The island, explained
Ilha Grande: the car-free island, and the history this tour doesn't visit
A leper colony, then a maximum-security prison, then nothing built here for a century — why Ilha Grande has no roads, and which parts of that story this particular day trip actually sees.
See Angra dos Reis & Ilha Grande tickets on GetYourGuide ↗The island's history, at a glance
| What it was | On this tour? | |
|---|---|---|
| Lazareto | Leper hospital, operating by 1886 | No — general island history |
| Cândido Mendes prison | High-security prison at Dois Rios, closed 1994 | No — the far side of the island |
| Freguesia de Santana | Original settlement; church rebuilt 1843 | Yes — a stop on this route |
| Ilha Grande State Park | Atlantic Forest covering most of the island | Partially — seen from the water |
A century with no free arrivals
For close to a hundred years, nobody settled on Ilha Grande by choice. The island first housed the Lazareto, a leper hospital operating by 1886 that kept contagious arrivals isolated from the mainland ports nearby. Later, at Dois Rios on the far side of the island, the Brazilian state built the Cândido Mendes penitentiary, a high-security prison that held some of the country's most serious offenders and, during the 1964–85 military regime, political prisoners as well. It was closed in 1994. None of that history sits on this tour's route — Dois Rios is a boat ride away from the stops this schooner makes — but it's most of the reason the island looks the way it does today: closed to development for a century, and largely left to the forest.
Car-free, and what that actually means
There are no roads for cars anywhere on Ilha Grande — not a shortage of roads, an absence of them. Everything moves by boat or on foot, including construction materials, food and rubbish collection on the inhabited parts of the island. For a visitor this mostly shows up as quiet: no engine noise once you're off the schooner, no traffic to dodge at a beach stop, and a forest that runs down to the waterline in a way that a road would normally have cut through. It also means every stop on this itinerary is reached the same way the tour reaches it — by water — which is the whole reason a schooner day trip, rather than a bus tour, is how you see this island at all.
Freguesia de Santana: the part of the history you do see
The one stop on this route with real age to it is Freguesia de Santana, Ilha Grande's original 17th-century settlement point. A landowner raised the first chapel here in 1796; the settlement was formally made a parish in 1803; and when that first building eventually collapsed, the provincial government of Rio de Janeiro rebuilt it in 1843. That 1843 church is still standing and is generally reckoned the most important religious building on the island — a plain, secular-built church rather than an ornate one, but the oldest structure most visitors to Ilha Grande will ever see. Around it, a settlement that once anchored the island's coffee and sugar economy is now home to a few dozen residents.
What today's Ilha Grande actually is
Most of the island now sits inside a state park, its Atlantic Forest largely intact, its beaches among the least developed in Rio de Janeiro state precisely because nothing has ever been built here at scale. This tour sees a working slice of that — islets, a lagoon, a historic beach settlement, a lunch stop — rather than the hiking trails, the abandoned prison ruins, or the main village of Vila do Abraão that longer stays on the island are built around. It's worth knowing the difference going in: this is a day-trip introduction to the bay Ilha Grande sits in, not a full circuit of the island itself.
If the history interests you enough to come back
Ilha Grande rewards a longer stay for anyone who wants to see Dois Rios or hike to Lopes Mendes, regularly named among Brazil's best beaches, neither of which this day trip reaches. A schooner day from Rio is a genuine, worthwhile introduction to the bay — it just isn't the same trip as a few nights based in Vila do Abraão with time to walk the trails. Treat this tour as the taste, not the whole meal, and you'll judge it fairly.