Playa La Moza
La Coronilla, Rocha, Uruguay
Playa La Moza is one of four named beaches inside Santa Teresa National Park on Uruguay's Rocha coast, a point break tucked among pine groves planted decades ago to hold the dunes in place. Surfers rate it among the country's better waves, and the park around it stretches along twelve kilometers of coastline with a historic fortress at its center.
Surfers who know the coast rate this point break highly, and the pine forest setting keeps it from feeling like a typical beach park, but it's a real trip from Montevideo and the water stays cold enough that it's not much of a swimming beach.
How we score beachesAutumn and winter bring the best waves here, not summer, since the swell that makes this point break work builds later in the year. Come for the surf, not the crowd.
The park entrance sits off Ruta 9 near km 302, free to enter, with internal roads leading toward the beach. There's also foot access from the Punta del Diablo side for anyone staying nearby.
Park roads lead close to the shoreline with short walks from the nearest pull off to the point itself. Not a paved or formal path, and the terrain suits confident walkers more than strollers.
Uruguay doesn't have a wet or dry season the way the tropics do, it runs a normal four season year. May is often cited as the strongest month for the point break here, while December through February brings the warmest water and the biggest summer crowd elsewhere in the park.
More South America beaches
Tabatinga Beach
Conde, ParaĆba, Brazil Ā· South America
Tabatinga Beach sits along the Conde coastline in ParaĆba, Brazil, known for a run of clay cliffs striped red, yellow, and purple where the vegetation cuts off and bare earth takes over. Two lookout points sit above the sand, one nicknamed Dedo de Deus. Coconut palms line the beach itself, and the water stays calm most of the year.
BaĆa do Sancho
Fernando de Noronha, Pernambuco, Brazil Ā· South America
BaĆa do Sancho is the beach most people picture when they imagine Fernando de Noronha, a cove cut into cliffs off the Brazilian coast, part of Pernambuco's marine national park. You reach it either by boat or by climbing down a metal stairway wedged into a crack in the rock, and either way the water below is clear enough to see the reef fish from the ledge above.
Praia do Satu
CaraĆva, Bahia, Brazil Ā· South America
Praia do Satu sits about three kilometers north of the car-free village of CaraĆva in southern Bahia, Brazil, past cliffs and a couple of small natural lagoons. There's no road in. Most people cross the Rio CaraĆva by canoe from the village, then walk the beach north, or hire a speedboat straight there. It's one of the quieter stops on this stretch of coast.