Paraty Is Where Rio's Old Families Go When Búzios Gets Too Crowded

Paraty's cobbled streets, closed to cars across most of its historic centre, were built in the seventeenth century for mule trains carrying Brazilian gold down from Minas Gerais to the coast for shipment to Portugal. That colonial port town, whitewashed and largely unchanged behind its Atlantic Forest backdrop, is now the closest thing Rio de Janeiro's old families have to a discreet weekend retreat, a few hours' drive down the coast from the crowds of Búzios or Ilhabela.

A UNESCO listing built on restraint

Paraty and the surrounding Ilha Grande Bay were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, recognised jointly for the town's colonial architecture and the Atlantic Forest and marine biodiversity of the bay around it. Strict preservation rules have kept the centre free of high-rise development, and cars are barred from most of its streets, leaving them to pedestrians and the occasional mule.

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The bay's private islands

Baía da Ilha Grande, the bay stretching between Paraty and Angra dos Reis, holds well over sixty islands, many with beaches reachable only by boat, which has made schooner and yacht charters the standard way for wealthier visitors to spend a day here rather than working the roads between beaches.

FLIP and the literary crowd

The Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty, known as FLIP, has run in the town since 2003 and has become one of Latin America's best-known literary festivals, drawing an international mix of writers and, alongside them, a steady stream of Rio and São Paulo's cultural and business elite for the week it runs.

Trindade, the surfers' village next door

A half-hour's drive from Paraty's centre, the fishing village of Trindade has its own, more bohemian following, its clear-water beaches and rock pools drawing a younger, surf-oriented version of the same crowd that keeps houses in Paraty proper.

Traveller tips

• Rio de Janeiro's international airport is the usual gateway, followed by a drive of roughly four hours down the Costa Verde highway.
• The historic centre floods with high tide at certain times of year; check tide tables if visiting outside the dry season.
• Boat trips around Ilha Grande Bay are best booked a day ahead in high season (December to February).
• FLIP takes over the town for several days, usually in July or August; expect higher prices and fuller hotels around the festival dates.