About This Guide — Who Writes It
Hi — I’m Richard. I live on Ilha Grande, and I run a small pousada, Pousada CostaVerde, in Vila do Abraão. This guide is my attempt to share the island the way a local actually knows it: how to get here, where the good beaches and trails are, when to come, and the small things that make a trip easier.
My story
I’m the son of Argentine parents, born in São Paulo, Brazil, and raised in Argentina. I trained in foreign trade and international marketing and spent years working for different companies.
I met my wife in Córdoba, where I was living at the time; she’s from Buenos Aires. We started travelling a lot — and one day she fell in love with this place and asked if we could come and live here. A year later we had the pousada. We set it all in motion in 2018 and stepped off the boat onto the island on 29 September 2019, just before the pandemic. After years in the city’s endless inflationary loop, we wanted to try something completely different.
From the start it was easier than we expected. The island welcomed us — even through the pandemic — and with every day we’ve understood it a little better and blended a little more into its nature. Almost seven years on, this is home.
Ilha Grande is a mirror sculpted by the wisdom of nature, where you come to see yourself for the first time — no longer the mere material reflection. Maybe we don’t realise it, but so much noise, so much rush, so much anxiety, so much excessive desire, so much over-stimulation keeps us from seeing the beauty in simplicity and the perfection in what is natural.
Why I built this guide
When friends and guests asked me how to plan their trip, I kept running into the same problem: the good information about Ilha Grande was either only in Portuguese, or scattered across one-off posts from travellers passing through. There was no single, living, local, multilingual guide kept up to date by someone who actually lives here. So I started writing one.
That’s the whole idea behind Visit Ilha Grande: a guide that’s genuinely useful, in your language, from someone on the island — not a brochure.
Full transparency
I think you deserve to know who’s talking to you, so here it is plainly: I own and run Pousada CostaVerde. This guide is independent of the pousada — it’s written to help you have a great trip whether you stay with me or not. On the where to stay page I do mention CostaVerde, and when I do, I say so openly and point you to other honest options too. Nothing here is driven by commissions; the recommendations come from living on the island.
Why you can trust the information
- I’ve lived on Ilha Grande year-round since 2019 — this isn’t written from a desk somewhere else.
- Pousada CostaVerde is mentioned in the printed Lonely Planet guide, and rated 9.5 on Booking.com and 9.8 on Expedia — a sign the local knowledge here is the real thing.
Get in touch
Have a question about your trip — boats, trails, timing, anything? Send me a message and I’ll be glad to help you find your way to Vila do Abraão.