All activities / Paragliding / Rio de Janeiro
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Paragliding in Rio de Janeiro
Brazil's marvelous city: beaches and granite domes, samba schools and the largest carnival on earth, with free flight, climbing, and jiu-jitsu inside the city limits.
Why here
The ramp on Pedra Bonita launches you at 520 meters over unbroken Atlantic rainforest inside Tijuca National Park, with Pedra da Gavea alongside, Christ the Redeemer behind, and the sand of Sao Conrado beach as the landing strip. It may be the most scenery-dense ten minutes in free flight, and because the Clube Sao Conrado de Voo Livre has run the site for some fifty years, the operation around it, from weather calls to ramp marshals to licensed tandem pilots, is as settled as the view is wild. Hang gliders and paragliders fly from the same ramp, which almost nowhere else offers.
Best months
Flyable in every month. June through August brings the most stable winter air; summer adds stronger thermals and longer flights but more weather cancellations, so keep a spare morning. Tandem flights run 7 to 20 minutes depending on conditions.
Getting there & around
Twenty to thirty minutes from Copacabana; operators collect you from your hotel. Book one to three days ahead and leave a flexible weather window. Fly into GIG or SDU.
Skill levels: beginner, advanced
Schools & guides (2)
Rio Adventures
OutfitterRio Adventures has been established in Rio since 2001, running paragliding, hang gliding, climbing tours, hiking, jeep tours and whitewater rafting. Tandem paragliding flies from Pedra Bonita in the São Conrado area and lands on Pepino Beach by the paragliding club, with flights of 7 to 20 minutes and pilots certified by the Brazilian Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (ABVL), some with over 20 years of experience. On land, tours cover Sugarloaf hikes, Pedra da Gávea and Tijuca Forest jeep trips.
Rio Tandem
GuideRio Tandem flies paragliding and hang gliding tandem flights in Rio de Janeiro, with hang gliding from the Pedra Bonita takeoff in São Conrado and paragliding from the Parque da Cidade takeoff in Niterói, over Guanabara Bay and the beaches of the state of Rio. The team flies regularly from takeoffs in Rio, Niterói, Angra dos Reis and the Lake District, with packages for beginners through experienced flyers, and bookings run over WhatsApp. Its pilots hold certification from ABVL, the Brazilian free-flight association.
Also good for paragliding in September:
Torn between Rio de Janeiro and Interlaken for September?
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