Ubatuba

Ubatuba markets itself with a number — “100 beaches” — printed on every welcome sign and tourist pamphlet, and I assumed it was the usual civic exaggeration until I actually tried to visit them all over a week and gave up somewhere around beach thirty. The coastline here folds and refolds itself constantly, forest-covered headlands separating one crescent of sand from the next, so that a five-minute drive can take you from a packed family beach to something you’d swear was uninhabited.

I came for the surf, having heard Ubatuba described as the best wave on the São Paulo coast, and spent my first two mornings getting humbled at Praia Vermelha do Norte by a swell that looked gentle from the sand and was not gentle at all in the water. A local instructor named Rogério eventually took pity on me, and by the end of the week I could at least stand up before falling over, which counted as progress.

The variety is the whole point. Beaches like Vermelha and Itamambuca draw the surf crowd. Praia da Fazenda, inside the Serra do Mar state park, requires a short forest walk to reach and pays it back with a river meeting the sea and almost no development in sight. Praia do Félix and Praia Brava are quieter still, better suited to a picnic and a book than a crowd. Lia, who does not surf and has no interest in learning, spent her mornings at Praia das Toninhas instead, closer to town, calmer water, and a decent stretch of sand to read on.

Ubatuba town itself is unglamorous — a working fishing port with a surf-shop economy layered over it — but that is part of the appeal. It has none of the polish of Búzios or the scene of Rio’s beaches, and the seafood restaurants along the harbour serve grilled fish and moqueca at prices that would embarrass Rio menus by comparison.

The Serra do Mar mountains crowd right up against the coast here, and the drive in from São Paulo city — about three hours, dropping through cloud forest and switchbacks — is one of the more dramatic approaches to any beach town I have made in Brazil.

When to go: September to November and April to June for good surf without the summer crowds. December to February is peak season and the beaches near town fill up fast, though the further-flung ones stay quieter.