Travel guides

What to do in Foz do Iguacu alongside Paraguay

Foz has enough to fill two full days, and what decides your itinerary is not enthusiasm, it is closing time. Here is the real schedule, with Paraguay slotted in where it actually helps.

The short answer

Foz do Iguacu is not a one-day city. The four sights almost everyone wants are in different corners of town, and their hours do not overlap neatly: the national park closes at 4pm, the Three Frontiers Landmark does not open until 3pm, and Itaipu has a separate ticket office in each country. If you are arriving from or leaving for Paraguay there is a real advantage: half the itinerary sits on the Paraguayan side of the bridge, about 20 km away.

Foz in two days, and where Paraguay fits

If you have two days in Foz do Iguacu, the skeleton that works is this: one day for Iguacu National Park and Parque das Aves, which sit on the same Rodovia das Cataratas a few metres apart, and one day for Itaipu in the morning and the Three Frontiers Landmark in the late afternoon. Everything else, the Buddhist temple, the mosque, the city centre and a shopping run into Paraguay, fits into the gaps in that skeleton.

This post does not try to list everything in Foz. It is the itinerary as seen from Paraguay, which is what we do every day: 340 km from Asuncion with a border in the middle, or 20 km from Ciudad del Este with the Friendship Bridge queue in the middle. That angle changes two things. First, you gain a major sight without spending an extra day, because Itaipu has a visitor entrance in each country. Second, you lose time in a place nobody warns you about: the bridge.

The difference between a good and a bad Foz itinerary is pure logistics. The sights are not near each other and the hours do not talk to one another. The park closes at 4pm sharp and last entry is well before that. The Three Frontiers Landmark opens exactly when the park is closing. Itaipu on the Paraguayan side runs hourly departures until 4pm, but it requires ID and, for some attractions, a prior booking. Building the day without that schedule in front of you is the most common mistake, and it is why people leave Foz saying they ran out of time.

One honest note before we go on: we are a private transport company, not a tour operator. We do not sell park tickets, we have no guide inside the falls and we do not resell third party excursions. What this post gives you is the schedule with an official source for each figure, plus the distances and prices for the transport, which is the part we know first hand and the only part we quote a fixed price on.

The sights of Foz, with each one’s official hours

Hours taken from the official page of each attraction, checked on 29 September 2026, except for the two sides of Itaipu, checked on 28 September 2026. We do not publish admission prices, because they are not ours and they change: every ticket office has its own, and you buy directly from the attraction.

The Trilha das Cataratas, the falls trail, runs about 1.5 km and starts where the park’s panoramic buses drop you, having picked you up at the Visitor Centre. If you have reduced mobility, the park has ramped buses, level walkways, a panoramic lift and wheelchairs available at the Visitor Centre. Park tickets are sold online on the official site.

Foz has two other much visited city attractions, the Chen Tien Buddhist Temple and the Omar Ibn Al Khattab Mosque, and in both cases we would rather not publish hours. The temple’s opening times appear differently on every site that repeats them and it closes on public holidays; the mosque’s shift around prayer times and visits usually need to be arranged in advance. Both are inside the city, a few minutes by car from the centre, and one phone call to the attraction the day before settles what no blog can guarantee.

What can be stated safely is the geography, and geography is what organises the itinerary. The national park and the bird park are on the same road. Itaipu is at the opposite end of town. The Three Frontiers Landmark is on a third point, facing Paraguay and Argentina. Temple, mosque and centre sit in between. Nothing here is walkable from anything else: Foz is done by car.

The two day itinerary, arriving through Paraguay

This is the shape we use when a passenger leaves Asuncion or Ciudad del Este and has two nights in Foz. It works because it respects the park’s closing time and the Landmark’s opening time.

1. 1
   

   Arrive the day before, not on the morning of the park

   From Asuncion it is 340 km and 5 to 6 hours including the border. Leaving Asuncion at 6am puts you in Foz in the early afternoon, when the park is no longer worth the ticket. Use that day for the arrival and for the Three Frontiers Landmark in the late afternoon, if it is Tuesday to Sunday, and keep the park for the next morning with the whole day ahead of you.

2. 2
   

   First full day: the falls early, the bird park after lunch

   Enter the national park as early as the day allows, 8.30am at weekends and 9am on weekdays, because the falls trail is emptier and the light is better. Leave around midday, have lunch and cross to Parque das Aves, which is right next door and closes at 4.30pm. This is the only pair in the whole itinerary that does not need you to get back in the car.

3. 3
   

   Second day: Itaipu in the morning, and here you choose the country

   If you are staying in Foz, the Brazilian entrance is the natural one, with the Itaipu Panoramica tour from 8.30am to 4pm. If you are heading back to Paraguay the same day, or you are already in Ciudad del Este, the Paraguayan entrance in Hernandarias makes more sense, with hourly departures from 8am to 4pm and ID in hand. Do not try both sides in one day: the bridge eats the time you would gain in views.

4. 4
   

   Second afternoon: the Three Frontiers Landmark

   Open Tuesday to Sunday from 3pm to 9pm, with the cultural shows staged around sunset. It is the only major sight in Foz that operates in the evening, which is why it never competes with the park for space in the schedule. From there you see Paraguay and Argentina from the same viewpoint, a fitting close to a border trip.

5. 5
   

   The Paraguayan half day: Ciudad del Este

   It is about 20 km and 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the queue. It fits in a morning, and what you do there is shopping and Itaipu from the Paraguayan side. Go early, on a weekday, and avoid the eve of a Brazilian public holiday: the Friendship Bridge queue is the one item in this itinerary nobody can predict. How the crossing works is covered in the Brazil and Paraguay border at the Friendship Bridge, and what waits on the other side in the complete Ciudad del Este guide.

6. 6
   

   The departure: do not book a flight or transfer on the margin

   If the plan is to head back to Asuncion after the last sight, count 5 to 6 hours of road plus the border, and add whatever the bridge decides to do that day. Leaving Foz at 4pm means arriving in Asuncion at night. The full comparison of bus, car and private transfer is in the distance from Asuncion to Foz do Iguacu.

If you only have one day in Foz, the choice is easy and hurts less than it sounds: Iguacu National Park in the morning and Parque das Aves in the afternoon. It is the only pair that does not require crossing the city, and nobody regrets doing it. Itaipu and the Three Frontiers Landmark can wait for the next trip, or for the day you are on the Paraguayan side.

What fits in one day and what does not

The rule is geography, not enthusiasm. We watch these combinations work and fail every week.

Which side of the falls to choose is already covered in which side of Iguazu Falls is better, and there is no point repeating it here. For this itinerary one idea is enough: if you are coming from Paraguay with two days, do the Brazilian side properly. Puerto Iguazu needs a second border and a full day to itself.

What it costs to get there with us

Prices from our August 2026 tariff, per vehicle and not per passenger, with fuel, tolls and driver included. These are not tickets or tours: this is the transport.

The sedan carries 1 to 3 passengers, the Hyundai H1 minivan up to 7 and the Mercedes Sprinter 8 to 14. We quote in US dollars and also accept guaranies, Brazilian reais and Argentine pesos. The Ciudad del Este to Foz leg has no published price because its duration depends on the bridge queue: we quote it by the day and the hour.

The long leg is set out in full in transfers from Asuncion to Foz do Iguacu, and the bridge hop in transfers from Ciudad del Este to Foz do Iguacu. Both are door to door: we collect at the address and drop at the address, with the driver alongside you through immigration.

When it is worth calling us, and when it is not

We are private transport between Paraguay and Foz. Inside Foz itself, most of the time, you do not need us, and it is better to say so plainly.

What changes, and how to confirm it before you leave home

Opening hours are the fastest ageing detail in any Foz guide. The national park has already split its opening time between weekdays and weekends, the Three Frontiers Landmark has adjusted its hours more than once in recent years, and Itaipu publishes different summer and winter schedules for its evening illumination. That is why every figure in this post carries its source and the date we checked it, 29 September 2026, and why the advice never changes: confirm on the attraction’s own page in the week you travel.

One detail is worth saying out loud. While gathering the data for this post we found different hours for the Three Frontiers Landmark on pages that present themselves as official, one giving a 2pm opening and the Landmark’s own visitor guide giving 3pm. We published the visitor guide, which is the document specifically about hours, but the discrepancy shows that checking is not excessive caution.

We also do not publish admission prices, boat trip prices, helicopter prices or any third party rate in Foz here. It is not for lack of information: those figures move with the season and with the exchange rate, and a wrong number in a blog post costs the reader more than no number at all. Every attraction sells directly on its own site, and that is where the price of the day lives.

What does not change is the road and the border. The 340 km from Asuncion to Foz will stay 340 km, the Friendship Bridge stretch will keep depending on the queue, and every passenger in the car will keep needing their document. That part is ours to handle, it is the part we quote a fixed price on, and it is the only piece of your Foz itinerary we can guarantee in writing.

Frequently asked questions

The questions people actually send us on WhatsApp before planning their days in Foz.

Build the itinerary around the hours, not the wish list

Foz do Iguacu rewards travellers who read the clock before the map: the park closes at 4pm, the bird park at 4.30, the Three Frontiers Landmark only starts at 3, and Itaipu has a door in each country. With two days and that schedule in hand, the Brazilian side fits whole, and Paraguay stops being a detour and becomes part of the trip. The transport is the easy part: tell us where you start, how many of you there are and when.

The Iguacu National Park hours and the falls trail details come from cataratasdoiguacu.com.br; the Parque das Aves hours from parquedasaves.com.br; the Three Frontiers Landmark hours from the visitor guide at marcodastresfronteiras.com.br. All checked on 29 September 2026. The hours for both sides of Itaipu come from turismoitaipu.com.br and itaipu.gov.py, checked on 28 September 2026. None of that data is ours and the attractions can change it without notice: confirm at the source before you travel. Our prices are per vehicle, in US dollars, from the August 2026 tariff, with fuel, tolls and driver included.