Things to do in Búzios, ranked by a family hosting here since 2012: the boat trip, the beaches, the walks, the town, a rainy day, what to skip. Prices in reais.
The first morning in Búzios usually goes the same way. Coffee somewhere with a view, a look at the bay, and then someone asks what we should actually do here. It is a fair question, because the town does not shout about itself. There is no big attraction, no famous museum, no line to stand in. There is the sea, in twenty-something versions, and a small list of things worth doing around it. Our family has hosted guests at our home above Ferradurinha since 2012. We have sent them to everything on this list, and steered them past a few things too. So here it is, ranked, with what each one costs this month and how long it takes. If you have not yet chosen where to sleep, the complete Búzios travel guide and our guide to the areas, hotels and houses come first.
The short answer. Book the boat trip. Pick two beaches by mood. Walk one trail, spend one evening on Rua das Pedras, and give one day to Arraial do Cabo if you have five. The schooner costs R$60 to R$75 a person direct from the operators. Three nights is the right length. A day trip from Rio is not.
We have hosted here for fourteen years, 294 reviews across Airbnb, Google and Vrbo, and the boat trip is still the first thing we tell people to book. Prices below were checked on 13 September 2026 and every one links to where it came from.
The honest ranking
Here is what we send guests to, in order, and what we tell them to skip.
- The schooner boat trip. Everyone, every stay. It shows you the whole peninsula in three hours and settles which beach you want tomorrow.
- Two beaches, chosen by mood. Calm on the north side, waves on the south. The beaches guide ranks the ten we send people to.
- One walk. The coast path from Ferradurinha starts at the beach below our house. Or the fifteen minutes up to Olho de Boi from Brava.
- One evening on Rua das Pedras and the Orla Bardot. Not every evening. One is enough to get it, two is nice.
- A day in Arraial do Cabo, if you have the days. The clearest water on this coast, an hour away.
- A buggy for a day. Fun, honestly, and the way to see the far beaches. Not a way to get to the beach itself, because it cannot drive on sand.
What we tell people to skip: the day trip from Rio, three hours each way for one afternoon. Rua das Pedras on a cruise-ship day. And the marketplace version of the boat trip, sold at double the price you pay at the pier.
What to do in Búzios, at a glance
One screen. Prices are per person unless it says otherwise, direct from the operators where we could find them, and they link to the source.
| Thing to do | What it is | Cost | Time | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schooner boat trip | 12 beaches, 3 islands, 3 swim stops | R$60 to R$75, plus R$5 at the pier | 2.5 to 3 hours | Book it on day one |
| Búzios Trolley | Open bus, 12 beaches, 2 viewpoints, one swim | R$100 to R$150 | About 2 hours | Good with grandparents |
| Buggy, 24 hours | Rental, four seats, no sand | R$300 to R$350 plus a R$500 deposit | A day | The far beaches, and the fun of it |
| Surf lesson, Geribá | Board and wetsuit included | About R$147 through an agency | 1 to 2 hours | Best beach in the state to learn |
| Try dive | One tank, Ilha da Âncora | R$380 to R$400 at the dive centres | Half a day | Turtles, fifteen metres of visibility |
| Ferradurinha coast walk | Cliffs, rock pools, a sea-water waterfall | Free, or R$80 for a guide | 4 to 4.5 hours | Unmarked, take the guide |
| Arraial do Cabo day | Van, 4-hour boat, lunch | R$180 to R$265 | 8 am to 5 pm | Once, on a calm day |
| Rua das Pedras and the Orla | The evening walk, the Bardot statue | Free | An evening | Once or twice |
| Gran Cine Bardot | The town cinema, by the pier | R$48, R$24 half | 2 hours | The rainy-night plan |
The boat trip, explained properly
The escuna (say es-KOO-nah, a wooden schooner) is the one thing everybody should do here, and the guides that rank on Google somehow give it one line. So here is the whole thing. The boats leave from the pier in the centre, at Travessa dos Pescadores 88. It is the same little street as the cinema. Departures cluster around 10:30, 11:30 and 13:30. The trip lasts two and a half to three hours and passes twelve beaches and three islands. There are three swim stops of about thirty minutes each, usually at João Fernandes, Ilha Feia and Tartaruga. The bigger boats carry a water slide, a small pool for children, floats, a bar and snorkel masks.
The price depends on where you buy. Direct from the operators it is R$60 to R$75 an adult, with children under five free and six to ten at R$40. The pier charges a boarding fee of R$5, or R$10 at Porto Veleiro, in cash. The same seat on the big booking sites costs R$107 and up. A catamaran does the same loop for R$110, with a noon departure and fewer people. A private boat for up to fourteen runs about R$1,490 through a local agency. Take the morning boat. The wind picks up after lunch, and the swim stops are calmer before it does.
The beaches, in one paragraph
We wrote a whole guide to them, so here is the rule and the link. The coves on the north and west side are calm and warmer: Ferradura, Ferradurinha, Azeda, Azedinha, Tartaruga, João Fernandes. The beaches on the south and east side are wider, colder and have waves: Geribá, Brava, Tucuns. Pick by the day you want, not by the map. The guide to the best beaches in Búzios ranks the ten we send guests to, with directions from the house. Start at Ferradurinha, 8 minutes down our hill, if you want quiet, and Geribá, 13 minutes, if you want the crowd.
In the water: surf, snorkel, dive, paddle
Surf. Geribá is where you learn. A former Brazilian under-21 champion runs a school under a hundred metres from the sand, boards and wetsuits included. There are four or five other schools along the beach. Through an agency a lesson is about R$147. At the beach itself the schools have charged less, so ask on the sand. There are boards in our garage too, which Mathias noticed in 2020: “Even two surf boards for guests were provided for free.”
Snorkel. Azeda, Azedinha and Tartaruga, all on the calm side, from the beach with your own mask. Tartaruga is named for the turtles and they are still there.
Dive. Búzios has two PADI centres in town. A first dive with an instructor, one tank, at Ilha da Âncora costs R$380 to R$400 and takes half a day. The dive centre calls the island the best site in the state, with turtles and visibility to fifteen metres. Agencies sell a thirty-minute shallow version for about R$230. Take the real one.
Paddle. Manguinhos and Ferradura, where the water is flat. Boards rent by the hour on both beaches, and Manguinhos is where the sea turtles pass under you if you are lucky.
On foot: the walks
The one we are proudest of starts at the beach below the house. From Ferradurinha a path runs along the cliffs to Ferradura, 4.7 kilometres and about four and a half hours. It passes Praia dos Amores, two sets of natural rock pools, a small sea-water waterfall and the Pedra do Guardião. It is not signed and it forks often, so take a guide for about R$80, and go early. Oto, one of our guests, put the whole thing in a line: “very convenient to walk down to the beach and access local trails for hiking.”
Shorter and easier: fifteen minutes up from the right end of Brava to Olho de Boi, a cove you can only reach on foot. The ten-minute walk to Ponta do Pai Vitório from the end of Praia Rasa, for the sunset. And the Mirante do Forno, which you can reach by buggy, best at sunrise or sunset with the pink sand below.
Wheels: buggy, quad and the trolley
The buggy is the postcard, and it is fun. A 24-hour rental runs R$300 to R$350 with a refundable deposit of R$500, fuel extra, four people at most. Two rules every rental page repeats: no driving on the sand, and the buggy cannot leave Búzios. So it is a way to loop the far beaches and viewpoints with the roof off. It is not a way onto the beach. Most companies deliver it to your door. If you would rather not drive, a guided quad tour is about R$280 a person for two hours. The open-air Búzios Trolley does twelve beaches and two viewpoints in about two hours for R$100 to R$150, with one swim stop at Praia do Forno. The trolley is the one we suggest for grandparents.
The town after dark
Rua das Pedras is the one famous street, about three hundred metres of rough stone closed to cars, and the Orla Bardot is the seafront it runs into. You walk it, you stop for a drink, you take the photo with the bronze Brigitte Bardot on her bench. Then you walk on to the three fishermen at the far end. One evening is enough to understand it and two are pleasant. The evenings to avoid are the cruise-ship days. Thirteen ships a season each put a few thousand people on the same four hundred metres at once. The walk in order, the restaurants at three prices and the nightlife are all in our guide to Rua das Pedras.
A day in Arraial do Cabo
If you have five days, give one to Arraial. It is 36 kilometres from Búzios, about fifty minutes, and the water there is the clearest on this coast. The standard day is a van pickup at your door around eight, then a four-hour boat around the beaches and the Gruta Azul. Lunch is a buffet, and you are back by five. From Búzios it costs R$180 to R$240 a person, plus a R$15 reserve fee in cash. Cabo Frio, 25 kilometres away, is the bigger town, with dunes, a fort and a long beach. Most guests skip it unless they need the shops or the airport.
With small children
Pick the calm side and keep the days short. Tartaruga and Ferradura have the shallowest, calmest water, and João Fernandes has restaurants right on the sand. The schooners take children under five free and six to ten at half price, and the bigger boats have a small pool on deck. Geribá has waves, but the water gets deep slowly, and the surf schools take children. There is no aquarium and no kids’ museum in Búzios, and we would rather say so than send you looking. There is Radical Parque, with karts, a zipline and a climbing wall, from R$12 to enter and R$249 for the full pass. Save it for a morning when the beach has lost its charm. At our house, our pool, the game room and the ping-pong table do most of that job.
When it rains
It happens, mostly in summer, and mostly for an hour. If it settles in, the dive boats still go, because it is wet underwater anyway. In town there is the Gran Cine Bardot, a proper cinema by the pier whose slogan is “cinema is our beach”. There are the galleries around Rua das Pedras, the churches, and a long lunch at Porto da Barra. Some people take the buggy out regardless. At our house a rainy day is the game room, the sauna, the pizza oven and our pool, which does not mind the rain.
How many days, and what to skip
Three nights. That is the number the guides settle on and it is ours. Two gives you the boat and two beaches. Five works if one day goes to Arraial. A day trip from Rio is three hours each way for one afternoon, and every local voice on the forums says the same thing. Skip the marketplace versions of the boat trip, which cost about double the pier. Skip Praia Rasa and Tucuns as swimming beaches too. One is murky and one is rough.
What we see from the house
We would be lying if we said the house was not one of the things to do. Bruno, who came with his family, wrote in Portuguese: “me at the grill with the picanha, the kids in the pool, the wine flowing, and the most beautiful view in Búzios right in front of me.” Joceline listed it like a menu: “pool, sauna, pool table, barbecue, and a sunset that takes your breath away.” Eli, from Google, spent her evenings “playing ping pong or pool, relaxing in the swimming pool, or just sipping a cocktail while watching the sunset.”
The sunset is the one everybody mentions. The terrace faces west over Geribá, the same light that makes Porto da Barra the sunset spot the town itself recommends, without the drive. Most days here are quite simple, and that is the point. A beach in the morning, a long lunch, our pool or a second beach. Then the sunset from the deck, before deciding whether town is worth it tonight. The four suites at Casalita sleep ten, and the dates are on Airbnb.
Come and see it
Búzios is not a checklist town, and that is the point of it. Book the boat, pick a beach by how you feel, walk one path, and let the afternoons be long. Do those four things and you have done Búzios. You will start planning the second visit on the drive back to Rio.
Read this next: the ten beaches we send every guest to, and how to get here from Rio, with this month’s prices.
Questions guests ask us
How many days do you need in Búzios?
Three nights is the number most people land on, and it is ours too. Two gives you the boat trip and two beaches. Five works if one day goes to Arraial do Cabo. A day trip from Rio is not enough, because the drive is three hours each way.
What is the one thing to book in Búzios?
The schooner boat trip. It leaves from the pier in the centre, lasts about three hours, passes twelve beaches and three islands, and stops three times to swim. Direct from the operators it costs R$60 to R$75 a person, plus R$5 to board at the pier.
What can you do in Búzios when it rains?
The dive boats still go out. In town there is the Gran Cine Bardot, the galleries, the churches, and a long lunch at Porto da Barra. Many people rent a buggy anyway. At our house a rainy day is the game room, the sauna, the pizza oven and our pool, which does not mind the rain.
Is Búzios good for small children?
Yes, if you pick the calm side. Tartaruga and Ferradura have shallow, calm water, and João Fernandes has restaurants on the sand. The schooners take children under five free and six to ten at half price. There is no aquarium or kids' museum, so the beach and our pool are the plan.
Is Arraial do Cabo worth a day trip from Búzios?
Yes, once. It is 36 kilometres away, about fifty minutes by road, and the water is the clearest on this coast. A van and boat day with lunch costs about R$180 to R$265 a person from Búzios, leaving around eight and back by five.
How do you get around Búzios?
Uber, for most people. A ride across town costs about R$15 to R$22. A buggy is the fun option at R$300 to R$350 a day, but it cannot go on the sand or leave the town. Water taxis run between the beaches on the bay side.
Where is the best sunset in Búzios?
Porto da Barra, in Manguinhos, on the west side of the peninsula. The town itself calls it the most beautiful sunset in the city, and the pier there has bars and restaurants for it. Our own terrace faces the same light over Geribá.
Is Búzios worth visiting if you are not a beach person?
Yes, for a couple of days. The boat trip, the walks along the cliffs, the town in the evening and a day in Arraial fill them without a towel. Longer than that, and it is a beach town, and you will feel it.
