Getting to/from Sao Paulo from Rio
 

Hi, my family and I are arriving in Rio and staying for 5 days. After that, we are planning on visiting Sao Paulo, and then returning to Rio for our flight. (... much cheaper to fly home from Rio). We have priced internal flights, but are finding them to be expensive. Any ideas? Should we take a bus to/from? How do I go about finding a bus company? Any thoughts would help, thanks!

In my experience, internal flights in Brazil are quite expensive. Did you try GOL as well as TAM?

You will waste a lot of time going by bus, it would be about 800kms for the round trip, I think you are better off flying.

Thanks, I agree with you. I tried both GOL and TAM, only to find them crazy expensive. There are 6 of us! I think we might scrap that part of our trip.

We found deals at GOL and Azul, but we were only shopping for 4 tickets. FWIW, we got children's tickets on GOL. With currency exchange, we ended up with a price under $100USpp for Sao Paulo/Rio return. (We have the opposite issue, with our flights being in and out of Sao Paulo.) If you're in and out of Rio already, you may consider skipping Sao Paulo unless you have specific plans or things you really want to do/see in SP.

Depending on when you're travelling, you still have time to plan the purchase of plane tickets well in advance, obtaining good prices. Both major carriers, Gol and TAM, usually launch promos online on the weekends, so it pays off to check their websites for the weekends to come before your trip. Last time I flew from São Paulo to Rio I paid 200 BRL roundtrip, a real bargain!

Avoid GRU airport in Sao Paulo at all costs, as it's time consuming and costs a lot to get there, try to book flights to/from CGH only. GIG in Rio is fine, sometimes you can find good prices for the less traveled GIG/CGH route.

If you can't find a suitable cost, you can always take a bus that will take you from one city to the other very comfortably for around 100 BRL / person / trip. So probably R$ 1200 roundtrip for the 6 of you. On www.autoviacao1001.com.br you can book tkts online.

Very good information, thank you!

I would skip SP and use the reais to take a nice excursion out of Rio, e.g., Paraty.