>>213106180With family just stick with the Rio area.
Everywhere around the tourist areas are laid back and well maintained.
You'll get a good Brazil vibe and people will be used to handling English even if they don't speak it.
Spend some days to see Cristo Redentor and some of the other sites, stop at tourist shops, then go to Búzios for a nicer beach and a boat tour. Maybe visit Petrópolis depending on how much you want to travel.
Minas Gerais is also nice, Ouro Preto and Inhomtim are cool if you're looking to be further from the coast.
The northeast where those pictures are from has better beaches, but less to do outside of that.
From the states you have to fly all the way south to SP just fly another 4 hours back north, then you land and have a million people offering to be your "uber" literally inside the airport.
It's just more unruly and less tourist focused.
>t. lives in the northeast. I prefer it, but when I invite my mom we'll stay in the less adventurous Tourist containment zones in the South East