The Atlas Obscura Guide To Brazil

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

Updated January 20, 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.

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.

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.

See All 143 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.

Some rights reserved by Kai Hendry

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.

See all 5 Places to Eat in Brazil

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Architecture 24

Museums 19

Architectural Oddities 17

Animals 16

Art 15

Nature 11

Water 11

Plants 9

Collections 9

Sacred Spaces 9

Churches 9

History 8

Places To Stay 2

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wants to go to Ilha Fiscal
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wants to go to Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil
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wants to go to Edith Gaertner Cat Cemetery
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Stories About Brazil

A group harvests capim dourado in Jalapão, Brazil.

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

Podcast: Snake Island

Off-limits and full of venomous pit vipers, this rock has certainly earned its nickname.

by The Podcast Team

August 14, 2023

Podcast: The Coffee Palace

A majestic building was once the center of the coffee trade.

by The Podcast Team

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