywhere and there was nothing to worry about.

The backdrop to this beach was of mountains and the beach bars didn't seem as good as Copacabana. It has more residential buildings surrounding the beach, less restaurants and less shops. But the dining on offer at Copacabana is only around 10 minutes walk away so we would often walk there for dinner.

Stepping straight on both beaches you will be asked if you want an umbrella and sun loungers. We found an umbrella to be useful in the midday sun, but if you have towels, you can save some money on seating. The umbrella will set you back around R$10 for the whole day. They have various shacks on the beach for the people that rent these out which also means throughout the day these people can fetch you drinks and various snacks if you don't want to venture off the beach and/or get something from a seller. This is useful for things like freshly made cocktails, coconut water and ice buckets for drinks. 

Tips:

On the beach sellers tend to be cheaper for drinks and snacks than bars off the beach.

On the beach sellers tend to do deals if buying one or more of their product.

It's okay to leave your things unattended on the beach - just don't take anything too valuable just in case (this is just from our own experience). 

If you can't find toilets on the beach, they are most likely in the lifeguard towers - although you will have to pay a small fee for all public toliets.

Coconut water is a cheap and delicious way to keep hydrated throughout the day and won't set you back very much money.

Copacabana beach:

Ipanema beach: