UNSPOILED
UNRIVALED
UNBELIEVABLE
The first thing you notice when you arrive in the tiny Brazilian town of Trancoso is what’s seemingly missing from one of the hottest travel destinations in the world: the flotsam and jetsam that washes ashore when a beach town achieves prolonged notoriety. Unlike Ibiza, St. Barths, or Bali, which have all, to varying degrees, degenerated into a morass of packaged-tourism, looky-loos, the ultra-wealthy holed up in their luxurious enclaves, and a local population that is literally only there to wine and dine all of the above, Trancoso hasn’t been blighted with the curse of over-exposure (see IBIZAPOCALYPSE this page). But why, and how?
“If you’re going to get money, just know the cash machine typically runs out by noon,” is a common refrain to new visitors to the area. It is perhaps an ironic warning considering Trancoso is one of the most exclusive and costly travel destinations in the world. But it perfectly exemplifies why Trancoso has managed to avoid the pitfalls being felt by its sisters-in-beach-luxury.
Visitors to Trancoso today will find the place much like it was in its modern founding in the 1970s, when artists and artisans made the trek from Sao Paulo to the deep jungle in search of inspiration, meaning and beautiful vistas. The nativos, the population that existed in Trancoso since its founding by Portuguese Jesuits in the 1500s, welcomed and embraced the newcomers. And together the nativos and the hippies, as they’re universally referred to, set the tone and tenor for how Trancoso would grow and develop over these past 40 years.
While places like Ibiza and Bali are hosting revolutions against unbridled tourism, Trancoso has never felt the need to throttle back visitors to this tiny town. There just hasn’t been a reason.
“If I’m telling someone about Trancoso and one of the first things they ask me is how long the trip is, I lose interest in continuing to talk about it any longer, because that person has already shown me they will miss the point of Trancoso,” says Creative Director of luxury haircare company Oribe, Ronnie Stam, who became a homeowner in Trancoso in 2010. And while the trip from North America and Europe can be arduous, and does indeed separate the rubberneckers from the serious explorers, the trip is not severe for those in Sao Paulo and other areas of Brazil who fly in on their private jets or helicopters. And that is indeed how Trancoso began its rise to world-class-beach-resort-town status.
Before the Brazilian television stars, performers and heirs to global fortunes first began seeking out Trancoso for its unspoiled beaches and jungle-book feel, the area was considered so remote the Brazilian government didn’t even deem it worthy of electricity until 1982. It was, as Dutchman Wilbert Das, co-founder of the luxury resort Uxua, says, “closed off for 500 years, and almost went extinct as the younger generation was leaving the area to find work.”
But then came the Brazilians, and then the Europeans, and then the Americans. Leo, Giselle, Naomi, Beyoncé and others generated additional heat as the jet set discovered the unspoiled beaches, the quaint, colorful, low-slung fishing huts, and perhaps most importantly, the seclusion.
It also doesn’t hurt that Trancoso has a built-in BS detector. One visitor has said: “If you’re high–maintenance, this probably isn’t the place for you.” And while today’s Trancoso is plentiful with exclusive resorts and beach-lined casas, the town, and this entire area of Bahia (one of 26 Brazilian states), is a dense jungle where the first paved road did not arrive until the early 90s…the 1990s. A suitable airport for the aforementioned air travel didn’t arrive to Puerto Seguro (the closest commercial airport) until 2000.
But that still leaves the better part of 20 years of growth in Trancoso. How has this town remained so quaint, so small, and so exclusive for so long?
FOUNDING PRINCIPLES
Initially, it all comes down to who your modern founders are. If modern Trancoso had been founded by industrialists or developers or even ranchers, the town and the beaches would likely look much different than they do today. Perhaps they would be like the pulse-pounding, sardine-packed beaches of Ibiza or the ultra-luxe packaged-tour-filled Bali. Perhaps it would have been used and discarded, an empty husk that served its purpose and was summarily dismissed. But Trancoso was founded by hippies, with their yoga and their community and their inclusion and their reliance on the earth and nature. And that makes a difference, according to those who should know.
“They could open a McDonalds or Taco Bell in town tomorrow, and no one would go,” explains a self-styled nativo who has been living in Trancoso since 1982, Helena Rosén. Ms. Rosen, originally from Sweden, spent time in her teens visiting the area with her father. Then she opened a bar for a few months at the age of 19. Two years later she was a permanent Trancoso resident and never left. “The bohemian lifestyle is just a thing here. The hippies founded modern Trancoso and it’s those principles that guide us to this day,” says Ms. Rosén, the unofficial town historian, from her home on Trancoso’s second most popular attraction, the Quadrado.
One look around the aforementioned Quadrado, a five-acre rectangle of grass and sand that acts as the stage for the town each day, beginning in late afternoon, and Ms. Rosén’s assertion cannot be challenged. Not only are there no foreign fast food outlets, but there are no W’s, no Tom Colicchio outposts and no Van Cleef and Arpel’s. Not even Guy (gasp) Fieri has managed to insert his brand of American comfort food into the deep Brazilian jungle.
STILL THE JUNGLE Despite the Citation jets and Airbus helicopters parked at the local private airport, or more correctly, because of it, it must not be forgotten that Trancoso and the surrounding area is still a jungle. With that come the occasional challenges that pop up which might deter less patient visitors.
On Whealthy’s visit, we ventured out to a restaurant on the Quadrado for dinner. When we arrived at a spot that had come recommended, the husband and wife informed us that the restaurant was not open because of power issues. Moving on to the next recommended spot, a mere hundred feet away, we discovered that location too was closed, but not because of lack of electricity. We succeeded on our third choice, but the adventure in simply finding a dinner spot is typical of a town where there are no posted operating hours and no websites. Sometimes the stores or the restaurants will be closed for no discernable reason (as far as the visitor can tell). And that fact can sum up Trancoso in a nutshell—it’s not what you think is important, it’s what I think is important. While this might seem like a strange way to operate a commercial enterprise, it’s what Jan Eleni, Mr. Stam’s wife and an accomplished interior designer who recently finished the Bahamian home of a former NY Yankee superstar, calls “one of the charms of Trancoso.”
“It’s a different lifestyle, and what it does is teach us patience. I have so much respect for these people—they’re all so happy. And at the end of the day that’s what we’re going for, isn’t it?” suggests Ms. Eleni.
More than once we heard what could be Trancoso’s tagline: You can do but one thing per day in Trancoso. But when you’re on vacation in paradise, should you be expecting anything more?
BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT
The government of Brazil has instituted foreign ownership laws (not to mention a visa process for North Americans that is one of the most intrusive in the world) that make it prohibitive for non-Brazilians to invest in property. This keeps the big foreign developers at bay. And the economy of Brazil has also retarded interest in development because of its volatility. And of course, geographically, unlike Ibiza or Bali or Tulum, the makeup and history of Trancoso doesn’t bode well for those who want to come, develop, and leave. These are a proud people.
One development group that has in fact made inroads in the area is the Fasano Group out of São Paolo. They have been working on their development project for over a decade. In 2010 the New York Times profiled Trancoso, with this included:
The next hot spot, however, will likely be the Hotel Fasano, the luxe resort that is planning to build 40 bungalows and 25 villas along a private beach, about a mile south of the Quadrado. It is set to open in 2012.
Six years after it was supposed to open, it still has not. “That’s Brazil for you,” sighs Ms. Rosén, who worked with Fasano to help buy up the development’s 300 hectares (741 acres), about a mile south of Trancoso’s world-class beach, on a cliff overlooking the azure waters and fine-sand beaches. Only the patient and committed survive the process. It is now scheduled to open in 2019.
In fact, it’s almost as if you can’t just come, set up shop, and leave. In the spirit of its founding hippie parents, Trancoso requires you to tend to your plantings and to nurture your seeds. The two people who are overwhelmingly credited with putting Trancoso on the global jet-setting map, followed that exact model and have reaped significant rewards.
Uxua Resort and Spa was started by Mr. Das, the former Creative Director of Diesel, and his business partner Bob Shevlin, in 2009. As has been chronicled in outlets from the New York Times to Condé Nast Traveler, Mr. Das bought several small fishing huts on the Quadrado and turned them into a 5-star resort. Today, 8 years later, both Bob and Wilbert spend much of their time in Trancoso, tending to their seeds and plants, in the form of the 11 rooms and suites at Uxua (which translated from the native Pataxó language means “wonderful”). They also contribute mightily to the community itself, funding the capoeira school (Brazilian martial arts) and bankrolling civic improvements. They are as active in the community as almost any nativo.
OUT OF MANY, ONE Uxua was successful because it adopted the mantra of the town itself, which if one had to guess, might very well be, E Pluribus Unum.
Unlike in Bali, Ibiza and St. Barths, the nativos aren’t segregated from the well and not-so-well-heeled visitors; they live next to and across from one another. The local schoolteacher lives on the same street as the uber-luxe casas that house the rich and famous from Rio and Sao Paulo and the celebrity homeowners like Anderson Cooper (whose home in Trancoso is managed by the Uxua Group) and Matthew McConaughey. The capoeira instructor lives next to the owner of the resort, who lives next to the potter. And it is exactly this co-mingling of old and new, of local and visitor, that one imagines keeps out the quick-buckers, the tourist traps, and the intolerant, because whether we like to admit it or not, not everyone spending $700 a night necessarily wants to sleep next door to the local fish monger, or have his wife swept off her feet on the dance floor by the pool guy. “We love that we can bump into our gardener or the local shopkeeper and have a drink or break bread with them. That’s the charm of Trancoso,” says Mr. Stam.
In places like Bali and Ibiza, the local population lives in a segregated community, and is basically imported to serve the tourists. In Trancoso, the local population shares the town with its well-heeled and well-traveled visitors. “We were standing in line at the ATM in town with 20 Trancosians, depositing their paychecks and whatnot, and literally not one person looked up or thought anything of the only two Americans in that part of town, at that time of day. You easily see how the hippies could have come here and been so welcomed and accepted. It’s just a Trancoso thing,” said a recent visitor to the town.
NATIVO ACTIVISM
But that inclusion and acceptance doesn’t mean you can run roughshod over the local populace. More than once the nativos have taken to the streets to protest perceived wrongs being perpetrated by those newly arrived. Recently, there was an initiative to put more lights around the Quadrado, and Mr. Stam and Ms. Eleni joined an online petition to stop construction on the cliffside below the famed whalebone and coral-constructed São João Batista church, one of the oldest in all of Brazil.
Meanwhile, just last month, residents of Ibiza took to the streets in protest of the rampant tourism decimating that town. Unfortunately, by any informed observer’s account, that ship has sailed, literally and figuratively.
FOREIGN OWNERSHIP
It is this law requiring foreigners to go through Brazilian businesses that accounts for the increasing number of concierge agencies popping up on the Trancoso scene.
Michel and his wife Sabrina are one such couple. They moved to Trancoso from Sao Paulo, and began their careers by catering to non-Portuguese speakers like Ms. Eleni and Mr. Stam. They have been growing and expanding as their business demands.
“I am not sure whether we would have bought our place in Trancoso without locals like Helena and Michel and Sabrina helping navigate what was needed,” says Ms. Eleni. Concierge services can not only help navigate local banking rules and property ownership laws for foreigners, but also help procure staff, arrange massages, yoga, boat trips, surfing lessons and anything else that floats your boat. They are seemingly indispensable if you plan on staying in Trancoso for more than a day or two, especially if you don’t speak Portuguese.
Leave it to the hair stylist Mr. Stam to cut to the chase and ignore the academic analysis: “It’s not complicated. There are many great beach towns, and there are many great beaches. It’s very rare to find such a great beach town situated alongside a great beach.”
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