Getting around
Getting Around Brazil: A Continent, Not a Country
Brazil's sheer size changes the transport calculation most travellers arrive with. Rio to Manaus is further than London to Moscow; Rio to Iguaçu is a genuine multi-day drive. Planning around domestic flights rather than overland travel between regions is the single most important adjustment for a first Brazil trip.
Updated 2026-08-15
Domestic flights are the default, not the splurge
Brazil's domestic airline network (LATAM, GOL and Azul are the three main carriers) is dense and genuinely competitive on price, which is what makes flying the practical default for any itinerary crossing regions — Rio to Salvador, São Paulo to Manaus, anywhere to Iguaçu. A bus covering the same distance can take 20-30 hours or more, which only makes sense as a deliberate choice (cost saving, or wanting to see the country from the ground) rather than the default. Most multi-region Brazil itineraries are built as a series of flights connecting 2-4 day stays in each place, not as one continuous overland route.
Within a city or region: buses, metro and ride-hailing
Brazil's major cities have reasonable local transport: São Paulo's metro is clean and efficient for crossing the city's notorious traffic; Rio's metro covers the main tourist corridor (Copacabana, Ipanema, Centro) reliably. Ride-hailing apps (Uber, and Brazil's own 99) are cheap, widely used and generally the practical choice for door-to-door trips, especially at night. Within a single region — say, exploring Bahia's coast around Salvador, or the towns of Minas Gerais — intercity buses are genuinely good: comfortable, frequent and reasonably priced for journeys under about six hours, which covers most within-region trips.
The Amazon and Pantanal: transport is part of the trip
Reaching the Amazon and the Pantanal involves transport that's less about efficiency and more about the destination itself. River boats between Amazon towns — Manaus to Belém, for instance — can take several days, and for travellers with the time, this is a genuine way to experience the river rather than just a way to get somewhere; most visitors instead fly into Manaus or Belém and take shorter boat trips from there into the jungle proper. The Pantanal is typically reached by a long drive or a combination of flight-plus-drive into one of the region's fazendas (ranch lodges), since the wetland's wildlife-watching happens from vehicles and boats once there rather than from any fixed transport hub.