Itacaré is a small surfing and beach town on the cacao coast of southern Bahia, set where the Rio de Contas meets the Atlantic about an hour north of Ilhéus. It started out as a fishing village and a port for the cocoa plantations, kept its colonial church, and then in the 1990s reinvented itself as Bahia's most low-key surf destination. The result is a place that looks fairly polished — pousadas, juice bars, surf shops — but still feels small and personal compared with the resorts further south.
The setting is exceptional. A line of beaches runs north along the coast for about 15 km, each one separated from the next by a forested headland of remnant Atlantic Forest. The closest beaches to town — Concha, Resende, and Tiririca — are reachable on foot. The wilder beaches further out — Itacarezinho, Engenhoca, Prainha — need a car, a bike, or a short forest walk, and the surf on these breaks well year-round.
Off the beach, things slow down: capoeira on the sand at sunset, axé and forró spilling out of bars on the main pedestrian street Rua Pedro Longo, fish moqueca for dinner. The town is small enough to walk everywhere in twenty minutes, and the population is a mix of native Bahians, Paulistas and Cariocas who moved here for the surf, and a steady international community. Beyond the beaches, the surrounding Serra do Conduru State Park preserves one of the last large fragments of Atlantic Forest in the region — good for waterfalls, hiking, and birding.
Practical notes: come in the dry season (roughly September to March) for the best beach weather, though Itacaré gets rain at any time of year. The bus terminal is in the centre. There is no airport — Ilhéus is the gateway for flights. ATMs work erratically, and not all pousadas take cards; bring cash.