🇧🇷 Brazil · Southeast
Guarujá is the classic seaside resort of the São Paulo coast, nicknamed the 'Pérola do Atlântico' (Pearl of the Atlantic), set on an island on the southern São Paulo coast next to Santos. Historically it was the favourite beach destination of the paulistano elite, and even today it combines busy town beaches with quieter coves, seafront buildings and an intense weekend scene.
Its best-known beaches, such as Pitangueiras, Enseada and Astúrias, offer all the infrastructure of an established resort, while beaches such as Praia do Tombo (with a Blue Flag) and corners at the far end of the island keep more nature and waves for surfing. Its closeness to São Paulo (some 90 km) makes it ideal for quick beach getaways.
This guide covers the essentials of Guarujá: the main beaches and what each is like, the historic forts, the walks and viewpoints, where to eat fish and seafood and how to get here from São Paulo and Santos. It is a practical, classic destination for anyone after beach and services close to the big city.
The island of Santo Amaro, where Guarujá stands, had a Tupi indigenous presence and colonial fortifications built to defend the strategic port of Santos from corsair attacks. In the early 20th century, the development of a modern seaside resort —driven by the arrival of the railway and the building of grand hotels such as the Grande Hotel La Plage— turned Guarujá into the fashionable beach destination of the paulistano elite, the 'Pearl of the Atlantic', a role it has kept as one of the most popular resorts on the São Paulo coast. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Brazil's locomotive: founded by Jesuits in 1554, cradle of the bandeirantes who pushed out the country's borders and of the coffee that made it the richest province. Industrial and financial heart, land of the 1932 Revolution and of the largest Japanese community outside Japan, with the biggest metropolis in the southern hemisphere and a coastline of islands and beaches from Ubatuba to Ilhabela.
Read the history of São Paulo →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In the early 20th century, spending a weekend in Guarujá meant you were somebody. Through the Grande Hotel de La Plage, facing Pitangueiras beach, passed the Matarazzos, the supremely elegant Carmen Mayrink Veiga, press magnate Assis Chateaubriand, the playboy Baby Pignatari, the Prado family and even European kings and queens. Guarujá was the 'Pérola do Atlântico' (Pearl of the Atlantic), Brazil's most glamorous resort, the beach where the paulistano elite came to see and be seen. But before the stars there were guns: the same island that hosted high society had been, for centuries, a military bastion.
Guarujá sits on the island of Santo Amaro, on the southern coast of São Paulo, beside the mouth of the estuary that gives access to the port of Santos. Before European colonisation, the region was inhabited by Tupi indigenous peoples, from whose language the name Guarujá derives. The island and the channel that separates it from the mainland held a key geographical position: they controlled access to one of the most important ports in colonial Brazil.
Precisely because of that strategic value, the region was fortified during the colonial period. Santos, founded in the 16th century, became a vital port for exports and therefore a target for corsairs and rival powers. To defend the bar and the mouth of the estuary, forts and gun batteries were built at key points on the island and around it. That military heritage survives in the historic forts still standing in Guarujá, such as the Forte dos Andradas. For centuries, however, the island was above all a defensive bastion and a place of fishermen and caiçara communities, far from the tourist calling that would make it famous much later.
The great change for Guarujá came at the end of the 19th century through a very specific project. In 1892 the businessman Elias Fausto Pacheco Jordão set up a company to design and build a seaside town from scratch. The result was inaugurated on 2 September 1893, when Guarujá was promoted to 'Vila Balneária': for the occasion a hotel, a church, a casino and 46 demountable residential chalets were ordered from the United States, along with water, sewerage and electricity services —a luxury for the time.
The star piece was the Grande Hotel de La Plage, in Pitangueiras, reached by a steam tram (the 'Maria Fumaça') that left from Itapema station and dropped guests practically at the hotel door. With that infrastructure, Guarujá became the fashionable beach destination of São Paulo high society. Its elegance and its legendary hotel —frequented by the Matarazzos, Assis Chateaubriand, Baby Pignatari and even European royalty— earned it the nickname 'Pérola do Atlântico', the Pearl of the Atlantic, by which it is still known. For much of the 20th century, spending the season in Guarujá was a status symbol for paulistano families.
Political recognition came later: part of the municipality of Santos for a time, Guarujá was emancipated on 30 June 1934, when governor Armando Salles de Oliveira signed Decree no. 1,525 creating the 'Estância Balneária de Guarujá', its designation to this day. The growth of tourism transformed the island, which went from military bastion and fishing village to an established seaside town, with apartment blocks, seafront avenues and a full range of services.
Through the 20th century and up to today, Guarujá went from exclusive elite retreat to one of the most popular and crowded resorts on the São Paulo coast. The expansion of the roads, such as the Sistema Anchieta-Imigrantes linking São Paulo with the baixada santista, brought the island even closer to the metropolis, multiplying the flow of visitors from every social class.
The town grew enormously: from little more than a handful of elite holidaymakers it came to have hundreds of thousands of permanent residents, a figure that in summer and on long weekends multiplies several times over with the mass arrival of tourists. Being one of the closest resorts to Greater São Paulo —the largest metropolitan region in South America, with more than 20 million people— Guarujá became, quite literally, the metropolis's beach. Beaches such as Pitangueiras, Enseada and Astúrias fill with bathers, while spots such as Praia do Tombo —awarded the Blue Flag— or the more sheltered coves keep a different character, tied to surfing and nature.
Today's Guarujá is therefore a destination of contrasts: it combines the heritage of the 'Pearl of the Atlantic' and its historic fortifications with the reality of a mass resort, vital to the leisure of Brazil's largest metropolis. It remains, above all, São Paulo's beach: accessible, lively and deeply bound up with the life of the region.
Despite heavy urbanisation, Guarujá keeps a valuable natural heritage protected by the Mata Atlântica that covers the island's hills, part of it within conservation areas. That green, added to its many beaches, is the basis of the town's tourist appeal and of its caiçara identity, tied to small-scale fishing and to the traditional communities of the coast.
A recent landmark was the award of the international Blue Flag certification to the Praia do Tombo, which recognises water quality, safety and environmental management. Guarujá was among the first beaches in São Paulo state to receive it, which reinforced the municipality's bet on more sustainable tourism and on better sanitation and coastal cleaning.
At the same time, today's Guarujá faces the challenges typical of a mass resort: the pressure of seasonal tourism, irregular occupation of the hillsides, the need for sanitation and the balance between property development and conservation. The town is trying to reconcile its historic role as 'São Paulo's beach' with the protection of its surroundings, on a coast that remains, above all, a refuge of sea and green at the gates of the country's largest metropolis.