Bahia's bohemian surf town — Atlantic Forest meets pristine beaches meets cacao country
Itacaré is a small surf town on the southern Bahia coast where the Serra Grande road ends and a string of Atlantic Forest-backed beaches begins. Beaches stretching south — Tiririca, Resende, Havaizinho, Ribeira — are accessible only on foot through thick forest. Itacaré is in the center of Brazil's historic cacao region, and the chocolate culture runs deep: bean-to-bar makers, cacao farm tours, and cocoa-infused cuisine are everywhere.
The Ilhéus-Itacaré coast was Brazil's most important cacao-producing region from the 1880s through the 1980s, immortalized in Jorge Amado's novels. The 1989 witches'-broom fungus plague devastated the cacao monoculture; tourism and organic cacao have since revived the area.