Sao Paulo

Sao Paulo is an inland city on a plateau about 70km from the sea, and the beach is something people go away for rather than part of a stay. The nearest stretch is Santos, Sao Vicente and Guarujá, reached by a dramatic road down the Serra do Mar in about an hour or more. Guarujá's beaches are the nicer ones. The water is warm, around 24°C to 26°C in summer, but the city beaches at Santos are wide and urban rather than pretty.

The beautiful coves and island beaches of the north coast around Ubatuba and Ilhabela are a weekend away, not a day out. On summer weekends and long weekends half the city drives down at once, and the roads back up badly.

Eating is one of the main reasons to visit. Waves of immigration built the city's food: the largest Japanese community outside Japan fills Liberdade with sushi counters and noodle shops, Italian families gave Bixiga its cantinas and an obsession with pizza, and Lebanese and Syrian cooking is everywhere, from kibbeh at a lunch counter to grand dining rooms. Alongside this sit Brazilian staples: feijoada on Wednesdays and Saturdays, churrascarias, pastéis and the mortadella sandwich of the Mercado Municipal.

Daily life runs through padarias, corner bakeries serving coffee and pão de queijo, and botecos where cold draught beer comes with fried snacks. At the top end, Jardins and Pinheiros hold some of the most ambitious restaurants in South America, many cooking with Amazonian and Atlantic Forest ingredients. Dinner starts late, and the range from cheap to formal is huge.

Sao Paulo grew fast in the twentieth century, so its heritage is mostly modern. The highlights are MASP, whose collection of European art hangs on glass easels under a building raised on red concrete beams over Avenida Paulista, and the Pinacoteca, set in a grand brick building by the Jardim da Luz and home to the best collection of Brazilian art. The Museu do Ipiranga covers the country's independence, and the Museu da Língua Portuguesa is housed in the Luz railway station.

The architecture is where the city stands out: Oscar Niemeyer's pavilions in Ibirapuera Park and the curving Copan building, Lina Bo Bardi's SESC Pompeia, and the Art Deco and Beaux-Arts buildings of the old centre around the Sé cathedral and the Theatro Municipal. Colonial heritage is scarce, and the sights are far apart.

This is one of the great night-out cities of the southern hemisphere, and it really does go all night. Evenings often start at a boteco with draught beer and caipirinhas spilling onto the pavement, move on to cocktail bars, and end in a club after 2am. Vila Madalena is the classic bar district, with crowded corners and street drinking on weekends. Baixo Augusta is grittier and more alternative, Pinheiros mixes good bars with clubs, and the centre around República has a mixed, late crowd.

The club scene is serious, with electronic music venues of international reputation and big parties that run until the morning, as well as one of Latin America's largest LGBTQ+ scenes. Thursday nights are already lively. Distances are long, so most people take ride-hailing cars between neighbourhoods.

Inside the city, the green space that matters is Ibirapuera Park, where people run, cycle and spend the weekend, plus a few smaller parks and the forested Cantareira hills on the northern edge. Real landscape starts beyond the sprawl. The Serra do Mar escarpment, covered in Atlantic Forest, is about an hour or two away, with trails, waterfalls and the misty old railway village of Paranapiacaba. The mountains around Campos do Jordão and the hills of the interior offer cooler hiking further out.

The catch is getting out: traffic can double travel times, so outdoor trips work best as early starts or weekends away. This is a city for people who like urban life more than people who want to be outdoors.

The day trips are pleasant rather than memorable. Santos, down on the coast, has a restored historic centre, the old coffee exchange and a long seafront garden. Embu das Artes is a small colonial town known for its weekend craft market, and São Roque has wineries and country restaurants. The best colonial towns of the region, such as Paraty, are too far for a day.

Towns in the interior such as Itu, Santana de Parnaíba and the flower town of Holambra fill out the list. Heavy traffic leaving the city means trips work best on weekdays or with an early start.

Families will find enough to fill a few days. The Catavento science museum in a former palace downtown is excellent and hands-on, the zoo and its drive-through safari sit in a large area of forest in the south of the city, and there is a big aquarium. Ibirapuera Park has room to run, playgrounds and cycling. Theme and water parks lie about an hour away near Vinhedo.

Brazilian culture is very welcoming to children, and malls with play areas are a common rainy-day option. The harder part is the city itself: long car journeys in traffic, crowded pavements and the need to stay alert in parts of the centre make it tiring with small children.

Sao Paulo is huge, and visitors feel it. The metro is clean, efficient and easy to use, and it links Paulista, Liberdade, the old centre, Luz and Pinheiros. However, the network is small for a city of this size, and many trips need a long walk, a bus or a car. Traffic is notoriously heavy, especially at rush hour and in the rain, so most visitors use ride-hailing apps, which are everywhere.

Neighbourhoods such as Jardins, Pinheiros, Vila Madalena and the Paulista area are walkable on their own. Avenida Paulista closes to traffic on Sundays and fills with walkers. Hilly streets and long distances between districts mean that walking from sight to sight rarely works.

Sao Paulo is Brazil's shopping capital. Rua Oscar Freire and the leafy streets of Jardins hold Brazilian fashion labels, swimwear, jewellery and international brands, and the city's upmarket malls are among the most lavish in Latin America. At the other end, Rua 25 de Março and the streets around it are a chaotic wholesale bazaar of fabric, trinkets and everything else, and Bom Retiro is the garment district.

Pinheiros and Vila Madalena have independent design shops, galleries and furniture studios, and weekend fairs fill Liberdade and the MASP area with crafts and antiques. Havaianas, Brazilian beachwear and design objects are the things to bring home. Imported goods carry heavy taxes, so international brands rarely cost less here.

For a visitor from Europe or North America, Sao Paulo is moderately cheap. The everyday city costs little: the set lunch plate at a neighbourhood restaurant, coffee and pão de queijo at a padaria, beers at a boteco, metro fares and ride-hailing across town. Many museums have free days.

The upper end is less of a bargain. Sao Paulo is among Brazil's most expensive cities, and stylish hotels in Jardins or Itaim, the acclaimed restaurants and cocktail bars cost close to what they would in Southern Europe. Imported goods and wine are expensive.

There is plenty to attend. The state symphony orchestra plays at Sala São Paulo, a concert hall built inside an early twentieth-century railway station and known for its acoustics. The Theatro Municipal stages opera and ballet in a grand building modelled on the Paris opera. The city is also the centre of Brazilian musical theatre, with long-running productions in Portuguese.

Live Brazilian music is the real draw: samba circles in bars and community spaces, MPB, choro, jazz clubs and big concerts. The SESC cultural centres across the city, some in striking modernist buildings, run a busy, low-cost programme of concerts, dance and theatre, and the all-night Virada Cultural festival fills the streets with performances once a year.

Sao Paulo is a city of work and appetite, not rest. It has no bathing tradition. Wellness here means upmarket day spas and hotel spas in Jardins and Itaim, a strong beauty-salon culture, and a few Japanese-style relaxation spots linked to the city's Japanese community.

The pace is fast, the traffic is loud and the days run late. The best ways to unwind are a slow Sunday on car-free Avenida Paulista or an afternoon under the trees of Ibirapuera. Anyone who needs real rest usually escapes to the hills or the coast.