In the end, our Great Brazilian Road Trip (Northeastern Brazil), looked like this:
Natal - 1.5 days
Pipa Beach - 3 days
Olinda/ Recife/ Boa Viagem - 3 days
Carneiros Beach - 9 days
Antunes Beach - 3 days
Usina de Arte (The DIVA) - 2 hours
Xingo do Sao Francisco (Outlaw Trail) - 2 days
Sao Cristovao - 1 hour
Salvador - 1 day
Morro de Sao Paulo - 2 days
Museu de Kard - 1 hour
Porto Seguro / Arraial d'Ajuda - 10 days
Caravia - 2 days
Total mileage: 1,354 miles (roughly equivalent to driving from Los Angeles, CA to Austin, TX)
Unplanned surprises on this trip included:
- 1 visa extension visit (Recife) - 4 hours
- 1 tire/ rim replaced (Porto Seguro) - 1 day
- 1 emergency surgery (Porto Seguro) - 1 day (plus 1 week recovery)
If we had to do it over again, we probably would have...:
Skipped Natal entirely (or started in Recife)
Pipa Beach - 3 - 4 days
Recife - 1 day
Carneiros - 3 days
Antunes - 3 - 4 days
Xingo do Sao Francisco - 2 days
Salvador - 2 days
Morro de Sao Paulo - 2 days
Porto Seguro/ Arraial d'Ajuda - 2 days
Caraiva - 3 - 4 days
In retrospect, it also seems to have been a mistake to skip Chapada Diamantina. Perhaps we should have squeezed it in between Salvador and Morro de Sao Paulo.
In any case, we're adding it to the list of places to return to one day.
Finally, for comparison, here's our original Road Trip "outline" which we first sketched back in early January.
We still have big plans to finish the rest of our Great Brazilian Road Trip one day.
Fingers crossed it will be safe to do so soon!
Philippa - This is incredible. I am Canadian and my wife is from Belo Horizonte and with our two kiddos here in Los Angeles (ages 9 and 7, both fluentish in Portuguese) we are trying to plan a NE roadtrip this summer. This itinerary is perfect, many thanks / obrigado! May I ask what time of year did you guys travel? I am reachable at davidmbelford@gmail.com and my wife reginalatorre@gmail.com would welcome asking a few more questiosn as we put our trip together last minute. Best, abracos, David