About us

Lagoa Santa Goiás was born in 2009 out of a simple question: why was a hot-spring lagoon this beautiful, with one of the highest hot-water flow rates in Brazil, so hard to find on the internet? Back then, anyone searching for the town, in the state of Goiás, Brazil, found a few scant lines, wrong phone numbers and not a single decent photo. This portal was created to fix that, and seventeen years later it remains an independent guide, produced by one person and kept up with the help of residents and visitors.

An independent portal

Let us say it right away: this site does not belong to the City Hall, nor to Thermas Lagoa Santa, nor to any company in town. It was created and is maintained by Daniel, a web developer and enthusiast of the region, with no public funding. That gives us the freedom to write candidly (to say, for instance, that the town has no public transportation, that ATMs are limited and that finding dinner on a Sunday night is hard) and obliges us to make clear that official information should be confirmed with the City Hall, by phone at (64) 3640-1303 (from abroad: +55 64 3640-1303).

Our mission

To make life easier for anyone who wants to discover, visit, live or do business in Lagoa Santa. In practice, that means three commitments:

• Useful, specific information. We would rather give you a correct phone number and a confirmed opening time than a paragraph of adjectives. When a figure is an estimate, we say it is an estimate.
• Respect for the town. Lagoa Santa has 1,390 inhabitants and a fragile ecosystem. Our writing encourages the kind of tourism that looks after the lagoon, the river and the cerrado savanna.
• Continuous updates. A small town changes slowly, but it changes. We periodically review phone numbers, reference prices and festival dates, and we correct errors as soon as readers point them out.

What you will find here

• Complete guides to the thermal springs, the Rio Aporé and fishing in the region.
• A 2-day itinerary with timings, an estimated budget and a checklist.
• A list of hotels, guesthouses and campsites with addresses and phone numbers.
• How to get there by car, bus and plane, with distances from the main cities.
• History, geography, wildlife and flora of the municipality.
• A calendar of festivals, useful phone numbers, the weather forecast and a map.
• A photo gallery, much of it submitted by readers, with aerial and underwater images of the lagoon.
• The Business directory, with companies and services in town.

Where the information comes from

We use public sources, such as the IBGE (Brazil's statistics institute: population, area, administrative history) and the City Hall (events, services, lagoon data), information provided by the establishments themselves, and accounts from residents and readers who have visited the town. When two sources disagree, for example about who discovered the lagoon or about the demonym for locals (lagosentense according to the IBGE, lagoense according to the City Hall), we record both. If you find something wrong or out of date, let us know: corrections are a priority.

How to contribute

The portal has grown with the help of people who know Lagoa Santa up close. You can contribute in several ways:

• Photos and videos. Send them to diretoriasites@gmail.com with your name for the credit and, if you know them, the date and location. Aerial shots, misty dawns, the lagoon floor and the Rio Aporé are the images readers request most.
• Stories and travel reports. Spent the weekend in town and want to tell us how it went? Have an old family story to share? Write to us; published pieces carry the author's name.
• Corrections and updates. Has a guesthouse changed its phone number, a restaurant opened, a festival set its date? A short e-mail already helps.
• Spread the word. Share the pages on social media and follow the portal on Facebook, YouTube and X (Twitter).

When you submit material, you keep the rights to it and can ask for its removal at any time, as set out in the Terms of use.

Transparency about advertising

Keeping a website online costs money, and the portal supports itself through advertising. There are two kinds, always labeled:

• Google AdSense ads, displayed automatically by Google in spaces marked "Advertising". We do not choose those advertisers.
• Ads from local businesses, booked by hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and shops in Lagoa Santa and the region, shown in the Business directory, in the sidebar and on related pages. Advertising brings visibility to those looking for the town, but it does not change what we write in the articles: an establishment is neither praised for being an advertiser nor left out for not being one.

Editorial articles are not paid for, and we receive no commission on bookings made through the site. Details on plans and rates are under Advertise; what we do with visitors' data is in the Privacy Policy.

Contact us

Questions about your trip, suggestions, corrections, partnership proposals and material submissions: diretoriasites@gmail.com or the form on the Contact us page. We answer every message, usually within a few days. Questions about reservations, prices and opening hours should go directly to the establishments, whose phone numbers are on the lodging and tourism pages, and the most common questions are already answered in the FAQ.

Welcome to the portal, and welcome to Lagoa Santa.