What is a transport plan, exactly?

You send us your itinerary — dates, places, how many of you, how many bags. We reply with a leg-by-leg recommendation: which legs are fine on a bus or an Uber, which legs are genuinely worth a private transfer, and where the timing is tight. It is free and it does not book anything.

Do I have to book a transfer with you?

No. Most itineraries have one or two legs where a private car is worth paying for and several where it is not. If your trip turns out not to need one at all, we will tell you that.

Can I pay or book on this site?

No. There is no payment or instant booking here. If a private transfer makes sense for one of your legs, availability and a quote are checked separately before anything is confirmed.

How long does a reply take?

We usually reply within 48 hours. You get an automatic confirmation immediately, then a written plan from a person — we read the actual route rather than sending a template, which is why the real reply is not instant. If your travel date is close and you have not heard from us, reply to your confirmation email and we will move you up the queue.

Which routes do you cover?

Rio de Janeiro (including GIG and SDU airports), Angra dos Reis, Ilha Grande and Paraty. Routes beyond that — São Paulo, Búzios, Minas Gerais — we can advise on, but we do not claim to arrange them.

Is Brazil safe to travel around?

This site does not use safety as a sales argument. Millions of travellers move around Rio state on buses, boats and ride-hailing every year. Choose transport based on your group, your bags and your schedule, not on fear.

Rio · Angra dos Reis · Ilha Grande · Paraty

Brazil’s Costa Verde, without the transport puzzle.

Travelling between Rio, Ilha Grande and Paraty? Tell us your itinerary and we’ll help you work out the simplest way to travel each leg — including when a private transfer actually makes sense.

Get my transport plan Or read the route guides first

Free · no payment details · we answer even if the answer is “take the bus”.

Rio de Janeiro
arrive GIG / SDU
road 2–3 h to a mainland port, then a boat of 20–50 min
Ilha Grande
reachable only by boat
boat back to the mainland, then road 2–3 h
Paraty
colonial centre, cobbled
road 4½–6 h up the BR-101
Rio de Janeiro
flight home

Typical door-to-door ranges, not guarantees. High season (December–March) and Sunday afternoons on the BR-101 sit at the slow end.

Booking the hotels is the easy part.

Most people planning this stretch of coast have the accommodation sorted in an evening. Then they open a map and realise nobody has told them how to get between the places they just booked.

The questions come quickly, and the internet answers them badly:

What is the easiest way to get from Rio to Paraty?
Can I just take an Uber the whole way?
Is a private transfer actually worth it?
How do I get to Ilha Grande with two suitcases?
Where does the boat leave from?
Is the bus easier than it sounds?
What if we are travelling with a four-year-old?
Can one company arrange several transfers?

Every page that answers them is selling something. That is the actual problem: not that information is missing, but that nobody neutral is doing the arithmetic for you.

What a transport plan looks like

A ten-day Rio → Ilha Grande → Paraty trip, broken into legs. Note how few of them need a private car.

Example ten-day transport plan
Day	Leg	What we would suggest
1	GIG → Copacabana	Uber, or a booked transfer if you land after dark with bags
2–3	Around Rio	Uber and the metro. You do not need a car.
4	Rio → Ilha Grande	Road to a mainland port, then a boat. Timing matters more than comfort.
5	On Ilha Grande	Nothing. There are no cars on the island.
6	Ilha Grande → Paraty	Boat, then road. The leg most itineraries underestimate.
7–9	Around Paraty	Walk the centre. A car only helps for Trindade and the waterfalls.
10	Paraty → GIG	This is the leg we would book privately, for the flight buffer.

You don’t need a private driver every day.

You need one when it meaningfully saves time and hassle.

In the plan above, that is one leg out of seven — possibly two. The rest of the trip is cheaper, simpler and often faster without one.

Compare your options honestly

For the long legs — Rio to Paraty, Rio to the Ilha Grande ports, Angra to Paraty. Private transfer wins some rows and loses others. Any table where it wins every row is a sales page.

Comparison of transport options between Rio de Janeiro and the Costa Verde
	Bus	Shared transfer	Uber	Rental car	Private transfer
Cost for 1–2 people	Lowest	Low	Moderate	Moderate	Highest
Cost for 4–5 people with bags	Low	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Comparable
Door to door	No	Usually	Yes	Yes	Yes
Large suitcases	Hold, self-carry	Limited	Boot size only	Yours to load	Handled for you
Departure flexibility	Fixed times	Fixed times	On demand	Total	Time you choose
Stops along the way	No	No	Not really	Yes	Yes, if agreed
Works for young children	Long, no seats	Variable	Seat depends on driver	You bring seats	If seats confirmed
Reliable for a flight connection	Risky	Moderate	Not on this distance	Depends on you	Strongest
Effort on the day	High	Moderate	Low	High	Lowest

When a private transfer makes sense

There are four or five of you, so the per-vehicle price splits well.
You have several large suitcases and a leg that involves a boat.
You are connecting to or from a flight and the buffer is thin.
The itinerary is tight and losing three hours breaks the next booking.
You are travelling with young children on a five-hour leg.
You want the door of your hotel, not a bus terminal 1.2 km away.

When it doesn’t

You are travelling solo or as a couple on a normal schedule.
Price is the thing you are optimising. The bus is genuinely fine.
You have a spare afternoon and do not mind a slower journey.
You are moving around inside Rio, where Uber is cheaper and quicker.
You are already comfortable with long-distance buses elsewhere.
You are on Ilha Grande, where no car can reach you anyway.

We’ll tell you when you don’t need a private car.

The maths that changes the answer

Buses charge per person. Private transfers almost always charge per vehicle. That single difference is why the same route can be obviously wrong for one traveller and obviously right for five.

For two people, a private car on a long leg typically costs several times the bus fare between them. Add two more travellers and the bus bill doubles while the car bill does not move at all. Somewhere in there the lines cross — and where they cross depends on your group, not on anyone’s marketing.

Work out the bus fare for your actual group, then compare it against a real quote for the vehicle. If the gap is small and you have bags, a boat connection or a flight to catch, the car is usually worth it. If the gap is large, it usually is not.

We don’t publish our own prices here. We have not finished confirming local partners, and inventing a number to look competitive would be the fastest way to lose your trust. When a leg genuinely warrants a private transfer, we say so and check a real quote before anything is confirmed.

How it works

1
Send your itinerary
Rough is fine. Dates, places, group size, luggage. Two minutes.
2
We review the route
Leg by leg, against real schedules, connection times and your group.
3
You get recommendations
What to use for each leg, what it roughly costs, where the timing is tight.
4
Only then, a quote
If a leg genuinely warrants a private transfer, we check availability and price for that leg.

What we will never do

We are new. We have no reviews to show you and we are not going to fake any. What we can offer instead is a set of commitments you can hold us to from the first email.

Recommend a private car when a simpler option would serve you better.
Invent availability, or confirm a vehicle we have not actually checked.
Quote a price with conditions hidden underneath it.
Use safety scares to sell you a driver.
Claim credentials, fleet sizes or customer numbers we do not have.
Pretend every traveller needs what we happen to sell.

Start with the route you’re stuck on

Twenty guides covering every leg of this coast. Read one and you should not need to contact anybody — that is the point.

See all 20 guides

Questions people ask before they write to us

What is a transport plan, exactly?: You send us your itinerary — dates, places, how many of you, how many bags. We reply with a leg-by-leg recommendation: which legs are fine on a bus or an Uber, which legs are genuinely worth a private transfer, and where the timing is tight. It is free and it does not book anything.
Do I have to book a transfer with you?: No. Most itineraries have one or two legs where a private car is worth paying for and several where it is not. If your trip turns out not to need one at all, we will tell you that.
Can I pay or book on this site?: No. There is no payment or instant booking here. If a private transfer makes sense for one of your legs, availability and a quote are checked separately before anything is confirmed.
How long does a reply take?: We usually reply within 48 hours. You get an automatic confirmation immediately, then a written plan from a person — we read the actual route rather than sending a template, which is why the real reply is not instant. If your travel date is close and you have not heard from us, reply to your confirmation email and we will move you up the queue.
Which routes do you cover?: Rio de Janeiro (including GIG and SDU airports), Angra dos Reis, Ilha Grande and Paraty. Routes beyond that — São Paulo, Búzios, Minas Gerais — we can advise on, but we do not claim to arrange them.
Is Brazil safe to travel around?: This site does not use safety as a sales argument. Millions of travellers move around Rio state on buses, boats and ride-hailing every year. Choose transport based on your group, your bags and your schedule, not on fear.