Sign up here to find us in your inbox once a month, and to receive our weekly T List newsletter. Roughly halfway between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the coastal town of Paraty (population 45,000) isn’t the easiest place to reach. It’s that relative seclusion that keeps the tourist hordes and unbridled development at bay, despite the town’s obvious appeal. African slaves not only worked in the mines but built much of the town’s early infrastructure, such as its roads. At the end of the 19th century, Santos, 190 miles to the south, supplanted Paraty as the country’s primary coffee-exporting port, and the town began to languish.

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Persons: São, Luana Assunção, ”, Dom João, “ You’ll Organizations: São Paulo, Free Walker Tours Locations: tlist@nytimes.com, Rio de Janeiro, Paraty, Costa Verde, Ilha Grande, CHEE, Minas Gerais, Santos, “, Rio, Orleans