Rio de Janeiro, BR

A Botafogo tasting-menu restaurant regularly ranked among Latin America's best, cooking hyper-seasonally from its own organic garden. The no-choice menu changes constantly with what the farm yields.

Chef Alberto Landgraf's minimalist Botafogo fine-dining room built around exceptional Brazilian seafood and precise technique. It's a hushed, two-Michelin-recognized counter for a serious dinner.

A beloved botequim in Praça da Bandeira reinventing Brazilian bar food, famous for a deep-fried feijoada ball (bolinho de feijoada) and a serious cachaça list. It's the gold standard for elevated carioca comfort food.

A colorful, bohemian Ipanema house blending global flavors with tropical ingredients — coconut curries, citrusy ceviches — across candle-lit rooms. The cushioned upstairs lounge is a romantic Ipanema standby.

A long-running Ipanema seafood institution with an Italian accent, where you pick fish from the iced display for the grill. It's the upscale, old-school place for a fish dinner in the Zona Sul.

A Leblon institution with hundreds of cachaças and a kitchen turning out reliable Brazilian classics and one of the city's best feijoadas. It's where to learn the national spirit alongside hearty cooking.

A bustling, photo-covered botequim in Santa Teresa serving Minas Gerais comfort food and famously good feijoada to a mixed local-and-bohemian crowd. It's the neighborhood's social anchor.

A belle-époque café from 1894 in the Centro, all stained glass, Belgian mirrors, and jacaranda counters, serving pastries and afternoon tea. It's as much a historic monument as a place to eat.

A Copacabana late-night institution famous for hot sandwiches piled with meat and a slab of grilled pineapple. It's the legendary post-bar stop, open into the small hours.

An Ipanema spot that serves Brazil's national feijoada every day of the week, not just Saturdays, with all the traditional accompaniments. It's the reliable place to try the dish whenever you visit.

Rio's reference Japanese restaurant in Leblon, pairing pristine fish with Brazilian touches in a polished, see-and-be-seen room. It's the Zona Sul's go-to for high-end sushi.

A classic open-front Gávea grill where cariocas fill the sidewalk tables for picanha, garlic rice, and cold beer. It's an institution for unfussy Brazilian grilled meat and people-watching.

An upscale Leblon deli and bakery beloved for its sandwiches on house bread, pastries, and a buzzy weekend brunch. It's the neighborhood's go-to for a refined breakfast or a picnic to take to the beach.

A narrow, no-frills Copacabana botequim that has grilled spit-roasted galeto (young chicken) since the 1960s. It's a carnivore's late-night ritual of charred chicken, farofa, and beer.

An Italian-style gelateria in Ipanema churning small batches with Brazilian fruit flavors alongside the classics. It's the go-to cool-down a block from the beach.

The Fasano group's understated Ipanema Italian, with handmade pasta and impeccable produce in a warm brick-and-wood room. It's the polished, grown-up Italian dinner in the Zona Sul.

An Argentine-style steakhouse in Barra da Tijuca, grilling well-sourced cuts over the parrilla for the west-side crowd. It's the go-to grill for those staying out by the long Barra beaches.

A Santa Teresa restaurant specializing in Amazonian and Brazilian regional cooking, with a terrace overlooking the city and a downstairs bar that turns into a party. The river-fish dishes are a rare taste of the north.

A flat, paved seaside trail at the foot of Sugarloaf in Urca, hugging the rocks between Praia Vermelha and the open Atlantic. It's the easy, scenic walk where monkeys and herons share the path with joggers.

The lower of the two Sugarloaf peaks, reached on foot by a short forested scramble from Praia Vermelha. It earns the same sweeping bay views as the cable car for the price of a sweaty climb.

A moderate hike up the twin-peaked hill above Leblon, starting from the Vidigal favela, to a summit with the city's most photographed view down the Ipanema-Leblon coastline. The payoff-to-effort ratio is among Rio's best.

A relatively gentle forest trail in the Tijuca massif to a broad flat summit beside the hang-gliding ramp, with views over São Conrado and the coast. It's the accessible big-view hike, doable by most.

One of the world's highest coastal monoliths and Rio's most demanding day hike, ending with a famous scramble (the Carrasqueira) up bare rock to a vast summit. The 360-degree view over the city and ocean is the ultimate carioca trophy hike.

The highest peak in Tijuca National Park, reached by a forest trail that ends with carved stone steps up to a panoramic summit. It's a rewarding hard hike entirely within the world's largest urban rainforest.

Gentle trails through the heart of the replanted Tijuca rainforest, linking the Cascatinha Taunay waterfall, the pink Mayrink Chapel, and shaded picnic clearings. It's the easy, family-friendly way into the urban jungle.

A three-story samba house in Lapa crammed with antiques and a live band that fills the floor with dancers nightly. It's the most atmospheric place to experience Rio's samba in the city's nightlife heartland.

A futuristic Santiago Calatrava-designed science museum jutting over the water at the revitalized port, exploring sustainability and possible futures. The sweeping white structure is a landmark in its own right.

An art museum at Praça Mauá joining a historic palace to a modern building under a wave-like roof, showing Brazilian art and the city's own story. The rooftop walkway frames the port and bay.

One of football's great cathedrals, where Pelé scored his 1,000th goal and two World Cup finals were decided. Catching a match amid the drums and chants is one of Rio's most electric experiences.

Rio's opulent early-20th-century opera house in Cinelândia, modeled on the Paris Opéra, with a marble-and-gilt interior and a full season of ballet, opera, and orchestra. A performance is the way to see it lit up.

A historic stone stairway in the old port's Little Africa district, considered a birthplace of samba, where free open-air roda de samba fill the street on certain nights. It's raw, communal, and deeply local.

The Oscar Niemeyer-designed parade avenue where Rio's samba schools compete during Carnival before grandstands of thousands. Outside Carnival you can tour it or catch school rehearsals nearby.

A vast covered fair celebrating northeastern Brazilian culture, with forró bands, food stalls, and dancing late into the weekend. It's a transplanted slice of the sertão in the heart of Rio.

A cultural center in a grand former bank in the Centro, with a domed rotunda and consistently strong, often-free art exhibitions, film, and theater. Its blockbuster shows draw long lines for a reason.

South America's largest aquarium, in the revitalized port zone, with a walk-through tunnel and big ocean tanks. It's the reliable rainy-day or with-kids stop in the city center.

The modernized city zoo in the historic Quinta da Boa Vista park, focused on Brazilian and tropical species in naturalistic enclosures. Combined with the surrounding park, it's an easy family day out.

The 38-meter Art Deco statue of Christ atop Corcovado, arms outstretched over the city, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The summit delivers the definitive panorama over Rio, its bays, and beaches.

The granite monolith at the mouth of Guanabara Bay, climbed in two glass cable-car legs to a summit with sweeping views of the beaches, the bay, and Christ in the distance. Sunset from the top is a Rio rite.

The legendary curving beach backed by Niemeyer's wave-patterned promenade, where the whole city plays football, drinks coconut water, and watches the sunrise. It's the throbbing heart of carioca beach life.

The chic, mountain-framed beach immortalized in song, divided into postos with their own crowds and famous for the cheering sunset at the Arpoador end. It's where Rio comes to see and be seen.

A staircase of over 200 steps between Lapa and Santa Teresa covered in thousands of brilliant tiles from around the world, the decades-long work of artist Jorge Selarón. It's one of the city's most photographed spots.

A 200-year-old botanical garden at the foot of Corcovado, famous for its towering avenue of imperial palms, an orchid house, and giant Amazon water lilies. It's a serene, shaded escape teeming with birds and marmosets.

Rio's bohemian hilltop neighborhood of cobbled lanes, colonial mansions, ateliers, and street art, still served by the historic yellow tram. Wandering its winding streets is the antidote to the beach.

The towering white 18th-century aqueduct arches that frame Lapa, now carrying the Santa Teresa tram and presiding over the city's rowdiest nightlife district below. By night the arches glow over the crowds and street samba.

A mansion-and-garden park at the base of Corcovado, with a romantic courtyard café framing Christ the Redeemer through the arches. Forest trails climb from here toward the statue itself.

A rocky outcrop jutting into the sea between Ipanema and Copacabana, the city's beloved free sunset-watching perch. Crowds gather nightly to applaud the sun dropping behind the Dois Irmãos peaks.

Rio's longest beach, an 18-kilometer ribbon of open sand and surf west of the Zona Sul, far less crowded than Copacabana or Ipanema. It's where cariocas go for space, surf, and a more modern, suburban beach scene.

A panoramic lookout below Corcovado with a head-on view of Sugarloaf, Botafogo's bay, and the city sweeping out to the sea. It's the photographer's vantage that captures both of Rio's icons in one frame.