Where to stay in Laguna
Colonial pastel facades along the historic waterfront of Laguna old town
Laguna has 3 stay zones that feel like different towns, and R$280 a night still gets you a sea view if you pick right.
Who Laguna suits
Laguna is a historic port town 120km south of Florianópolis, with the best-preserved 18th-century colonial centre on the Santa Catarina coast and a beach — Praia do Mar Grosso — that stretches 8km without a high-rise in sight. It suits travellers who care about architecture and history, road-trippers breaking the drive to Rio Grande do Sul, and anyone who has done Florianópolis twice and wants something quieter and older. Rates are among the lowest on the state's coast: R$220-450 for mid-range rooms in low season, R$400-800 in January.
It does not suit people looking for nightlife beyond a handful of bars, foodies expecting a Florianópolis-level restaurant scene, or beachgoers who want beach clubs and organised loungers. Mar Grosso is a wide, wild Atlantic beach with strong currents and almost no infrastructure — you bring your own umbrella, or you sit on the sand. Families with young children should look at the calmer side of town on Lagoa Santo Antônio instead, where the water is flat and warm.
The historic centre
Centro Histórico is the postcard, and if you have come to Laguna for what makes Laguna different, you should stay in it. The tombado streets around Praça Vidal Ramos and the Anita Garibaldi museum are cobbled, pedestrian in parts, and lined with 250-year-old two-storey houses painted in soft pastels. A handful of pousadas occupy restored colonial buildings — rates R$300-550, breakfast in a stone-walled courtyard, thick walls that stay cool without air conditioning. You are five minutes' walk from three good restaurants and the church square.
The catch is that the centre is 3km from Mar Grosso beach, so you drive or take a R$18-25 taxi to swim. There is a local bus but it runs every 40 minutes and stops at 8pm. If your holiday is 60 percent beach and 40 percent town, this side of the equation may frustrate you by day three. If it is the other way round — history-heavy with a beach afternoon or two — the centre is exactly right and the trade is worth it.
Mar Grosso
Mar Grosso is Laguna's beach strip, a straight line of low-rise hotels, holiday flats and a boardwalk along Avenida Beira Mar. This is where most Brazilian holidaymakers stay in summer, and the vibe is family-oriented, chatty, and completely unpretentious. Rates run R$250-500 for a room with a partial or full sea view, which is the lowest sea-view rate anywhere on the state's coast. High season pushes this to R$500-900, still cheaper than equivalent rooms in Bombinhas or Balneário Camboriú by a wide margin.
Walking distance from a Mar Grosso hotel covers 20 restaurants of the fried-fish-and-cold-beer school, three pharmacies, two supermarkets, and 8km of beach. You do not need a car here. What you sacrifice is charm — the buildings are functional 1980s and 1990s blocks, not colonial — and quiet, because the boardwalk is busy until midnight in January. If that sounds like the point of a beach holiday rather than a downside, book here and save the money for lunches.
The Magu bridge side and Lagoa Santo Antônio
Across the Anita Garibaldi bridge, the western side of Laguna faces Lagoa Santo Antônio, a huge calm brackish lagoon. Pousadas here are cheaper still — R$180-350 — often with their own docks, kayaks and boats for hire. The lagoon is flat, warm, and safe for children, and it is where the local fishermen still work with tarrafas alongside bottlenose dolphins in a genuinely unusual cooperative fishery you can watch from the shore near Praia da Tesoura.
The downside is isolation: you are 4-6km from the historic centre and 6-8km from Mar Grosso, with limited walking options nearby. A couple of restaurants sit along the lagoon road, but for choice you drive. This side works well for a family with two adults sharing driving, or for a couple who want the cheapest sea-adjacent rooms in Santa Catarina and don’t mind commuting to dinner. It does not work for solo travellers without a car.
What a night really costs
Laguna in low season (April to November, excluding July) is one of the best-value coastal towns in the state. R$220-350 gets you a clean mid-range double with breakfast in the historic centre or on Mar Grosso; R$400-550 gets you a genuinely nice restored-colonial room or a sea-view apartment. High season, meaning late December through February and Carnival week, roughly doubles those figures, but only in Mar Grosso — the historic centre stays surprisingly moderate because it is not what most Brazilian holidaymakers come for.
Compared to Florianópolis, Laguna is 40-50 percent cheaper for equivalent quality. Compared to Praia do Rosa, it is a third of the price and a completely different kind of holiday. Compared to Garopaba and Imbituba, it is broadly similar. The value equation is strongest in shoulder season — May, June, September, October — when Mar Grosso rates drop to R$200-300, the weather is often mild and dry, and the town still has restaurants open and enough movement to feel alive.
Within walking distance
From the historic centre you walk to the Anita Garibaldi house museum, the Santo Antônio dos Anjos church (1696), three or four small restaurants doing fish and shrimp properly, a couple of cafés, the ferry dock across to the west side, and the fishing harbour where the boats come in around 4pm most afternoons. Distances are 300-600 metres between everything. It is a genuinely walkable historic quarter, and one of the few in southern Brazil that survives more or less intact.
From Mar Grosso you walk the boardwalk, the beach itself, and the parallel Avenida Colombo de Machado Sales with its restaurants, ice cream shops and beachwear stores. The stretch from the Farol de Santa Marta lookout down to the Molhes rock jetty is about 2.5km end to end, all flat, all lit. From the lagoon side you walk to your own pousada's dock and not much else — this side is for driving out to see things, not for wandering.
How long to stay
Two nights is the honest minimum: one day for the historic centre and the fishing dock, one day for Mar Grosso and the Farol de Santa Marta lighthouse 30 minutes' drive south. Three nights lets you add the dolphin-fishing spot, a boat trip on the lagoon, and a slower afternoon in a colonial café. Beyond four nights you start to run out of specifically Laguna things to do, and most people move on to Rosa, Garopaba or south into Rio Grande do Sul.
Combine Laguna with Praia do Rosa (45 minutes north) for a coast trip that covers the two most distinct places on the southern Santa Catarina coast — a working historic port and a car-free surf village — without much driving. Skip Laguna entirely if your priority is contemporary restaurants, boutique hotels with pools, or an active nightlife: it has none of those in the volume you want, and pretending otherwise will spoil what it does have.
Before you book
The questions people ask about Laguna, answered with this month’s numbers.
Yes, for one or two nights. The historic centre is the best-preserved colonial quarter on the Santa Catarina coast, the Farol de Santa Marta lighthouse is a genuine highlight 30 minutes south, and you can watch the cooperative dolphin-and-fisherman fishery at Praia da Tesoura. Three or four nights, though, and you will run out of specifically Laguna things to do.
If you have one night, historic centre — the whole point of coming to Laguna is that quarter. If you have two or more, split them or stay on Mar Grosso and taxi in for a half-day. Mar Grosso is where you actually spend beach time; the centre is where you spend evenings.
Yes, if you pick either the historic centre or Mar Grosso and accept that moving between them costs R$18-25 by taxi. The lagoon side of town requires a car. Buses exist but run infrequently and stop early, so plan around them rather than relying on them.
