The Atlas Obscura Guide To Brazil

147 Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in Brazil

Updated June 5, 2025

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Unusual Attractions in Brazil

The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading

This stunning Brazilian library contains the largest collection of Portuguese texts outside of Portugal itself.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Largo do Boticário

Crumbling remnant of Rio's colonial past tucked behind Corcovado mountain in the neighborhood of Cosme Velho.

The extravagant crypts at the São Paulo Cathedral.

São Paulo, Brazil

Crypt of the São Paulo Cathedral

The crypts are so large they're basically their own underground church.

Vale da Lua

Alto Paraíso de Goiás, Brazil

Vale da Lua

After millennia of erosion by sand and churning water this Brazilian valley now looks like a lunar fantasy.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Parque Lage

Beautiful public park off the beaten path and away from tourists.

Gruta Do Lago Azul

Bonito, Brazil

Gruta Do Lago Azul (Blue Lake Grotto)

Part of one of the largest flooded cavities on the planet, and littered with prehistoric animal bones.

Termite mound at night

Vila de São Jorge, Brazil

Glowing Termite Mounds of Emas National Park

These termites have an large and deadly abode—impressive by day, dazzling by night.

Rio de Janeiro Cathedral

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio de Janeiro Cathedral

This massive Brazilian church is built like an angular, technicolor pyramid left by Mayans from the future.

See All 147 Things To Do in Brazil

Cool Places to Eat & Drink in Brazil

Inside the tree

Parnamirim, Brazil

World's Largest Cashew Tree

You feel like you're in a forest, but you're actually walking amidst the branches and trunks of a single giant tree.

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Santos, Brazil

Brazil's Coffee Palace

This majestic building, where Brazil's coffee brokers once bought and sold beans, now houses a coffee museum.

Maniwara ants are used in several Biatüwi dishes.

Manaus, Brazil

Biatüwi

The only restaurant serving indigenous foods from the Amazon.

The Capela Nossa Senhora das Neves

Bento Gonçalves, Brazil

Capela Nossa Senhora das Neves

After a terrible drought, townspeople used wine to build this church.

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Architecture 26

Museums 20

Architectural Oddities 18

Animals 16

Art 15

Water 11

Nature 11

Churches 10

Collections 9

Sacred Spaces 9

Plants 9

History 8

Places To Stay 2

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Stories About Brazil

The rocky Revere Beach coast in Revere, Massachusetts, just outside Boston.

Which Places With Bad Raps Are Actually Worth Visiting?

Our podcast listeners defend their favorite places with bad reputations, ranging from laundromats to ... Sacramento, California?

by The Podcast Team

Lightning strikes the hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue that stands on a mountaintop above Rio de Janeiro.

In Rio, a Reincarnated Spirit Can Chase Away the Rain

Cacique Cobra Coral is often tapped by officials to keep weather from ruining important events.

by Constance Malleret

February 13, 2025

Capim dourado actually isn’t gold, and it’s not grass either.

How Brazil Protects and Preserves Its Luminous ‘Golden Grass’

In the Cerrado, the Mumbuca community spin capim dourado into hats, baskets, and jewelry.

by Jamie Ditaranto

The capelobo is said to stalk Brazil’s dense rainforests—always looking for its next victim.

The Blood-Sucking Capelobo Haunts Brazil’s Dense Forests

The humanoid anteater slurps its victim’s gray matter as if devouring termites in a mound.

Turns out there’s been a whole other species slithering quietly by.

It’s Official: There’s Another ‘World’s Largest Snake’

Even actor Will Smith saw it slither through the Amazon.

by Olivia Young

February 29, 2024

Scientists don’t know how many silky anteaters live in Brazil’s Parnaíba Delta. Densely vegetated mangroves make it difficult to count the elusive animals.

Brazil's Most Adorable Anteater May Be a New Species

These isolated, pocket-sized silky anteaters live among the mangroves of Brazil’s Atlantic coast.

November 20, 2023

Electric eels, native to the Amazon region, are known for delivering powerful, painful jolts to prey, would-be predators, and the occasional human. But much less is known about their reproduction.

The Shocking Sex Lives of Electric Eels in Brazil

Lightning and other environmental electricity may jumpstart reproduction for the Amazon Basin fish.

November 15, 2023

Of the 151 species they studied, all of them, including this tree frog, Dendropsophus rhodopeplus (shown under blue light), displayed some level of fluorescence.

Biologists Threw a Fluorescent Frog Rave in the Amazon, for Science

Turns out many of the frogs glow, maybe to communicate.

by Roxanne Hoorn

August 22, 2023

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