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A private speedboat escape to the paradise island beaches of Ilha Grande.
Hop aboard a private speedboat to Ilha Grande, a car-free island south of Rio, to swim, snorkel in the Blue Lagoon, and relax on wild, unspoiled beaches.
Discover some of the most tantalizing spots along the Brazilian coast on this private speedboat day trip. Visit the paradise island of Ilha Grande, where you can swim, snorkel, and sunbathe on wild beaches, plus snorkel in the calm, clear waters of the Blue Lagoon. Lunch at a seaside restaurant is at your own expense.
A popular starting point — every Voyzo itinerary is fully customizable, so we'll shape the order and stops around your group.
Round-trip hotel transfer in an air-conditioned vehicle to the departure marina, included.
Visit this largely undeveloped, car-free island with some of Brazil's most pristine beaches.
Snorkel in the calm, crystal-clear waters of the Blue Lagoon.
Stop at secluded beaches accessible only by boat.
Back to your hotel, home, or the airport — whenever your day wraps up.
Hop aboard a private speedboat to Ilha Grande, a car-free island south of Rio, to swim, snorkel in the Blue Lagoon, and relax on wild, unspoiled beaches. Discover some of the most tantalizing spots along the Brazilian coast on this private speedboat day trip. Visit the paradise island of Ilha Grande, where you can swim, snorkel, and sunbathe on wild beaches, plus snorkel in the calm, clear waters of the Blue Lagoon. Lunch at a seaside restaurant is at your own expense.
Ilha Grande is a genuinely large island — about 193 square kilometers of mostly forested terrain — sitting roughly 12 kilometers off the coast near Angra dos Reis, a couple of hours southwest of Rio by road and boat combined. Unlike most of Brazil's popular coastal destinations, there are almost no roads and no cars here at all; the only town, Vila do Abraão, is reached and explored entirely on foot, by water taxi, or — on a speedboat day trip like this one — straight off the boat onto the sand.
What makes Ilha Grande unusual isn't just its beaches — it's the century the island spent closed off from the rest of Brazil. For most of the 1900s, ordinary visitors simply weren't allowed here: the island first housed an immigration quarantine station and a leper colony, then later a maximum-security prison, the Instituto Penal Cândido Mendes, which held some of the country's most notorious offenders. That history is exactly why the island's forests and coastline survived so untouched — development was effectively banned here for generations, by accident of its grim past rather than by design. The prison was finally closed and physically demolished with dynamite in 1994, in a ceremony attended by state officials, clearing the way for the protected nature reserve and low-key tourism the island is known for today.
The reward for that long isolation is some of the best-preserved coastline in Brazil. Lopes Mendes, a roughly 3-kilometer arc of fine white sand on the island's ocean-facing side, is regularly ranked among the best beaches not just in Brazil but in the world — it placed 13th globally in TripAdvisor's 2014 Travelers' Choice awards and was voted the second-best beach in Brazil in 2016. Reached on foot, it's a scenic trail of a few hours from Abraão; arriving by private speedboat, as this tour does, cuts that down to a fraction of the time, leaving far more of the day for actually being on the sand and in the water, plus the calmer Blue Lagoon for snorkeling.
Every Voyzo tour is a starting point — tell us what you have in mind and we'll build it.
