Where to Stay in Bonito, Brazil with Kids: What the Lodging Needs to Have

With children, the criteria for lodging in Bonito change. On an adults-only trip, the room is just where you sleep between tours. With children, it is where you spend the late afternoon after a day of vans, trails and cold water, and where dinner gets sorted out when nobody can face going out again. So it is worth choosing more carefully than the nightly rate suggests.

This article covers only the lodging. The full plan, with ages, tours and pace, is in Bonito with kids.

The criteria that matter

Pool

This is the item that makes the biggest difference. Bonito’s tours happen in the morning and early afternoon; from 3 or 4 pm, the kids are back at the lodging with energy to spare. A pool, even a small one, takes care of the rest of the day. Check whether there is a shallow end or a children’s pool, and whether it is in a shaded area.

Family rooms

Rooms for four or five people, or two connecting rooms, exist at pousadas (family-run guesthouses), hotels and resorts, but there are few of them and they sell out first in high season. Confirm the bed configuration (double plus two singles, bunk bed, sofa bed) and whether a crib is available, if needed. A double room with an “extra bed” does not always fit two children comfortably.

Early and varied breakfast

Tours leave between 7 and 8 am. If breakfast starts at 7:30, the family leaves without eating or misses the tour departure. Ask what time breakfast opens and whether there is an early or packed option. Fruit, bread, eggs and juice are enough; what matters is that it exists before the van arrives.

Distance from the tours and from the center

No lodging is close to every tour; they are spread 6 to 72 km apart in different directions. What you can control is the distance to the center, where the pharmacy, restaurants and ice cream shops are. With small children, staying less than 10 minutes from the center keeps every small errand from turning into a car trip.

Meals on site

After a day of touring, going out to dinner with a tired child is a problem. Lodging with its own restaurant, or at least a shared kitchen and somewhere to heat food, reduces that friction. In the center, food delivery works; in the countryside, not always.

Air conditioning and window screens

Bonito is hot most of the year and there are mosquitoes, especially in the rainy season. Air conditioning in the room and screens on the windows are the minimum for a child to sleep well.

Center or farm hotel: what changes with kids

In the center, logistics are simpler. Ice cream, dinner and pharmacy on foot, agency vans at the door and less time in the car. The weak point is the late afternoon: small pools and little room for children to burn off energy. It works best with babies and very small children, for whom a day of touring is already tiring enough, and for families without a car. See pousadas and hotels.

At farm hotels and resorts, the afternoon is taken care of: a big pool, lawn, hammock area, sometimes a playground, river or trail on the property. The cost is isolation. Without a car, every trip into town depends on a transfer and dinner is limited to the hotel restaurant. With a car and children from about age 4, this is the combination that usually works best. See resorts in Bonito.

By age, in brief

Before you book

• Book a family room in advance for July, the year-end holidays and Brazilian long weekends. Read where to stay in Bonito for the overview of areas and seasons.
• Match the lodging to the itinerary: tours near town in the first days, the more distant ones once the children have settled in. The options are in things to do in Bonito with kids.
• Ask about the policy on charges per child and extra beds. It varies from one property to another.