Réveillon: New Year's Eve in Brazil

What the night actually looks like

New Year’s Eve in Brazil happens outdoors, on sand, in the middle of summer. It is warm at midnight, the ocean is right there, and almost everybody is dressed in white.

People arrive on the beach through the evening, spread out towels and coolers, and wait. There is usually music somewhere, a stage in the bigger cities and a speaker on a car in the smaller ones. At midnight the fireworks go up over the water, everybody hugs whoever is nearest, and then a lot of people walk into the sea to jump waves before the night carries on until sunrise.

Compared to an American New Year, it is less about a room and a reservation and more about a place. That is the thing to plan for.

The white clothes, and what is behind them

The white comes from Candomblé and Umbanda, Afro-Brazilian religions with deep roots in Bahia and Rio, in which white is worn at the turn of the year for peace. Over generations it spread beyond the terreiros and became something nearly everyone does, believer or not.

On the same night you will see offerings made to Iemanjá, the orixá of the sea: white flowers set on the water, small boats pushed out, candles on the sand. This is not decoration and it is not a show. If you come across it, give it room, keep back from anyone in ceremony, and do not photograph faces without asking. Nobody minds you being there. People mind being treated as scenery.

You will also hear that different colors mean different things for the year ahead, and that you should jump seven waves. Brazilians will tell you this cheerfully and with varying degrees of seriousness. Wear the white and enjoy it.

Rio, and whether to do Copacabana

Copacabana on the 31st is the version everyone has seen: a crowd in the millions along a two and a half mile curve of beach, fireworks launched from barges offshore so the display sits out over the water rather than behind the buildings.

It is genuinely one of the great nights on the planet, and it is a lot. You will stand for hours, you will not move quickly, and getting away afterward is the hard part rather than getting there. Phone service gets patchy with that many people in one place, so pick a meeting point before you split up.

The comfortable version is a hotel or apartment on Copacabana or Ipanema itself, so that the walk home is short and does not depend on anything working.

The alternative, and I would take it seriously

Every coastal town in Brazil does this night. Florianópolis, where I live, spreads it across dozens of beaches, so instead of joining one enormous crowd you choose the scale you want. The same is true up and down the Bahia coast and across the northeast.

You get the same white clothes, the same fireworks over the same ocean, and you get to walk back to your room in ten minutes. For a couple in their fifties on a first trip to Brazil, that is usually the better night.

Booking it

This is the most expensive and most fully booked week of the Brazilian calendar, because the whole country is on summer holiday at the same time you are looking.

Expect coastal hotels to sell a package of several nights rather than a single night, and expect a compulsory New Year dinner attached to the room. That is normal here and it is not a scam, but it changes what the week costs, so read what you are buying.

The practical rule: decide whether New Year’s Eve is part of this trip before you book anything else, then work outward from it. Trying to add it late is how people end up an hour outside the town they wanted, paying more than they planned.