Brazil Carnival Camp for Teenagers: Rio de Janeiro and the Costa Verde

This is a travelling discovery programme rather than a taught course. The group moves along one short stretch of the Brazilian coast instead of trying to cover the country, spending the first half in Rio de Janeiro and the second half in and around Paraty on the Costa Verde. Days mix city discovery, Brazilian culture and outdoor time. A director and qualified activity leaders travel with the group, at a ratio of one adult to every eight young people, and the party is capped at sixteen participants with a minimum of twelve.

The school offers a special discount - ask us for details. The price is a flat rate and covers travel from Paris on scheduled flights with a stopover in both directions, full board, the full supervision team, repatriation and individual accident insurance, accommodation, local transport in Brazil, all activities listed in the programme, and the educational and administrative follow-up before and after the trip. It does not cover personal spending, visa fees where these apply, vaccinations and administrative formalities, activities outside the published programme, optional extras, the cancellation-cover options, the fixed-price guarantee option, or the regional connection for participants travelling from outside Paris. Departure from Paris carries no supplement; connections from other French cities are listed as optional extras.

The group sleeps in youth hostels of the Brazilian pousada type. In Rio de Janeiro the hostel is in the Flamengo district, about three hundred metres from a metro station. In Paraty it stands in the town centre. Dormitories are single-sex throughout: four to twelve beds in Rio de Janeiro, four to six beds in Paraty. Showers are shared and located outside the rooms. Both hostels give the group the use of a communal kitchen and an activity room.

Full board is included. Breakfast is taken at the hostel, lunch is a picnic taken wherever the day's programme leads, and the evening meal is eaten in small local restaurants, which gives the group a straightforward way to work through Brazilian cooking. Drinks outside meals and any personal spending are not included.

In Rio de Janeiro the group opens with beach volleyball on Copacabana, swims in the surf at Ipanema and takes a capoeira class. It climbs Corcovado to the foot of the Christ the Redeemer statue for the view across the bay, and goes into a favela with a local guide the operator has worked with for years. It watches the samba schools rehearse at the Sambadrome and then takes an active part in the carnival itself. On the Costa Verde the group explores the UNESCO-listed colonial centre of Paraty through a treasure-hunt game called Paraty Express, meeting residents along the way, and finishes with a two-day trek through Atlantic rainforest to the fishing village of Ponta Negra, on a path that opens onto viewpoints above blue water and white-sand beaches.

Accommodation is in hostels rather than on a campus, so the facilities are those of the two pousadas: a communal kitchen the group can use, an activity room, and shared shower blocks outside the dormitories. The Rio de Janeiro hostel sits in Flamengo within about three hundred metres of a metro station, which is what makes the city accessible on foot and by public transport; the Paraty hostel is in the town centre. Getting around in Brazil is by local and private transport meeting the country's safety standards.

The trip suits teenagers who would rather travel than stay in one place, and who are comfortable sharing a dormitory and eating out with a group. Two things shape it. The first is timing: the group is in Rio de Janeiro while the carnival is on, which turns the Sambadrome rehearsal and the parade itself into the centre of the week rather than a sight seen in passing. The second is scale: with at most sixteen participants and one adult for every eight of them, the group can walk into a favela with a guide who knows it, or spend two days on a forest path to a fishing village, without any of it becoming a coach tour. Participants should be aware that the programme involves walking, heat and two days of trekking.