Helmuth Baungarten Airport (LOI) serves Lontras, a small town in the interior of Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil, and it is worth being honest about scale from the outset: this is a modest regional airfield built for small aircraft and limited traffic, not a hub with a full lineup of on-site rental counters. Travelers flying into LOI typically arrange a rental car in advance through a local agency, or connect onward from Lontras into the nearby Itajai Valley towns where more rental options are available, rather than expecting an airport-style counter row at this small field, and confirming your pickup arrangement in writing before departure avoids any surprises on arrival.
Once on the road, Lontras sits within easy reach of the Itajai Valley's better-known destinations: Blumenau, known for its German heritage architecture and Oktoberfest celebrations, is roughly forty-five minutes to an hour away, while Brusque and other valley towns are similarly close given the region's compact geography. The terrain here is genuinely hilly, with the Itajai Valley's rivers and forested ridgelines shaping a road network of winding two-lane routes rather than long straight highways, so travel times can run a little longer than distances alone would suggest.
Driving is on the right throughout Brazil, and Santa Catarina's interior roads connecting Lontras to the valley towns are generally paved and reasonably maintained, though some federal and state highway stretches in this part of Brazil carry tolls collected at booths along the route, so keeping a little cash or a card handy is sensible. Fuel stations are steady near the larger valley towns but sparser around Lontras itself, so filling up before continuing deeper into the interior is worth planning for. Given the hilly terrain and occasional heavy rain typical of this subtropical region, a car with reasonably confident handling suits the winding valley roads out of Lontras well.