🇧🇷 Brazil · South
Few cities in Brazil surprise you as much at first sight as Balneário Camboriú. Coming along the coast, what appears is a skyline of very tall skyscrapers lined up facing the sea, mirrored in the sand of a crescent-shaped beach: an image so futuristic it earned the city the nickname of the 'Brazilian Dubai'. In a few decades, this Santa Catarina resort went from a quiet fishing village to one of the most vibrant, modern and vertical beach destinations in the south of the country, with some of the tallest buildings in all of South America.
But Balneário Camboriú isn't only concrete and height: it's beach, nature and fun in equal parts. There's the huge Praia Central, with its avenue and its kiosks; the Parque Unipraias cable car, which crosses the hill to the idyllic Praia de Laranjeiras; the Cristo Luz, a monument with a viewpoint that lights up the city at night; the modern FG Big Wheel with its 360-degree views; and quieter, greener beaches to the south, such as Estaleiro and Estaleirinho. And when the sun goes down, the city shows its other face: bars, restaurants and one of the most famous nightlife scenes in Brazil, around Barra Sul and Avenida Atlântica.
This guide walks you through Balneário Camboriú with a practical, warm eye: which beaches to choose, how to ride the cable car and get up to the Cristo Luz, where to find the best view, how to move between Praia Central and the wilder beaches, where the night beats and how to plan your visit by season. It's an ideal destination for combining sun, sea, spectacular viewpoints, shopping and partying, and a favorite with families, couples and young travelers from Brazil and across the Southern Cone.
The name 'Camboriú' has Indigenous origins, from Tupi-Guarani, and is usually linked to expressions connected with a 'river of the camborás' or with the idea of a watercourse and fish, in reference to the Camboriú River. The region was inhabited by Indigenous peoples and, from the 18th century on, settled by colonists of Portuguese origin, mostly from the Azores, who took up fishing and farming on what was then a quiet coast of fishing villages under the municipality of Camboriú. For much of its history, today's Balneário Camboriú was a small coastal fishing town. The great change came in the 20th century: by mid-century the beauty of its beach began to draw summer visitors, and in 1964 Balneário Camboriú broke away as a municipality independent of Camboriú. From then on it grew at dizzying speed, driven by sun-and-beach tourism and by intense verticalization: the building of ever taller towers facing the sea transformed the city's profile and gave it its distinctive skyline, which turned it into a symbol of tourism in southern Brazil and into the so-called 'Brazilian Dubai'. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The southern state of beaches, islands and cool highlands: settled by Azoreans, Germans and Italians, stage of Garibaldi's short-lived Juliana Republic and of the bloody Guerra do Contestado. Land of Florianópolis and its dozens of beaches, of the Blumenau Oktoberfest and of the only corner of Brazil where it regularly snows.
Read the history of Santa Catarina →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Few cities in the world have grown skyward as fast as Balneário Camboriú: in 1964, when it broke away as a municipality, it was a fishing village of low houses; today it holds the tallest residential skyscrapers in South America, towers over 250 meters that in the afternoon cast shade over the very beach where the Carijó fished five centuries ago. And yet the name of this glass-and-concrete 'Brazilian Dubai' is still the one the Indigenous peoples gave it. 'Camboriú' has an Indigenous root, from the Tupi-Guarani language family, like so many place names on the Brazilian coast. Its exact meaning is open to several interpretations, but they all point back to the natural setting of the place and, in particular, to the Camboriú River, which flows into the sea in this part of the Santa Catarina coast. Today's 'Balneário Camboriú' was in fact born as a beach resort attached to the old municipality of Camboriú, from which it took its name.
Among the most widespread interpretations, the name is usually linked to the idea of a watercourse and the presence of fish or of a particular kind of fish, as well as to expressions alluding to a 'river of the camborás'. As with many Tupi-Guarani place names, the precise translation varies from author to author and source to source, so these versions are better taken as approximations than as a single, settled etymology.
What is clear is that the place name keeps the mark of the Indigenous peoples who lived on this coast long before the European colonists arrived. The Camboriú River and its surroundings — beaches, hills and Atlantic rainforest — were a rich territory for its first inhabitants, and the name they gave it survived through the centuries, first in the municipality of Camboriú and later in the resort that would end up world-famous.
Before the Europeans arrived, the coast of present-day Santa Catarina — including the Camboriú River region — was inhabited by Indigenous peoples. On the coast, Tupi-Guarani-speaking groups predominated, in particular the Carijó (a southern branch of the Guarani), who lived from fishing, shellfish gathering, hunting and cassava farming, in villages spread along the beaches, the coves and the river mouths.
The human presence on this coast is, moreover, very old. Along the Santa Catarina coast and the south of Brazil you find the 'sambaquis', enormous mounds built up from shells, food remains, bones and burials, left by populations of hunter-gatherer-fishers who lived in the region for thousands of years. These archaeological sites are evidence of the long human occupation of the coast, long before any city.
With the arrival of European navigators and colonizers from the 16th century on, the Santa Catarina coast was gradually absorbed into the routes and domains of the Portuguese Crown. The Indigenous population bore the impact of the conquest — disease, displacement, enslavement and intermarriage — and little by little the territory was opened to the Portuguese colonization that would shape the following centuries. The Indigenous trace, however, survived in the names of places, such as Camboriú itself.
Permanent European settlement of the Santa Catarina coast picked up in the 18th century, with a key decision by the Portuguese Crown: bringing in colonists from the Azores and Madeira to secure possession of the territory against Spain's claims to the south of the continent. Between the 1740s and the 1750s, thousands of Azorean immigrants reached Santa Catarina and settled along the coast, founding villages and taking up fishing and farming.
This Azorean immigration left a deep and lasting mark on the culture of the Santa Catarina coast, still felt today: in the way people speak, in the architecture of the colonial houses and churches, in the religious festivals, in the folklore, in the crafts (such as bobbin lace) and, above all, in the food, with its cooking built on fish and seafood. The Camboriú River region was part of that world of small fishing and farming communities with Azorean roots.
For a long time, what is now Balneário Camboriú was exactly that: a quiet coast of fishing villages, under the municipality of Camboriú, with a beautiful beach still far from mass tourism. Life turned on the sea, small-scale fishing and the unhurried rhythm of coastal communities. That simple, fishing-village face would hold well into the 20th century, when everything began to change.
The great turning point in the history of Balneário Camboriú came in the mid-20th century. The beauty of its beach — a wide crescent-shaped cove of sand — began to draw summer visitors looking for a place to enjoy the sea, at first in small numbers and then with growing intensity. Little by little, the old fishing village turned into a beach resort, with the first summer houses, guesthouses and services for visitors.
That growth as a tourist destination gave it an identity of its own, different from that of the municipality of Camboriú, on which it depended and which lay somewhat further inland. The drive of the coastal resort led to a push for independence: in 1964, Balneário Camboriú split from Camboriú and was constituted as an independent municipality. From that moment on, the city could steer its own development, strongly geared to sun-and-beach tourism.
Independence coincided with the start of a period of rapid expansion. Over the following decades, Balneário Camboriú stopped being just another resort and became one of the main tourist destinations in southern Brazil, drawing visitors not only from within the country but also from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile. Mass summer tourism and construction would not stop growing, laying the ground for the city's most spectacular urban transformation.
The feature that made Balneário Camboriú world-famous is its skyline: the striking wall of skyscrapers rising right in front of Praia Central. This verticalization was the result of a decades-long process, driven by the city's tourist success, strong property demand from summer visitors and a development model that bet on building upward on the narrow strip between the beach and the hills. Where there had been low summer houses, ever taller towers went up.
Over time, that race to the sky left Balneário Camboriú holding some of the tallest buildings in Brazil and in all of South America, with residential towers well over 200 meters high. The density and the height of the buildings, lined up facing the sea, created an urban postcard so singular — a beach resort with the profile of a big metropolis — that it earned the nickname of the 'Brazilian Dubai', by which it's popularly known. At night, with all the towers lit up and mirrored in the sea, the image is unmistakable.
This transformation also brought its challenges: the widening of Praia Central, through a large sand-fill project, was partly a response to the shade the tall towers cast over the beach in the afternoon and an attempt to enlarge the seafront. Verticalization is the subject of urban planning and environmental debate, but it is, without question, the city's identity mark and one of its main tourist draws.
Today, Balneário Camboriú is one of the most important and most recognizable tourist destinations in southern Brazil, and one of the biggest draws for visitors from the Southern Cone. In a few decades it went from fishing village to vertical summer metropolis, receiving each season crowds of Brazilian, Argentine, Uruguayan, Paraguayan and Chilean tourists who come looking for sun, beach, fun and modernity.
To its celebrated skyline and Praia Central, the city has added a spread of attractions that set it apart from other resorts: the Parque Unipraias cable car, which links Barra Sul with the nature of the hill and Praia de Laranjeiras; the Cristo Luz monument and viewpoint, lit up at night; the modern FG Big Wheel; and an intense offer of food, shopping and entertainment. The more natural beaches to the south, linked by the Interpraias road, provide the green, quiet counterpoint to the vertical city.
But if anything sets Balneário Camboriú apart, beyond its urban profile, it's its nightlife: the city is famous throughout Brazil for its bars, beach clubs and big nightclubs, especially in summer, which turned it into a magnet for a young crowd. That combination — beach, spectacular skyline, modern attractions, seafood cooking and partying — sums up the identity of a city that reinvented itself completely in less than a century and keeps growing skyward facing the Atlantic.