You can easily take a bus from Rio de Janeiro International Airport (GIG) to Copacabana. Whether you are staying right in a hotel on Copacabana Beach avenue or farther inside the district, the air-conditioning airport bus from Real Premium is the cheapest way to get to Copacabana upon arriving in Rio.
Note that Copacabana is a reasonably wide district (3,2 kilometers or 2 miles), however, it is a bit narrow. So, if your accommodation is right on Copacabana Beach avenue, the airport bus will stop only a few steps away from your hotel (if not in front of it). However, if your accommodation is farther into Copacabana you may need to walk (for maximum 15 minutes), since by the end of 15 minutes you would reach the back end of Copacabana District — a mountain.
In other words, if you are carrying a backpack, you can perfectly walk those minutes to get to your hotel, hostel, B&B, guest house or vacation furnished apartment.
The Real Premium Rio airport-Copacabana bus is comfortable, clean and reasonably cheap (R$12; US$6; €5). It departs every day including holidays and weekends from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Usually there is a bus every 30 minutes.
The travel time can take as much as one hour and a half if the traffic is heavy (and that happens every weekday morning in the direction ‘airport-Copacabana’). Besides, the airport bus takes a long route to finally arrive in Copacabana (for example, the bus stops at the Novo Rio intercity bus terminal and at Santos Dumont Airport [SDU], then goes along several neighborhoods to finally proceed to Copacabana).
Planning a trip to Rio de Janeiro? Learn other alternatives other than the bus to get from Rio airport to Copacabana in My Rio Travel Guide e-book, the essential how-to visitor’s guide; packed with updated, practical and relevant travel information for the serious traveler.
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