Tijuca rain forest: Rio's replanted jungle, by jeep or on foot

The Tijuca rain forest covers the mountains in the middle of Rio, so close to the beaches that the drive from your hotel to the first waterfall is a short one. It belongs to Tijuca National Park, which says it has been Brazil's most visited national park for 18 years in a row, with almost 5 million visitors in 2025.⁹ Abroad it is known as the planet's biggest city forest planted by hand,¹⁰ and that word, replanted, is the key to its story.

The park opens 3 sectors to visitors, Floresta, Serra da Carioca and Pedra Bonita with Pedra da Gávea.¹¹ Serra da Carioca holds the postcards, from Corcovado and Mirante Dona Marta to Vista Chinesa, Parque Lage and Mesa do Imperador.¹² The Floresta sector, also called Floresta da Tijuca, is the deep green part with the trails, waterfalls and picnic spots, and Pedra Bonita is the sector for climbers and hang gliders.¹³ The tours on this page spend much of their time in Floresta, around the Cascatinha.

Entry is free: the only paid place inside the park is Corcovado.¹ The park opens every day, weekends and holidays included, from 8 AM to 5 PM.² It runs no guiding service of its own, so anyone who wants a guide hires one privately and arrives with them.¹⁴ With no car of your own, joining a tour is easiest: the forest is easy to reach by road, but its trailheads lie far apart, and a guide knows which paths are dry, open and worth the effort on the day you go.

The Rio de Janeiro rainforest is Atlantic Forest, and the park counts 1619 plant species, 433 of them threatened with extinction.³⁷ Look up for tall jequitibás, flowering quaresmeiras and silk-floss trees; look down for bromeliads, orchids and begonias on the rocks. The rocks themselves are ancient, mostly gneiss about 1.7 billion years old.³⁸ The cool, misty air under the canopy is the forest returning water to the sky.

There are 63 species of small and medium mammals, among them capuchin monkeys, sloths and the coati, the park's symbol animal.^7,8 The large ones are gone: jaguars and tapirs disappeared through hunting and habitat loss.³⁹ Birdlife is richer, with 226 species,⁶ including the black-billed toucan and the saíra-sete-cores, a brilliantly colored tanager.⁴⁰ Early morning is when the birds call most; walk quietly and you will hear far more than you see.

The park also counts 39 amphibian species and 31 reptiles.^26,27 One snake to know by name is the jararaca, which is venomous.⁴¹ It is a good reason to wear closed shoes and to keep your hands off ledges you cannot see. Feeding wildlife harms the species,⁴² so ignore the coatis that beg at picnic tables, however tame they look, and pack every crumb back into your bag before you move on to the next stop.