🛍️ Paraguay: souvenirs
Paraguay's crafts are lace-fine and leather-tough - nanduti webs, ao po'i shirts and the terere kit every Paraguayan carries. Here is what travellers bring home from Paraguay, where the good versions live, and the export questions worth a look - alongside our 55 written places.
🛒 The classic buys
Nanduti lace
The 'spider-web' needle lace of Itaugua in sunburst colours - buy in Itaugua itself from the weavers; fine pieces take weeks.
Ao po'i embroidered cotton
The hand-stitched shirts and blouses of Yataity - Paraguay's formal-casual national wear; tailored versions in Asuncion boutiques.
Terere kit
Guampa cup, bombilla straw and a kilo of yerba with yuyos (herbs) - the national drink in its entirety; markets sell handsome leather-clad sets.
Leatherwork
Belts, bags and boots from Chaco cattle country - Asuncion's leather shops price well below the region.
Wood carving from Aregua and Tobati
Saints, masks and the craft-town traditions around Asuncion.
Encaje ju and wool weaving
Blankets and hammocks from Carapegua looms.
⚠️ Check before you buy
- Yerba and herbal products - check what your home country lets in; sealed packets usually pass.
- Genuine Chaco animal products - skins, feathers - face restrictions; stick to cattle leather.
✗ Better left behind
- Wild-animal leather - caiman, rhea - without CITES paperwork.
- Machine-made 'nanduti' - real lace is knotted, irregular and signed by the weaver's town.
Markets shift, workshops close and open, and the best souvenir is still the one with a story you were there for. Buy from makers where you can, keep receipts for anything substantial, and when a deal feels too good, it usually is.