The Best Campsites and Cabins to Book in Brazil

Ilhabela – off the coast of São Paulo state – is a stunning sight. The island is fringed by long sandy beaches backed with rainforest and has a mountainous interior streaked with wispy waterfalls. Best of all, it’s easy to reach from São Paulo city via the coastal town of São Sebastião. Camping in Brazil doesn’t get much better than the set-up at Velinn – it has cabins, dorms, pre-installed tents and pitches set in glades by a brook in a fern-filled jungle. The beach is a 10-minute drive from here – but there’s a pool right here, so you can rise, shine and swim straight away.

Camping in Brazil doesn’t necessarily have to involve pitching a tent. Alemão has rustic wooden cabins, set in flower-filled woodland behind Camburi beach – a well-to-do surfer dude favorite of São Paulo’s wealthy weekender class. It’s a beautiful spot – powerful surf, white sands, hills wreathed in jungle – and cabins are cozy, painted in thick tropical colors. Expect all-wood interiors with polished floors, double beds draped in craftsy raw cotton comforters and compact ensuites and kitchenettes. There’s a pool and – good news if you’re driving – on-site parking.

When is Brazil camping not camping? When you’re sleeping in a Hansel and Gretel gingerbread chalet on Santa Catarina island – off the coast of Florianopolis – of course. While tiny, they’re snug, in tones of white and tangerine – with homey terracotta floors and raffia scatter rugs. Expect Greek-isle-white kitchen-diners and bonsai bathrooms with walk-in showers. Stepping out, you’re in for a treat – less than a minute’s walk from here is Ponta das Canas beach, washed by gentle waves, with white sand as fine as caster sugar. Or try Praia Brava, one of the country’s best surf beaches – just five minutes away by car.

The clue’s in the name – Linda = “pretty”. This faux-European mountain chalet certainly stands out against its subtropical by-the-beach setting, but it does have beautiful views from every room. Wall-high windows in loft bedrooms – under Tyrolean-steep gables – open onto balconies over a salt-water lagoon fringed with forest on three sides and creamy-soft ocean beaches on the fourth. This is super-comfy Brazil camping where bedrooms and living areas are budget-boutique in modern understated tones – open to light and air and with quality linens. And just to discourage you from doing anything too active, hammocks hang everywhere.

You could almost fall out of bed at Paraiso right onto the beach here. And Brazilian beaches don’t get much better – washed by bottle-green body-surf waves, framed by rainforest-covered capes. Its solitude is assured, accessible only by boat or a half-day-long sweaty jungle trail – seldom will you see visitors. Yet Ilha Grande island, where it lies, is easily reachable from Rio on from-your-hotel-door bus and ferry shuttles. Despite the mention of cabanas in the name, this is more than your standard Brazilian camping experience. Paraíso’s bedrooms are plush, in warm woods, polished concrete and stone – with windows and skylights framing the beautiful natural surroundings.

The Piauí state, in Brazil’s northeast, has just a sliver of coastline, but it’s stunning – with long beaches cut by rivers and lagoons, backed by white dunes that roll inland for over a mile (1.6km)-long. The kite-surfing is some of the best in Brazil – with your own gear, though. This is a place to bring your brood for a big adventure – and handily enough, Chaleville is a big, budget, family resort, a five-minute drive from the Atlantic, with four pools (one for kids only) and myriad chalets swathed in plain whitewash and tiles. Remote it may feel, but you’re just 20 minutes by car from Parnaíba airport – so the young ones won’t end up whining, “Are we there yet?”

Not all the best cabins and campsites in Brazil are on the beach. Take this rustic wooden ranch house – just outside tiny Rancho Queimado village – with space for five and a working kitchen. It looks out over rolling countryside in the Boa Vista mountains – while Florianópolis and the coast are a 90-minute drive from here, but the forested ridges and the canyons of the Serra do Tabuleiro State Park are close by. Follow walking trails that lead to waterfalls and look-outs perched over mountains that fall in folds to the shiny Atlantic.