How to get to Brazil’s Jalapão, when to go, what the fervedouros really are, how many days you need, and what the trip costs
Jalapão State Park sits in the far east of Tocantins, in the middle of the Cerrado, the largest savanna in South America, which covers 2,036,448 km² (22% of Brazil) and holds more than 12,000 plant species. The park protects dunes, sandstone plateaus, waterfalls, and spring-fed pools.
What sets Jalapão apart from other Brazilian parks is the water. Underground springs push up through sand at the fervedouros, where you float instead of sinking, and the nearby Rio Novo holds one of only three known populations of the Brazilian merganser, a duck with fewer than 250 individuals left in the world.
Want to know when to go, how many days you need, and what a trip actually costs? PlanetaEXO, an ecotourism platform specializing in Jalapão tours, has put together this travel guide to help you plan every stage of the trip. Check it out below!
What you will find in this guide:
- About Jalapão State Park
- Where is Jalapão?
- How to get to Jalapão?
- When is the best time to visit Jalapão?
- What to do in Jalapão State Park?
- How many days do I need in Jalapão?
- Do I need a guide to visit Jalapão State Park?
- How much does it cost to visit Jalapão?
- What to bring to Jalapão
- Is it worth visiting Jalapão in Brazil?
About Jalapão State Park
Jalapão State Park was created on January 12, 2001, and is managed by Naturatins, the Tocantins environmental agency. It covers 158,970 hectares (1,590 km²) across waterfalls, dune fields, canyons, and sandstone outcrops, along with the fervedouro springs that form natural pools.
The wider Jalapão region, at about 34,000 km², is close to the size of Switzerland, and the park is only one piece of it. Next door, the Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station protects another 716,306 hectares under the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation. Together with neighboring reserves in Bahia, Piauí, and Maranhão, they form the largest continuous block of protected Cerrado in Brazil.
The sandstone underfoot is older than any of it. The rocks belong to the Urucuia Group, laid down in the Cretaceous. Geologists read them as ancient dune fields, as this was a desert, not a sea. That same porous sandstone is what stores and slowly releases the groundwater that feeds the springs, rivers, and waterfalls you came to see.
The region is also a center for sustainable handicraft production, built around capim-dourado (golden grass) and buriti palm fiber. Harvesting is regulated: under Naturatins Ordinance 362/2007, golden grass can only be collected between September 20 and November 30 and only by registered extractivists, with the flowers scattered on the ground so the plant reseeds itself. State Law 3,594/2019 governs the rest of the production chain.
Where is Jalapão?
Jalapão State Park is in eastern Tocantins, about 300 kilometers from Palmas, the state capital. The region spreads across several municipalities, including Ponte Alta do Tocantins, Mateiros, and São Félix do Tocantins. The Serra do Espírito Santo, the flat ridge that dominates the horizon, reaches about 900 meters.
“Remote” is not a figure of speech here. Mateiros, the park’s main gateway, had 2,748 residents spread over 9,589 km² in the 2022 Census, a density of 0.29 people per km², according to IBGE. That isolation is exactly what kept the landscape intact, and it is also why the practical planning in the rest of this guide matters more than it would anywhere else.
How to get to Jalapão?
The usual way in is through Palmas, which has the closest airport, Brigadeiro Lysias Rodrigues (PMW). Three airlines fly there (Gol, Azul, and LATAM), with roughly 240 departures a month on direct routes to São Paulo, Brasília, and Belo Horizonte, among others.
From Palmas, expect at least 4 hours by road to Mateiros or São Félix do Tocantins, the two towns most travelers use as a base. A 4×4 is not optional: although select segments of the TO-030, TO-110, and TO-247 highways have been paved, extensive portions of the route remain unpaved dirt or soft sand, accompanied by very limited road signage.
It also helps to know that touring Jalapão is a circuit, not a there-and-back trip. The attractions are scattered across the region, so itineraries usually enter on one side and leave on the other.
Most tours start and end in Palmas. Every Jalapão package from PlanetaEXO includes transfers, so you don’t have to worry about navigating unmarked sand roads, and all you have to do is enjoy the journey.
When is the best time to visit Jalapão?
You can visit Jalapão year-round, but the dry season (May to September) is ideal due to minimal rain, clear skies, and reliable roads. May is the sweet spot with lush Cerrado greenery and high humidity just after the rains stop. As September approaches, conditions grow drier and dustier, though sunsets improve.
The rainy season runs from October to April. Storms can leave dirt roads close to impassable and make wildlife harder to spot, while January is the wettest month, averaging around 255 mm of rain.
It never gets cold. Mateiros has an annual average of 25.1 °C (77 °F) and about 1,372 mm of rain a year. Temperature swings are small all year, with highs between 30 °C and 34 °C (86 °F and 93 °F) and lows between 15 °C and 20 °C (59 °F and 68 °F).
The trade-off between seasons is scenery: green landscapes and full waterfalls in the wet months and easier access and sharper light in the dry ones.
| Period | Rain | What it means for your trip |
|---|---|---|
| May to June | Very low | Green vegetation, full rivers, comfortable driving. The most balanced window. |
| July to September | Almost none | Driest air, dustiest roads, best sunsets. Peak season, so book early. |
| October to December | Rising | Storms return, landscapes turn green, fewer visitors. |
| January to April | Highest (≈255 mm in January) | Roads can be blocked, some attractions harder to reach. |
What is the current weather in Jalapão, Tocantins?
Take a look at how the weather is right now in Jalapão State Park.
What to do in Jalapão State Park?
Jalapão offers a wide range of tour itineraries and activities for nature and adventure travelers, from hiking and rafting to floating in spring-fed pools and visiting quilombola communities. Here are the activities worth building an itinerary around.
Floating in the fervedouros
The fervedouros of Jalapão are the reason most people travel there. Water rises through a fracture in the sandstone and pushes up through a bed of sand, keeping the grains in permanent suspension, so there is no solid floor to stand on and the upward flow holds you at the surface.
It has nothing to do with salt or water density, and no comparable phenomenon has been documented anywhere else. Most of these pools are only 1 to 2 meters deep, yet you cannot touch the bottom where the spring emerges.
The best-known are Fervedouro do Soninho, Ceiça, Buritizinho, and Bela Vista, the last one is the widest in the region and the only one with a restaurant and lodging on site.
Several fervedouros now work with timed entries and a cap on how many people can be in the water at once, so your guide will usually schedule them early or late in the day.
Rafting on the Rio Novo
For a bigger adrenaline hit, rafting on the Rio Novo runs through Class III and IV rapids. The same river holds one of the last populations of the Brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus), listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN with fewer than 250 individuals worldwide, so quiet stretches double as birdwatching. Trips usually stop at sandy river beaches along the way.
Waterfalls
Cachoeira da Formiga drops into a pool of green water clear enough to see the bottom, making it the easiest swim in the park.
Cachoeira da Velha, on the Rio Novo, is the opposite: a wide, high-volume cascade you watch rather than swim in, and the launch point for most rafting descents.
Trails, dunes and sunrises
Begin your day early watching the sunrise from Serra do Espírito Santo, a sandstone ridge rising to nearly 900 meters. Later, wrap up the day at the Jalapão dunes, the sole dune field in the Brazilian Cerrado, featuring peaks reaching up to 40 meters high.
The dunes were built from sand eroded off the Serra itself, carried by wind that has been dropping it in the same place for millennia.
Local communities
The Mumbuca quilombola community, in Mateiros, is the birthplace of the golden-grass craft that now supports dozens of families across the region. Visits usually include the workshops, a home-cooked meal, and the story of how the harvest came to be regulated.
Around 54 families take part in the annual harvest, which the community celebrates with the Festa da Colheita do Capim Dourado.
👉 Read more: What to do in Jalapão?
How many days do I need in Jalapão?
Four days is the practical minimum. Jalapão State Park is large, its attractions are scattered, and each base, from Ponte Alta to Mateiros and São Félix do Tocantins, opens a different set of them. This window lets you see the headline sights without spending the whole trip in a vehicle.
Keep the road time in mind. Reaching any of the gateway towns takes at least 4 hours from Palmas, and moving between attractions inside the region eats more hours than the map suggests. If your schedule is tight, that travel time is what gets cut from your sightseeing.
Five or six days changes the trip. The extra days buy longer hikes, attractions off the main circuit, unhurried mornings at the fervedouros before the day groups arrive, and real time with the local communities.
Do I need a guide to visit Jalapão State Park?
It is not compulsory, but going with a professional guide is strongly recommended. The roads are sand and dirt, suitable only for 4×4 vehicles, and signage is close to nonexistent. With a population density of 0.29 people per km² in Mateiros, you can drive for hours without meeting anyone to ask for directions.
A guided tour also settles the logistics that are hard to arrange from outside the region: transport from Palmas and back, the timing of each fervedouro, permits and access to community visits, and support if a road washes out. It keeps your impact on the sites low and puts income into the communities that maintain them.
How much does it cost to visit Jalapão?
The cost of a Jalapão tour depends on the length of the itinerary, the size of your group, and which activities you add.
On PlanetaEXO, prices currently start at US$650 per person for the 4-day trip from Palmas, US$800 for the 5-day adventure, and US$1,150 for the 6-day trekking tour.
Those rates cover a professional guide, accommodation, breakfast and lunch, all transport during the trip, and entry to the attractions on the itinerary. Prices per person fall as the group grows and rise in July (peak month), so the same itinerary can vary by more than 30% depending on when you travel and with how many people.
One detail worth planning for: some activities are sold as optional add-ons, including sunrise at the Serra do Espírito Santo and rafting on the Rio Novo. Decide on those before you travel, as they change both the price and the shape of your days.
👉 Explore the adventures:
What to bring to Jalapão
Pack for your specific itinerary, since hiking days, waterfalls, and rafting each call for different gear. This is the list we recommend to every traveler:
- Long-sleeved shirt with UV protection
- Hiking pants (lightweight pants or leggings)
- Hiking boots or comfortable sneakers with good grip
- Water shoes or a second pair of sneakers that can get wet for rafting
- Sunscreen and insect repellent
- Hat or cap
- Sunglasses
- Water bottle or canteen
- Daypack of up to 20 liters for the trails
- Light jacket for cooler nights from May to September, when lows reach 15 °C
- Rain jacket between October and April, with the heaviest rain from December to March
- Light clothing and swimwear
Is it worth visiting Jalapão in Brazil?
Visiting Jalapão State Park is more than worth it! Few places put dune fields, Class IV rapids, clear-water waterfalls, and a spring phenomenon documented nowhere else within a few hours of each other inside the best-preserved block of Cerrado left in Brazil.
Add the quilombola communities and the golden-grass craft, and you get a trip that is as cultural as it is outdoors.
Ready to discover Jalapão State Park?
Now that you know when to go to Jalapão, how to get there, and how many days it takes, the only thing left is to pick your itinerary.
PlanetaEXO is an ecotourism platform specializing in Jalapão tours. Working alongside the best local operators and guides in Tocantins, we handle 4×4 logistics, accommodation, and timing so you can concentrate on the breathtaking landscapes. Contact us now!
