🇧🇷 Brazil · Northeast
Itacaré is one of the most compelling destinations on the southern coast of Bahia: a place where the Mata Atlântica meets the sea and where wild beaches, framed by forest and coconut palms, sit alongside waterfalls, rivers and a strong spirit of surf and adventure. Set on the 'Costa do Cacau' —the region that lived through the cocoa boom portrayed by the writer Jorge Amado— Itacaré combines exuberant nature, a bohemian feel and a young, laid-back energy.
The plan here is active and outdoors: surf the waves on its beaches, walk the trilha that links the idyllic Praias do Sul (Resende, Tiririca, do Costa, da Ribeira), go rafting or zip-lining on the río de Contas, swim in waterfalls hidden in the forest or simply wander the beaches that follow one another through the vegetation. When night falls, the Rua da Pituba fills with restaurants, bars and music, in the festive, cosmopolitan atmosphere that is the town's trademark.
This guide covers the essentials of Itacaré with a practical eye: which beaches not to miss, what the famous trilha between beaches is like, what ecotourism and adventure activities are on offer, how to get there (via Ilhéus on a scenic road through the forest), where to enjoy the nightlife and Bahian cooking, and how to get around. Itacaré is nature, surf and bohemia: a destination for anyone after adventure and sea in the green heart of Bahia.
The Itacaré region, on the southern coast of Bahia, was inhabited before colonization by Indigenous peoples, among them the Tupiniquim, who lived off fishing, hunting and gathering in the lush Mata Atlântica and beside the mouth of the río de Contas. The name 'Itacaré' is of Tupi origin. With Portuguese colonization, the area was slowly absorbed into the colonial system; the Jesuits had a presence in the region and a settlement grew up around the river mouth, which served as an outlet for production from the interior. Through the 19th and 20th centuries, the whole south of Bahia lived under the sign of cocoa: the 'Costa do Cacau' was one of the great producing regions in the world, an era of wealth, cocoa colonels, land conflicts and splendour that the Bahian writer Jorge Amado immortalized in novels like 'Gabriela, cravo e canela' and 'Terras do sem-fim'. Itacaré, with its river port, took part in that cocoa economy, shipping out the harvest. The cocoa crisis at the end of the 20th century —battered by the 'vassoura-de-bruxa' (witches' broom) blight and by falling prices— sank the regional economy. Itacaré then found a new vocation in nature tourism, surfing and ecotourism, helped along by its setting of preserved Atlantic forest and spectacular beaches. Today it is one of the most bohemian and greenest destinations in Bahia. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The cradle of Brazil: this is where Cabral landed in 1500 and where Salvador was founded, the country's first capital for more than two centuries. The heart of Afro-Brazilian culture —candomblé, capoeira, axé— and of a coastline that runs from the Chapada Diamantina to the beaches of Porto Seguro.
Read the history of Bahia →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Before it was the surf and bohemian paradise it is today, Itacaré was a port for brown gold: out through the mouth of the río de Contas went the sacks of cocoa that made millionaires of a handful of 'colonels' and set off wars over land in southern Bahia. But the story of the place begins much earlier, when at that same river mouth, between the forest and the sea, there were no plantations and no colonels, but Indigenous peoples who knew every bend of the river.
The Itacaré region, on the southern coast of Bahia, was inhabited long before colonization by Indigenous peoples, among them the Tupi-speaking Tupiniquim, who lived off fishing, hunting, gathering and farming in an exceptional setting: the lush Mata Atlântica that covers the coast and the mouth of the río de Contas where it meets the Atlantic. That meeting of forest, river and sea gave its original inhabitants a territory extraordinarily rich in resources.
The name 'Itacaré' itself is of Tupi origin, like so many place names along the Brazilian coast, and it keeps the trace of that Indigenous world that came before the Europeans. The mouth of the río de Contas, navigable inland, was a strategic point both for the Indigenous peoples and, later, for the colonizers, since it allowed communication between the coast and the lands of the sertão.
With the arrival of the Portuguese in Bahia from 1500 onward and the consolidation of the colony, this whole region slowly entered the colonial orbit. The dense Mata Atlântica, hard to penetrate, meant occupation came later and more gradually than in other areas, which, paradoxically, would centuries later help preserve much of the forest setting that is today Itacaré's great natural draw.
The effective occupation of the Itacaré region by the Portuguese advanced over the colonial centuries, tied to the mouth of the río de Contas, which served as a communication route and as an outlet for production from the interior. As in much of Bahia, the Jesuits had a presence in the region during the colonial period, in their work of catechizing the Indigenous peoples and organizing the territory, leaving a mark on the formation of the first settlements.
Around the river mouth a settlement grew up that worked as a small river port: through it passed the produce that came down from the interior along the río de Contas towards the sea and, from there, on to other points along the coast. That port role, modest but strategic, was the economic base of the place for a long time, in a region still dominated by dense forest and thinly settled.
The town grew slowly out of that activity tied to the river and the sea. In time Itacaré was constituted as a municipality, taking its place in the web of towns and villages of southern Bahia. Its fate, however, would be marked by the great economic cycle that transformed the whole region from the 19th century onward: cocoa.
Through the 19th and 20th centuries, the whole south of Bahia lived under the sign of cocoa. The region —which came to be called the 'Costa do Cacau' (the Cocoa Coast)— became one of the great cocoa-producing areas in the world, with the city of Ilhéus as its capital. It was a time of enormous wealth and, at the same time, of violence: the power of the 'coronéis do cacau' (the cocoa colonels, the great landowners), the bloody conflicts over land, the exploitation of workers and the splendour of an elite growing rich on the 'golden fruit'.
That world was immortalized by the Bahian writer Jorge Amado, born in the region, in some of the most celebrated novels in Brazilian literature: 'Terras do sem-fim' (The Violent Land), about the struggles over cocoa land, and 'Gabriela, cravo e canela' (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon), set in Ilhéus. Amado's work gave worldwide fame to the 'cocoa civilization' of southern Bahia and to its characters, landscapes and conflicts.
Itacaré, with its port at the mouth of the río de Contas, took part in that cocoa economy: part of the region's harvest was shipped out through it. The town and the whole Costa do Cacau prospered to the rhythm of cocoa, in an era that left its mark on the culture, society and economy of southern Bahia, and that is still evoked today in the making of artisanal chocolate and in the literary memory of Jorge Amado.
The prosperous world of cocoa entered a deep crisis at the end of the 20th century. On top of the swings in international cocoa prices came, in the 1980s and 1990s, a devastating agricultural catastrophe: the 'vassoura-de-bruxa' (witches' broom) blight, a disease caused by a fungus that attacked the cocoa plantations of southern Bahia and destroyed much of the harvest. The consequences were dramatic for the whole region.
The crisis sank the cocoa economy, ruined many growers, caused mass unemployment and a rural exodus, and plunged the 'Costa do Cacau' into a long economic depression. Towns and villages that had lived off the 'golden fruit' had to look for new ways to survive. It was the end of an era that had shaped the identity and prosperity of southern Bahia for more than a century.
For Itacaré, though, that crisis unexpectedly opened up a new opportunity. The relative economic neglect and the absence of intensive industrial or agricultural development had left its greatest treasure untouched: the lush Mata Atlântica that surrounds it, its wild beaches, its rivers and its waterfalls. That preserved natural heritage would become the basis of a new vocation: nature tourism.
After the cocoa crisis, Itacaré found its new vocation and its rebirth in nature tourism. From the end of the 20th century and, above all, in the first decades of the 21st, the town turned into one of the most bohemian, green and appealing destinations in Bahia. Its combination of preserved Mata Atlântica, wild beaches framed by forest, rivers, waterfalls and good waves made it a magnet for surfers, ecotourists and travellers after adventure and nature.
An important milestone in this transformation was better access: the building and paving of the BA-001 road (the southern 'Linha Verde'), a scenic road between Ilhéus and Itacaré that cuts through the forest, made it easier for visitors to arrive and opened the region up to tourism. Pousadas, hotels, eco-lodges, restaurants, surf schools and ecotourism agencies appeared, and the centre —with its Rua da Pituba— filled with nightlife and a surprisingly varied, cosmopolitan food scene.
Today Itacaré is an established destination that lives off its nature and its young, laid-back atmosphere, but that also faces the challenge of growing without destroying the setting that makes it special. Preserving the Mata Atlântica, the beaches and the rivers —partly protected by reserves and conservation units— is key to its future. The history of Itacaré thus traces a singular arc: from Indigenous territory to cocoa port, and from the ruin of the cocoa crisis to rebirth as an ecotourism and surf paradise in the green heart of Bahia.