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Shopping Overview

Stroll down streets lined with fashionable boutiques, barter with vendors at street fairs, or wander through one of more than two-dozen air-conditioned malls. Good bets are leather, suede, jewelry, and cool summer clothing in natural fibers. Also look for coffee, art, and samba and bossa nova CDs.

Ipanema is Rio's most fashionable shopping district. Its many exclusive boutiques are in arcades, with the majority along Rua Visconde de Pirajá. Copacabana has souvenir shops, bookstores, and branches of some of Rio's better shops along Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana and connecting streets. For upscale jewelry, head to Avenida Atlântica. Brazil is one of the world's largest producers of gold and the largest supplier of colored gemstones, with deposits of aquamarines, amethysts, diamonds, emeralds, rubellites, topazes, and tourmalines. If you're planning to go to Minas Gerais, do your jewelry shopping there; otherwise, stick with shops that have certificates of authenticity and quality.

In the evenings and on weekends along the median of Avenida Atlântica, artisans spread out their wares. You can find paintings, carvings, handicrafts, sequined dresses, and hammocks from the northeast.