Porto Alegre rewards thin wallets: nearly every major museum is free, the 37-hectare Redenção park costs nothing, and the Guaíba sunset is the city's most famous attraction at zero reais. Add R$4.80 bus fares and R$12 buffet lunches by weight.
The state art museum occupies the 1913 Beaux-Arts former customs house on Praça da Alfândega. Free admission always, Tue-Sun 10:00-19:00. Twelve galleries of gaúcho modernism plus rotating contemporary shows and a shaded café courtyard.
Two free institutions face each other on the same square. The Memorial (1913 post office) holds state archives and photo exhibits; Santander Cultural, in a 1932 bank building, keeps its original vault and stained-glass ceiling. Both Tue-Sun.
The Renaissance-Byzantine cathedral, finished in 1986 after 65 years of work, has a 65-metre dome and Venetian mosaics. Entry is free, 07:00-19:00. The surrounding Praça Marechal Deodoro gathers chess players, book stalls and shade under century-old figueiras.
Porto Alegre's highest hill (311 m) sits inside the UFRGS campus reserve. The marked trail from Avenida Bento Gonçalves is free and open daily to dusk, climbing through araucária scrub to a granite outcrop with views over the whole metro basin.
Skip the tourist restaurants downstairs. The upper gallery and side aisles hide counters selling cachorro-quente completo for R$12, bauru sandwiches around R$15 and fresh sugarcane juice at R$7. Open Mon-Sat 07:30-19:30, Sat until 18:00.
Rua dos Andradas between Praça XV and Rua General Câmara is lined with self-service restaurants charging by weight. Expect R$59-75 per kilo, meaning a full plate of rice, feijão, salad and grilled beef lands around R$25 on weekdays.
A 2009 building housing about 800 former street vendors across four floors on Rua Voluntários da Pátria. Mate gourds, bombillas, chimarrão thermoses and leather goods sell for a third of tourist-shop prices. Mon-Fri 09:00-19:00, Sat to 17:00.
Cidade Baixa is the student drinking quarter where a 600 ml bottle of Polar Export costs R$12-15 and bar snacks stay under R$20. Bar do Nito on Rua João Alfredo has poured since the 1970s with plastic tables spilling onto the pavement.
The rebuilt waterfront promenade runs 4.5 km from Usina do Gasômetro past Anfiteatro Pôr do Sol to the Beira-Rio stadium, with a dedicated bike lane, free drinking fountains and public exercise stations. Open 24 hours, no entry charge.
At 70 hectares this is the city's largest park, free and open daily. It holds a 2.6 km running loop, free public tennis and futsal courts, a skate bowl and shaded picnic lawns beside the Guaíba, plus food trucks selling pastel for R$8.
Thirty-nine hectares of native Pampa and Atlantic forest species with an orchid house, cactus garden and lake trail. Tue-Sun 08:00-17:00, and admission is free for everyone — one of the few state botanical gardens in Brazil charging nothing.
A 127-hectare protected hill in Tristeza with free marked trails through last-remaining native forest. The Mirante do Morro do Osso frames the widest stretch of the Guaíba, catching the same celebrated sunset without the downtown crowds.