9 Best places to stay in Iguazu Falls

Not all Iguacu’s hotels are intimate and in the rainforest. Brazil’s Mabu Grand is as discreet as Disney. And almost as fun. As much water park as hotel, it has artificial beaches (with bars serving icy caipirinhas), big wave pools, water slides and rides. The grounds also have their own small patch of forest – with trails for the kids and an artificial lake with waterbirds and capybara.

Rooms are package hotel plain and functional – cubes with laminate floors, cream walls and en suites. But they are excellent value.

The resort sits on the eastern edge of Foz do Iguaçu town opposite the Catuaí Palladium shopping mall (with a cinema and food court). It’s a five-minute taxi ride from the restaurants of the town centre and ten minutes from the national park and Falls.

It’s immensely popular with Brazilian families who flock here at weekends over Carnival and in the July school holidays.

Imagine opening the curtains in the morning to see a cloud of mist rise above the thundering Iguazu Falls, long before the park gates open and tourists start flooding in. This privilege is reserved for guests at the Melia – the only hotel inside the Argentinian side of the park.

Rooms are bright, modern and recently revamped. Note though – only one side of the hotel has a Falls view, the other looks over the forest. It’s well worth the extra hundred dollars or so; be sure to specify).

The spa has harmonised its treatments with the surroundings; that means relaxing ‘yerba mate’ massages and aromatherapy with specially sourced rainforest scents. Best of all, there’s a restaurant and pool overlooking the Falls – flop on a sun lounger by the pool and listen to the falls roaring behind.

Right in the heart of the park, the hotel sits within its own little clearing, giving it a bird’s eye view into a section of the falls. Within five minutes, you can walk from the lobby to the park’s main walking circuits to take in a more all-encompassing panorama. The hotel – with its restaurant, bar and outdoor pool – faces towards the falls. In the other direction, it has views over the rainforest canopy.

Tucked away on the jungle-lined Yriapu road and a few hundred metres from the Iguacu River, Awasi is surrounded by wildlife-rich rainforest and feels like it’s lost in the Amazon. Yet the restaurants and shops of ramshackle Puerto Iguazu town are less than a ten-minute drive away.

There are no Falls views, but the setting is nonetheless magnificent. Lavish villas sit in wild rainforest that abutts the national park. Rooms are jungle lodge meets boutique luxurious. You stay in high-thread-count comfort while feeling like you’re in the heart of the wild. Wall-high windows watch over a forest busy with hummingbirds and monkeys. Guests sleep to a chorus of tree frogs and cicadas and wake to the call of tropical birds.

Guides available through the hotel organise wildlife walks, all manner of excursions and trips to Iguazu itself. A true rainforest retreat, the only drawback – it’s a 20-minute drive from the Falls.

Situated 45 minutes from the Falls on the banks of the Paraná River overlooking Paraguay, this serene spot is ideal for guests who want a comfortable rainforest retreat right on the riverbank. Rooms sit in a beautiful 80-year-old hacienda, complete with wooden verandas and old-fashioned ceiling fans, set in a 400-hectare of private jungle reserve, filled with butterflies, hummingbirds, toucans and parrots.

The 14 homely rooms are decorated in a rustic-chic style – it’s country living with a luxury twist. There’s also a five-bedroom house ‘Casa Bemberg’ next door that can be hired for a group or family. It’s filled with vintage furniture and has spectacular river views.

There’s a fabulously cosy communal lounge, featuring a grand piano and an outstanding library, and you can sip in-house cocktails from the wooden lookout in the garden at sunset.

There’s a renowned wildlife expert on hand for excursions, and you can take a guided hike to the hotel’s treehouse-style viewing platform to look for the smallest and rarest of the toucans – a spotted-bill toucanet.

This is the best place to stay in Iguazu, and the only hotel right next to the Falls. So when the park closes at 4pm guests have the entire Brazilian side and the best of all views to themselves: at sunset, under the moonlight, and at dawn.

And the hotel is itself a beauty – the kind of stately 1950s grand dame hacienda where you’d once have bumped into Orson Welles or Ernest Hemingway. Rooms are discreetly luxurious, the restaurant is the best in the region and the pool sits in extensive tropical gardens fragrant with jasmine and fluttering with parakeets, toucans and hummingbirds.

The Falls are literally 100m from the lobby. Trails lead from a viewpoint through the forest to the base of the Devil’s Throat. Jaguars and pumas are seen frequently after dark on the road leading to the hotel and the rainforest stretches wild and pristine all around.

Foz do Iguacu town is a twenty-minute taxi ride away, but with a setting like this and the best restaurant in the region, why would you leave?

On the edge of the River Iguazu and hidden within the rainforest canopy, this modish, boutiquey hotel has a wonderful jungle vibe, with wooden balconies and dangling suspension bridges connecting its separate buildings.

Rooms on the top or middle floor have more expansive views over the forest. The suites have private hot tubs on their balconies; or pick one of the eight private villas, which come with romantic four-poster beds, outdoor showers and a tub big enough for two.

Misiones province is known for its production of yerba mate, used to make Argentina’s traditional tea. The hotel spa offers a yerba-infused treatment with clay wrap and massage.

The hotel is surrounded by gardens. Keep your eyes peeled for butterflies, toucans, coatimundis and capuchin monkeys. An in-house guide can take you on a nature tour around the property. The hotel also offers trekking and horse-riding excursions in the national park.

This is one of the most luxurious hotels in the area, and feels like a destination in itself. It’s close to the falls but far enough from the tourist hubbub. You’ll sleep peacefully to the sound of cicadas and frog song, knowing you are just an easy 15-minute (taxi) hop from the Falls.

For a peaceful, intimate retreat with restaurants on the doorstep, and just a short drive from the falls, it’s hard to beat this pocket-sized B&B run by Argentinean wildlife photographer and animal behaviourist, John Fernandes.

A handful of brightly-painted shutterboard casitas – with warm, all-wood interiors and decks sit under the trees in a tropical garden rich with birds and butterflies. Walkways link them with a little al fresco dining area – with tables made from hewn tree trunks where a great breakfast and cocktails at sunset.

Set in a lush jungle garden with abundant bird life, the property feels restful and heart-of-nature, yet it sits on a leafy residential side street just under a kilometre south of downtown Puerto Iguazú. There’s a homey comfort food restaurant literally next door and dozens more within a few minutes’ walk.

Outside the park, locations don’t get better than this boutiquey spa hotel which sits right next to Iguacu’s entrance gates.

The hotel is one of Iguassu’s most comfortable. Rooms are decked out with warm polished woods and modern muted colours. Floor-to-ceiling windows give a real sense of immersion in nature.

Great facilities include a big pool, football pitch, tennis and volleyball courts, a games room, sauna and spa and a web of wildlife-watching trails leading through the hotel’s reserve.

While the hotel has one of the best restaurants in the region, there are a handful of others – including a churrascaria barbeque within walking distance. The bird park, helicopter flight centre and entrance to the national park are a few hundred metres east of the lobby.

The hotel’s 130,000sq m rainforest abutts the national park; meaning that guests are staying within the wildlife-rich protected rainforest.

Tucked away in the lush Reserva Selva Iryapu – a patch of protected rainforest on the edge of Argentina’s Puerto Iguazu town – this little lodge has a magical in-the-jungle-feel with boutique hotel comforts and an accessible price.

Rooms sit in hardwood and brick cabins linked by boardwalks over the rainforest floor. They look particularly beautiful at night – mood lit against the dark of the trees, and are offset by the nocturnal music of tree frogs and nightjars. The hotel has a large swimming pool and a  decent restaurant.

Puerto Iguazu town – with its smattering of restaurants and bars – is less than a kilometre away, yet this hotel feels like it’s in the middle of remote rainforest. Coatimundis, monkeys and myriad colourful forest birds, some of them rare or endangered flit through the trees beside the pool and the intimate villa rooms are hidden in dense forest foliage.