Balneário Camboriú

Nothing prepares you for the skyline of Balneário Camboriú until you actually round the coastal highway and see it rise out of nowhere — a wall of glass towers, some pushing past 60 storeys, stacked directly against a two-kilometre stretch of sand. Brazilians call it “Miami” or increasingly “Dubai,” and the comparison isn’t hyperbole so much as an accurate description of the sheer density of luxury construction. I’d read about it before visiting and still stood on the beach the first evening slightly stunned, trying to reconcile the postcard image of Brazilian coastline with this concrete forest.

Praia Central, the main beach, is the city’s stage — a wide promenade backed by that wall of towers, packed in summer with beach vendors, volleyball games, and enough matte-black SUVs idling curbside to make clear this is one of Brazil’s wealthiest small cities per capita. The evening ritual is simple and universal: everyone walks the beachfront calçadão as the sun drops behind the buildings, then finds a spot for açaí or a caipirinha at one of the kiosks lining the sand.

The Unipraias cable car climbs from the beach up to a ridge with panoramic views back down over the entire bay, and from up there the scale of the place actually reads as impressive rather than overwhelming — towers, forest, ocean, all compressed into a single frame. I took the cable car back down at dusk specifically to watch the lights come on across the skyline, floor by floor, like the city switching itself on for the night shift.

What surprised me most was Praia dos Laranjeiras, a short drive north, calmer and family-oriented, backed by lower-rise development and framed by green hills — proof the region hasn’t entirely surrendered its coastline to concrete. Lia, who finds high-rise beach towns a bit soulless as a rule, admitted this quieter cove changed her read on the whole area.

When to go: December to March for full beach-town energy, though it gets crowded and prices spike. April, May, October, and November offer warm-enough water with a fraction of the summer crowds.