Angra dos Reis & Its 365 Islands: A Travel Guide

There is a number people repeat about Angra dos Reis until it becomes a kind of incantation: three hundred and sixty-five islands, one for every day of the year. Like all the best travel facts it is half poetry and half truth. Nobody has lined them up and counted to be sure, and depending on how you treat a lump of rock with a single palm on it, the tally drifts up or down. What is not in doubt is the impression you get the first time the bay opens up in front of you. The water is scattered with islands the way a night sky is scattered with stars: some close enough to swim to, some far out and hazy, a few crowned with a single house, most green and uninhabited and shaped like the backs of sleeping animals.

Angra dos Reis is the main town on this bay, and it sits roughly halfway along the Costa Verde, the green coast that runs between Rio de Janeiro and the border with São Paulo state. It is the place most travellers pass through on the way to somewhere else, usually the island of Ilha Grande, and that is part of what I want to be honest with you about. The town will not seduce you. The water around it absolutely will. Get those two facts straight before you arrive and Angra becomes one of the easiest and most rewarding days on the whole coast.

I have spent a good deal of my working life on boats in this part of Brazil, and I have watched a lot of visitors arrive in Angra expecting another Paraty and leave a little confused. So let me lay it out plainly: what Angra is, what it is not, which islands actually reward a visit, how to choose between a schooner and a speedboat, and where Angra fits in a trip that probably has its real heart further down the coast at Paraty.

Where Angra dos Reis is, and what it actually is

Angra dos Reis — the name means roughly "cove of the kings," given by Portuguese navigators who entered the bay on the feast of Epiphany — is both a town and a sprawling municipality on the southern coast of Rio de Janeiro state. The body of water that defines it is the Baía da Ilha Grande, the Ilha Grande Bay, a deep, sheltered inlet protected from the open Atlantic by the long bulk of Ilha Grande itself. That shelter is the whole story. Because the big island and the surrounding headlands break the ocean swell, the inner bay stays calm and green, and calm green water is exactly what lets hundreds of small islands sit there looking like a painting.

The town itself is a working place. It has a real port, a naval presence, shipyards, and the comings and goings of a small Brazilian city rather than a polished tourist set-piece. There is an old colonial core with a handful of fine churches and a pleasant enough waterfront, but it is modest, and much of the modern town is ordinary. If you have just come from the cobbled, lamplit streets of Paraty's historic centre, Angra's town will feel like a step down in charm. That is not a criticism so much as a clarification. Angra earns its place on your itinerary the moment you leave the quay and get out onto the water.

How Angra sits on the coast

Geographically, Angra is the hinge of the Costa Verde. Drive in from Rio and the bay appears on your right somewhere around the halfway mark of the journey; carry on and the road eventually delivers you to Paraty. Because of this central position, Angra makes sense as a stop on a road trip down the coast and as the busiest of the several jumping-off points for Ilha Grande. The forested wall behind the town is the Serra do Mar, the coastal mountain range whose slopes hold the Parque Estadual Cunhambebe, a state park of Atlantic Forest that climbs straight up from sea level. That meeting of mountain and sea is what gives the whole region its scenery and its name.

The town itself will not seduce you. The water around it absolutely will.

The 365 islands, and the truth behind the number

The "one island for every day of the year" line is the kind of thing a boatman tells you with a grin, and you should enjoy it in that spirit. The real count is genuinely large — well into the hundreds across the whole bay — and it includes everything from substantial inhabited islands with their own villages to bare rocks barely big enough to stand on. Some have private homes on them, a few quite grand; many are protected and undeveloped; a handful have small beaches that fill with day boats by late morning.

What the number really tells you is how to plan. You cannot see them all, and you should not try. The islands worth your time fall into a few clear categories: the snorkelling stops where the water is clearest, the beach islands with sand and shade and somewhere to buy a cold drink, and the simply scenic ones you cruise past rather than land on. A good day on the bay strings together three or four of these, with swimming in between, and leaves the other three hundred and sixty as scenery. Trying to cram in more just means more time motoring and less time in the water.

The islands worth a day

Ilha Botinas: the bay's natural aquarium

If Angra has a single signature image, it is the Ilhas Botinas: two small, matching humps of rock rising side by side out of impossibly clear water, often photographed from above so they look like a pair of green commas on a turquoise page. The appeal is not the islands themselves, which you do not really land on, but the channel of water around and between them. It is calm, shallow in places, and busy with fish, which makes it one of the best snorkelling stops in the whole bay. Nearly every schooner and speedboat circuit includes it, which is both the good news and the bad: arrive with the crowd at midday and you are sharing the water with a great many other masks and fins. The trick, as ever, is to be among the first boats of the morning.

Lagoa Azul: the blue lagoon

Strictly speaking, Lagoa Azul sits off the northern shore of Ilha Grande rather than in the cluster of small islands close to town, but it is part of every serious bay circuit and deserves its fame. It is a shallow cove sheltered by rocks and islets, where the water turns a pale, luminous blue-green over a sandy bottom, and where shoals of small fish gather around the anchored boats — partly, it must be said, because crews and visitors feed them. Bring a mask. On a calm, sunny day the clarity is genuinely remarkable, and floating there with the green hills of Ilha Grande rising behind you is one of those moments that justify the whole trip. Like Botinas, it gets busy; like Botinas, the answer is to go early.

Ilha da Gipóia: beaches and beach kiosks

Ilha da Gipóia is the large island closest to the town, and it is where you go for actual beaches rather than just swimming stops. It has several coves with sand, calm water and a scattering of beach restaurants and kiosks, including the well-known Praia das Flechas, which gets lively with boats and music in high season. Gipóia is the more sociable, infrastructure-rich side of the Angra experience: somewhere to eat fried fish with your feet in the sand, have a caipirinha, and spend a couple of unhurried hours rather than just twenty minutes with a snorkel. If you are travelling with family or a group that wants a base for the afternoon rather than a string of quick stops, Gipóia is the island to anchor your day around.

The scenery you cruise, not land on

Beyond these headline stops, a great deal of Angra's pleasure is simply the passage between islands: the channels where the water shifts from deep blue to jade, the forested slopes coming down to the shore, the occasional remarkable house tucked into a private cove. You will pass islands you will never set foot on and which are all the better for it. Resist the urge to treat the day as a checklist. The best hours on the bay are often the ones spent doing very little except watching the next island slide by.

The schooner and speedboat circuits: how to choose

There are two main ways to get out among the islands, and the choice shapes your whole day.

The schooners

The big wooden schooners — locally escunas — are the classic, sociable option. They are broad, slow, double-decked boats that leave from the town quay on a set circuit, usually taking in three or four stops over the better part of a day, with time to swim at each. They are good value, often include or sell lunch and drinks on board, and have the holiday-cruise atmosphere of music, sun decks and a crowd. The trade-offs are predictable. You go where the boat goes, on its timetable, and you arrive at the popular stops at the same time as every other schooner, which means the busy hours at Botinas and Lagoa Azul are busy indeed. For first-time visitors who want an easy, all-arranged day and don't mind company, a schooner is a perfectly good choice.

The speedboats

The alternative is a speedboat — lancha — either shared or private. These are faster and far more flexible. A private boat with a skipper lets you set the route, linger where you like, skip what you don't, and reach quieter coves the schooners can't be bothered with. Crucially, it lets you time your arrivals: get to Lagoa Azul at nine rather than eleven and you may have it nearly to yourself. The obvious cost is money — a private speedboat is a serious step up in price from a schooner ticket — but split between a couple or a small group, and weighed against the difference it makes to the day, many travellers find it well worth it. If you care about the quality of the water and the calm of the experience more than about the price, hire a boat. We are always glad to help guests sort this out; just ask us and we'll point you to the right kind of trip.

A simple rule

Schooner if you want easy, cheap and sociable and don't mind crowds; speedboat if you want quiet, flexible and early and are willing to pay for it. Either way, the single most useful piece of advice for Angra is the same one that governs the whole coast: go early. The day boats from the resorts and the bus crowds tend to reach the famous stops around the middle of the day. The water belongs to whoever gets there first.

The contrast between the busy port and the beautiful water

It is worth dwelling on the gap between Angra the town and Angra the bay, because it catches people out. You step off a long drive into a place that is part holiday town, part industrial port, with traffic and a slightly worn waterfront, and for a moment you wonder what the fuss is about. Then you get on a boat, the town slides behind you, the islands open out, and within twenty minutes you understand completely.

This is not a flaw to be apologised for; it is simply how Angra works. The town exists to do real jobs — shipping, naval business, serving a sizeable resident population — and the tourism is layered on top rather than being the whole point, as it more or less is in Paraty. Knowing this changes how you plan. Don't budget a day to "explore Angra" on foot expecting cobbles and galleries. Budget a day on the water and treat the town purely as the place where you park, eat and board. If you want a meal in town, the seafood places near the waterfront and the old centre are the obvious choice, but the real dining-with-a-view happens at the beach kiosks out on Gipóia. For history, the colonial churches above the harbour — the Bom Jesus do Bonfim chief among them — are a pleasant half hour if the weather turns, no more.

Angra as the gateway to Ilha Grande

For a great many visitors, Angra's most important role is not as a destination at all but as a door. Ilha Grande — the big, car-free, forest-covered island that gives the bay its name — is one of the finest stretches of coast in Brazil, and Angra is its principal mainland gateway.

The crossing is straightforward. Conventional ferries leave from the centre of Angra and take roughly an hour to reach Vila do Abraão, the island's main village, running several times a day; they are cheap, steady and a little slow. Faster speedboats and catamarans do the same trip in about half the time for more money. There is also a second, smaller departure point further along the coast at Conceição de Jacareí, from which fast boats reach Abraão in around twenty minutes — often the quickest option if you are driving down and want to leave the car on the mainland. Whichever you choose, the practical point is that Ilha Grande has no road traffic of its own: you arrive on foot at Abraão and continue by boat or trail from there.

If Ilha Grande is on your list, and it should be, we have written about it at length. Our complete guide to Ilha Grande covers where to stay, the village of Abraão, the trails and the great beaches such as Lopes Mendes, while our Ilha Grande day-trip guide is the one to read if you only have a single day and want to use it well. The short version: a day is enough for a taste, but the island rewards an overnight, and the boat schedules are friendlier if you are not trying to do everything between two ferries.

Angra and Paraty: an honest comparison

Because so many people visit both, and because we are based above the bay at Paraty, let me be candid about how the two compare. They are not rivals so much as different chapters of the same coast.

Angra's bay is, on raw numbers, the bigger and busier waterscape: more islands, more boat traffic, more of the classic blue-lagoon, fish-around-the-boat experience, and the resorts and second homes that come with proximity to Rio. The water is superb and the islands are the main event. But the town has little to detain you, and at the height of the season the famous stops can feel crowded.

Paraty's bay, by contrast, is quieter and feels wilder at its edges, with mangroves, secluded beaches and the long fjord-like inlet of the Saco do Mamanguá rather than a dense scatter of islands. And Paraty has what Angra does not: a genuinely beautiful, UNESCO-listed colonial town to come home to in the evening, a deep cultural life, and a softer, less developed feel along much of its shore. Many of our guests do a day on the Angra bay precisely because it offers something Paraty's does not — that aquarium-clear, island-hopping experience — and then return to the calm of the hillside and the town. You can read our take on the home waters in the Paraty boat tours guide and our wider Paraty overview.

Put simply: if you want islands and clear water, Angra's bay is hard to beat for a day. If you want a place to stay, wander, eat well and feel the history of the coast, that lives further south, around Paraty.

Beyond the headliners: more of the bay

The three or four famous stops are not the whole bay, and if you have a private boat or a second day, it is worth straying off the standard circuit. The pleasure of the larger islands and the quieter channels is precisely that the schooner crowds rarely reach them.

The quieter beaches and coves

Scattered around the bay are small beaches that the big circuits skip, either because they're awkward to reach or simply because there isn't time. Some sit on the far sides of the inhabited islands; others are mainland coves tucked behind headlands. These are where you go for an hour of genuine quiet — a stretch of sand with no kiosk, no music, perhaps a single fishing boat at anchor. A good skipper will know a handful and can read the day's wind to pick one that's sheltered. This is the side of Angra that most rewards the extra spend on a private boat: not the famous lagoons, which everyone sees, but the unremarkable-looking cove that turns out to be empty and perfect.

The mangroves and the forest edge

Where rivers meet the bay there are mangroves, and where the islands are undeveloped the Atlantic Forest comes right down to the tide line. Cruising slowly along these green edges is a different kind of pleasure from the open-water dashes between snorkelling stops — calmer, more attentive, with herons and other birds working the shallows. The state park behind the town, the Parque Estadual Cunhambebe, protects a large swathe of this forest on the steep slopes above the bay, and even from the water you get a sense of how completely the green wraps the coast here. It is the same Serra do Mar rainforest that defines the whole Costa Verde, seen from sea level.

The grand houses and the working bay

Part of the texture of a day on the Angra bay is simply watching the human life of the water go by. Some of the islands and coves hold remarkable private houses, the holiday retreats of people who wanted the bay to themselves; you'll cruise past them and wonder. At the same time, this is a working seascape — fishing boats, the naval base, the comings and goings of a real port — and the mix of the very private and the very ordinary is part of what makes Angra feel less like a resort and more like a living place. Don't expect a sealed tourist bubble. The bay belongs to a lot of different people at once, and that's part of its charm.

A little history and culture

It's easy to treat Angra purely as scenery, but the bay has a long human story worth knowing, because it explains the few cultural sights the town does hold. The Portuguese named it in the early sixteenth century, entering the bay around the feast of Epiphany — the "kings" of the name are the biblical Magi. Over the following centuries it became a port and a stopping point on the coastal routes, and like much of this coast it has roots in the colonial economy of sugar, and later in the gold that came down from the interior to be shipped abroad — the same trade that built nearby Paraty, and which we cover in our gold trail guide.

The legacy you can actually see is mostly religious architecture: a scattering of old churches above the harbour, of which the Igreja do Bom Jesus do Bonfim is the most prominent, and a couple of former convents and chapels. They are modest beside the riches of Paraty's historic centre, but pleasant to walk among for an hour, particularly if rain has driven you off the water. The deeper cultural thread, though, runs through the caiçara communities — the traditional coastal people of fishers and small farmers whose way of life shaped these shores long before tourism, and whose presence is part of what UNESCO recognised when it listed the wider Paraty and Ilha Grande landscape. You can read more about that living culture in our piece on caiçara culture.

Eating around the bay

Food on an Angra day comes in two settings, and they suit different moods. Out on the islands, the beach kiosks and simple restaurants — concentrated on Gipóia and the busier coves — do the classic Brazilian beach lunch: fried or grilled fish, prawns, rice, beans, a cold beer or a caipirinha, eaten with sand underfoot and the water a few steps away. It is unfussy and exactly right for the setting. In town, near the waterfront and the old centre, you'll find seafood houses serving the day's catch and the regional standards, including the seafood stews the coast does well. As ever on this coast, I won't name specific places — they change hands and reputations rise and fall — but the rule of thumb holds: eat fish, eat it near the water, and let the kiosk you like the look of decide it for you. On a schooner, lunch is often included or sold aboard; on a private boat, ask your skipper to plan a stop at an island restaurant rather than packing sandwiches, as the beach lunch is half the fun.

A sample day on the Angra bay

To make all of this concrete, here is how I'd shape a good single day on the water, the kind I'd suggest to guests:

• Early start. Be at the boat by mid-morning at the latest — earlier if you've hired a private one. The goal is to reach the first clear-water stop before the midday fleet.
• First stop, snorkelling. Make Lagoa Azul or Ilha Botinas your opening swim, while the water is still quiet and the light is good. Mask on, an unhurried half hour or more in the water.
• Cruise and a quieter cove. Move on through the islands, pausing somewhere off the standard route for a second, calmer swim if the day allows.
• Lunch on Gipóia. Anchor off one of the island's beaches for a long, lazy lunch at a kiosk — fish, a drink, time in the shade.
• Afternoon swim and home. One more dip somewhere on the way back, then in to the quay by late afternoon, leaving you the evening to drive back to your base.

That's a full, satisfying day without a single rushed moment. The temptation to add a fifth and sixth stop is exactly the one to resist. Three or four good swims, one proper lunch, and a lot of time simply moving through the islands is the recipe for the best version of Angra.

Practicalities: when to go and how to do it well

When to come

The bay is at its best in the drier, calmer months. The clarity that makes Lagoa Azul and Botinas worth the trip depends on settled weather and an absence of recent heavy rain, which stirs up sediment and run-off. The Brazilian summer, from roughly December to February, brings the warmest water and the most reliable sun but also the biggest crowds and the highest prices; the shoulder months on either side often give you calmer water and fewer boats. If you have flexibility, a weekday outside the peak holidays will always beat a summer weekend. Our guide to the best time to visit Paraty applies almost exactly to Angra, since the two share a climate.

How to do an Angra day well

• Go early. The single most important rule. Book the earliest boat you reasonably can and reach the famous stops before the midday crowd.
• Bring your own mask and fins if you have them. The good stops are about what is under the surface, and rental gear on the boats is hit and miss.
• Pick your boat to match your day. Schooner for easy and sociable; speedboat for quiet and flexible. Don't book a schooner and then complain about the crowds, and don't pay for a private boat if you actually wanted the party atmosphere.
• Watch the weather, not the calendar. A calm, clear day in the off-season beats a windy, murky one in peak summer. If you have a flexible itinerary, keep the boat day loose and grab the good weather.
• Pack reef-safe sun protection, water and shade. The sun on open water is fierce, and not every stop has shade.
• Decide in advance whether this is a day trip or a gateway. If Ilha Grande is the real goal, treat Angra purely as the ferry port and don't dilute the day.

Getting there and parking

Angra is reached by the coast road from both Rio and Paraty, and by the regular Costa Verde buses that run the length of the coast. If you are driving, the town has paid car parks near the waterfront where you can leave a vehicle for the day or for an overnight on Ilha Grande; arrive in good time, as space near the piers fills up. Coming from the south, Angra is an easy add-on to a Paraty stay: an early start gets you onto the water for the best of the morning and back to the hillside by evening.

Where Angra fits in a Costa Verde trip

The way I'd frame it for most travellers is this. Rio is the arrival and the icon. Ilha Grande is the wild island escape. Paraty is the cultural heart and the place to base yourself, especially if you want comfort and a real sense of the coast's history. And Angra is the bay — the day you give over to islands and clear water, slotted into the journey because it happens to lie on the road between the others and because its water does something the rest of the coast doesn't quite.

For guests staying with us at the chalet above the Bay of Paraty, Angra is comfortably within reach for a day on the water, and from our terrace you can actually see across toward the Ilha Grande Bay that Angra opens onto — the same sweep of islands and headlands, read from the southern end. We're always happy to help arrange the right kind of boat day, whether that's a sociable schooner or a private speedboat that gets you to the lagoon before anyone else. The bay rewards a little planning and an early alarm; do both, and Angra's three hundred and sixty-five islands will give you one of the best days of your trip. When you're ready, the rest of the coast is laid out in our guide to Brazil's coastlines, and we're a short message away on the contact page if you'd like a hand putting it all together.

Frequently asked questions