A Family’s 3-Day Lençóis Maranhenses Trek: Olivia’s Brazil Story

One Austrian family, three and a half weeks in Brazil, and three days on foot across a desert of white dunes and freshwater lagoons, told in Olivia’s own words

Some trips start with a place, but this one started with a season. Olivia Rossignol, 48, works at the United Nations and lives in Austria. When she plans a trip for her family, she starts by ruling things out. She wanted somewhere warm to travel during the European summer, without landing in someone else’s rainy season, which pointed her toward Brazil. While July is winter in the south, the north of the country sits squarely in its dry season.

The exact destination came from her 15-year-old daughter. Googling Brazil one evening, she found the surreal images of Lençóis Maranhenses trending on Instagram and asked the obvious question: Can we go there? They built the entire three-and-a-half-week trip around it, adding Rio de Janeiro, Pipa, Salvador, Chapada Diamantina, and Morro de São Paulo along the way.

But Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, a 155,000-hectare sweep of white sand dunes and rainwater lagoons in the state of Maranhão, was always the anchor. It marked the family’s first time in Brazil, and, without a doubt, it stood out as the absolute highlight of their entire journey.

Olivia, her husband, and their daughter crossed the dunes and lagoons on a 3-day Lençóis Maranhenses trek, organized and led by PlanetaEXO’s team and local guides. Now we share her story to show you what this experience really feels like: for a family, for first-timers in Brazil, and for anyone weighing the same questions she had. Check it out below!

A destination her daughter found online

A year ago, Lençóis Maranhenses wasn’t even on Olivia’s radar, as she readily admits. “No matter who I tell that I was there, nobody knows it. And honestly, a year ago, I didn’t know it either,” she confessed.

The idea only survived because it solved her real problem (a dry-season destination in July) and because her daughter kept pushing for the images she had seen online.

So they reversed the usual logic. Instead of fitting Lençóis into a Brazil itinerary, they built it around Lençóis and filled in the rest afterward. For a first family trip to South America, letting a 15-year-old’s screenshot set the direction turned out to be a good call.

👉 Read more: Best time to visit Lençóis Maranhenses

Three days off the grid and an otherworldly landscape

The camps in the park offered Wi-Fi, but Olivia deliberately didn’t use it. “It was clear to me I wouldn’t have it for three days,” she said. “I was even a bit disappointed they offered it. We don’t get this anymore, being several days offline.”

That choice is a big part of why the trekking in Lençóis Maranhenses landed the way it did. “I had the feeling I was somewhere completely different, not on Earth,” she marveled, saying how she had been to the Moroccan desert in February and expected something similar, just in white. “It is not. It is much more spectacular.”

What surprised Olivia most was that the national park kept raising its own bar. “You do a full day hiking, you see the white sand, the dunes, the lagoons, you have a nice overnight… And then the next day is even more beautiful than the day before,” she remembered. “You don’t expect it, because you think you’ve already seen everything. But it gets better.”

The third and final day was the best of all, and the group got lucky with the timing. “We had a full moon, so we started walking at night and swam under it. That was really amazing.” Weather helped too: across three days, they had blue sky and, by her count, only about five minutes of rain.

👉 Read more: How many days should you spend in Lençóis Maranhenses?

The guides who stayed until the end

In a park with no roads, no signs, and no signal, the guides carry the trip. Olivia’s two, Patricio and Cristiano, left the strongest impression of anyone she met in Brazil. “I have never in my life met people as kind as those two guides.”

The moment that stuck with her came at the very end, in Santo Amaro, when the trip was technically over. The family had a transfer booked for noon and, in Olivia’s words, “in my European way, I started to get nervous” when lunch hadn’t arrived by then. The guide simply handled it: he stayed and ate with them, went into the kitchen to check on the food himself, carried it out, and made sure the transfer worked.

“When someone is supposed to take care of you, he takes care of you totally. And you feel it, because for them, this isn’t just a job,” she reflected.

👉 Read more: How to get to Lençóis Maranhenses?

Language barrier overcame by Brazilian friendliness

Olivia was satisfied with the whole trip, but when pressed for something that didn’t work, she said it was difficult to find anybody speaking English, and not only in a small village, which she expected, but in Rio too, which was a surprise.

While the family’s knowledge in Italian and Spanish helped, the communication was a bit of a struggle with some locals. Still, it was nothing that could sour the experience. “Everyone was still friendly, and I’d come back. I will sure come back. There’s so much more to see in this country.”

Was Brazil safe? Olivia’s honest answer

Before the trip, Olivia was a bit worried. “Not scared, but worried,” she clarified. The first thing friends asked when she got home was whether Brazil was dangerous. Her conclusion after three and a half weeks was practical.

“You just need to put some common sense into what you’re doing, and there’s no need to be afraid.” In practice, that meant a simple t-shirt, no jewelry, and not walking alone at night.

She doesn’t pretend nothing happened. In Salvador, a city she genuinely liked, a 20-minute walk to a supermarket took the family out of the center, and the mood shifted from the lively places they’d been before. “The streets got darker, and we suddenly felt alone, so we just stopped and took an Uber.”

Although a few moments brought brief unease, her anxiety stemmed mostly from facing the unknown rather than any actual trouble. In the end, the whole journey went smoothly.

The surprises Brazil had in store

Olivia is candid about arriving with a bias. “We have this stupid arrogance in Europe,” she acknowledged: the assumption that things outside it will be less punctual, less organized. Brazil dismantled it.

The family took three domestic flights. After a slow check-in, she braced for delays that never came. “Everything was punctual, everything worked out well. Even better, in some instances.”

The food was another quiet, delicious surprise. The briefing beforehand played it down, almost an apology that meals on the trek would be very simple. But in the end, Olivia and her family thoroughly enjoyed all the home-cooked meals the hosts prepared for them.

She rated the rest of Brazil highly too, but she insists nothing compares to Lençóis Maranhenses.

Olivia’s tips for first-time travelers to Brazil

Asked what she’d tell a friend going to Brazil for the first time, Olivia had three travel tips, based on her own experience:

• Learn a little Portuguese: Even a handful of common words goes a long way, especially outside the big hotels where English is scarce.
• Don’t let fear plan your trip: It’s not as dangerous as people think. Common sense does most of the work.
• Plan properly: Brazil is too big to just book a flight and see what happens. Decide where you want to go and what you want to do before you leave.

👉 Read more: 10 Travel Tips for Lençóis Maranhenses to Make the Most of Your Trip

Where Olivia wants to go next and her final thoughts on Lençóis Maranhenses

One trip clearly wasn’t enough. Olivia’s sure she will travel to Brazil again.

Top of her list is the Pantanal, followed by the Amazon Rainforest and the coast around Paraty, south of Rio de Janeiro. For a family that came for one desert and left planning a wetland and a jungle, that’s the strongest review of all.

Asked to sum the trip up, Olivia doesn’t reach for the landscape or the logistics but for the feeling. “Best time of our lives,” she said of the 3-day trek in Lençóis Maranhenses. “The communication and organization through PlanetaEXO were perfect, prompt, and trustworthy. The trekking itself was one of our best times ever. We can highly recommend it!”

Trekking in Lençóis Maranhenses with PlanetaEXO

Now that you’ve seen the park through Olivia’s eyes, you know what a trip to Lençóis Maranhenses here really gives back.

PlanetaEXO is an ecotourism platform specializing in the Lençóis Maranhenses tours and other adventures across Brazil. Working alongside experienced local guides, we handle the logistics (transfers, camps, meals, and the route) so you and your family can focus on the dunes, from your first booking to the last full-moon lagoon. Contact us now!