The best tours in Paraty: a ranking by people who work on this sea
Everyone who lands in Paraty hears the same question at the pier: “which tour are you doing?”. The offer is wide, the flyers all look alike and nobody has days to spare. This ranking exists to solve that, and we say up front that it has a side: the people writing it operate the Albatroz, our group’s 23 meter schooner, which leaves Marina Píer 46 every week. The advantage of reading a ranking by people who work on this sea is that we know every option from the inside, including the ones that are not ours. The trade-off is that, when we think ours is the best, we will say so plainly, and explain why.
The criterion: the experience delivered for the time and money invested, with the flaws on the table. From first to seventh.
1. The overnight boat expedition
The best tour in Paraty, in our assessment as owners and residents, is not a tour: it is sleeping at sea. The Albatroz expedition leaves Paraty in formats of 2 to 5 nights, from R$ 990 in 2026, with air-conditioned cabins, a chef on board and the first night docked at the marina, with the evening free in the historic center.
The structural difference from everything else on this list: the other tours visit the places; the expedition wakes up in them. On the 2 night departure, breakfast comes with snorkeling at Ilha dos Meros, lunch is a barbecue at Praia Grande da Cajaíba and the night is a bonfire party on the beach of the Saco do Mamanguá, with the boat anchored inside the fjord, at the foot of the Sugarloaf. On the 3 night departure, the boat crosses to Ilha Grande, sleeps there and drops you at Praia do Pouso early, with the 20 minute trail leaving you at Lopes Mendes before the day-trip schooners arrive. One of the most famous beaches in Brazil, nearly empty, and you woke up ten minutes from it.
Against: it costs more than any day trip and asks for at least two and a half days of your schedule. It is the choice of people with time who want depth. How to do it: board at 6 pm at Marina Píer 46; the dates are on the packages page and the onboard videos are on the Albatroz Instagram.
2. The day-trip schooner around the bay
The democratic classic: it leaves the pier in the center, costs around R$ 60 per person in 2026 and runs a circuit of swimming and snorkeling stops around the bay of Paraty in about five hours. For the price of a lunch, you spend the day on the water. It is the best value per real spent in town, which is why it sits second, ahead of pricier options.
Against, and it has to be said: it is a production line. The stops are timed, the boat shares each point with other schooners (several with sound systems at party volume) and, just as the swimming gets going, the engine calls everyone to the next stop. In summer and on holidays, multiply everything. How to do it: the pier kiosks sell for the next day; the early morning boats leave emptier.
Praia Grande da Cajaíba, an expedition stop and caiçara territory. Photo: Mariana Pacheco, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
3. Saco do Mamanguá on its own
The Mamanguá is a long, narrow arm of the sea, ringed by forested hills, with caiçara communities on its beaches and water like a mirror. It is called a tropical fjord and it is the most beautiful place in the municipality, in our published and signed opinion. You can see it in a day: speedboats and private tours leave from Paraty, and the Mamanguá Pão de Açúcar trail ends at the lookout that sums up the entire Costa Verde.
Against: the day trip arrives in the middle of the day and leaves before the best light, and going on your own (private speedboat or land-plus-boat combinations) costs a lot for small groups. The full Saco do Mamanguá article compares the access options; the neighboring Enseada da Cajaíba belongs in the same read.
4. Trindade and the Cachadaço natural pool
The caiçara village of Trindade, 27 km south of the center, joins open-sea beaches with the scenery of the Serra da Bocaina falling into the sand. The closer is the Cachadaço natural pool, a ring of boulders with shallow, clear water full of fish. The Colitur bus leaves the bus station for about R$ 5, which makes Trindade the best low-budget tour on this whole list.
Against: fame charges a toll. On holidays and in high season, the little access road jams in the morning and the natural pool becomes a people pool. Go on a weekday, arrive early and bring cash, because the signal out there fails.
5. Caminho do Ouro
In the mountains, along the Paraty-Cunha road, you visit a paved stretch of the route that brought the gold of Minas down in the 18th century, inside Serra da Bocaina National Park. Stepping on stones laid three centuries ago, with the forest closing overhead and the guide explaining how that engineering worked, changes how you look at the historic center afterward: you understand where the wealth of the old houses came from.
How to do it: visits are only allowed with an authorized guide, because the route crosses private land. The starting point is the Penha district, and the town’s agencies book with a day’s notice; prices vary by operator and season, so confirm the day before. Against: on a day of heavy rain, the stones get slippery and the visit loses its point (and is sometimes suspended).
The 18th century paving on the Caminho do Ouro. Photo: Glauco Umbelino, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
6. The distilleries of the Paraty-Cunha road
Paraty was one of the great cachaça hubs of colonial Brazil, and the tradition lives on in the region’s distilleries, several of them open for visits with tastings, on the same Paraty-Cunha road as the Caminho do Ouro. Watching the copper still at work and tasting the unaged white at the source is a half-day plan that pairs well with item 5.
A copper still in the region. Photo: Luiz Pantoja, CC BY 2.0, Flickr
Against: whoever drives does not taste, and the visit without the tasting loses half its meaning. Solve transport first (taxi, transfer or the agencies’ organized tour).
7. Praia do Sono
Praia do Sono closes the list not for being the worst, but for being the most demanding: there is no road. Access is through the Laranjeiras condominium, followed by a trail of about 3 km, or by boat from the same area. The reward is a real caiçara village, with camping, simple restaurants and a sea with no buildings on the horizon. For anyone with a backpacker spirit, it climbs the personal ranking fast.
Against: the trail punishes in the heat, a day trip yields little beach time and the infrastructure is minimal on purpose. It works better with an overnight stay, ideally outside holidays.
What was left out (and why)
Two absences deserve an explanation. Paraty-Mirim, the cove with a colonial church from 1720 on the sand, stayed off the ranking not for lack of merit, but for being more of a place than a tour: it is a quiet half day on a R$ 5 bus, with no tour operation around it, and it is told in the guide to Paraty beyond the historic center. And the mountain waterfalls, like the ones in the Penha district on the way up the Paraty-Cunha, work better as a complement to the Caminho do Ouro and the distilleries than as the main plan: string the three together in the same day and the mountains pay off in full.
How to choose by profile
- I have one day and a tight budget: the day-trip schooner or Trindade by bus.
- I have one day and want the most beautiful place: the Mamanguá on its own.
- I have two or more days and want the real sea: the overnight expedition, no hesitation in the answer.
- Rain on the radar: Caminho do Ouro only on dry ground; distilleries and the historic center work wet (the full plan B is in things to do in Paraty when it rains).
To fit all of this into an itinerary with a beginning, middle and end, we already drew the 3 day and 5 day versions, and the article on Paraty travel costs puts a price on each combination. The calendar (rain, FLIP, crowds) is in best time to visit Paraty.
The yardstick we use
In the end, the whole ranking fits in one question: do you want to see the places, or be in them when nobody else is? Every week we witness the moment that difference clicks: the boat anchored in the silence of the fjord, the bonfire lit on the sand, and someone saying quietly that they did not know Paraty had this. It did. It always has. It just does not fit in five hours.
Pick your number from the list and book before you arrive, because the best formats sell out first. If the pick is number 1, the next departures are on the expedition’s packages page.