Hi, I am traveling around Brazil and I am having a blast. Rio is crime ridden and has urban problems (traffic, pollution). However, in the south of Brazil there are amazing and very European looking cities with little crime. Porto Alegre in particular is great. I don't understand why people are choosing Thailand and Argentina in front of southern Brazil. I've been to Thailand and Argentina and it seems much worse than what you get in southern Brazil. It is quite cheap there, the cities are extremely nice (Porto Alegre looks like San Francisco, very modern and clean with lots of trees on the streets). And Brazillian culture is very hedonistic and centered around having fun. Amazing food .. way better than Thai. Barbecues and extremely fresh fruit and vegetables and sea food. Girls are also amazing and any type you want. I flew from Porto Alegre to Buenos Aires and thought BA is a ****hole compared to PA. Another amazing city was Curitiba, altho it has worse weather than Porto Alegre. The weather is more cloudy, while PA is mainly sunny and nice.

I think many people travel to those other places because they are known to be safe. Although I'm not properly informed, I have always thought of Brazil to be dangerous, which is why I've stayed away. Did you really feel truly safe in Porto Alegre? Is there much kidnapping?

What are prices like? What can I expect to pay per month in USD for a nice apartment?

Is the internet fast and reliable?

Also, Argentina and Thailand offer easy, perpetual tourist visas. Brazil offers pain in the ass for even 30 day tourist visas. And the safety concerns in Brazil are certainly warranted. And the fact that Degen/TheMetetron started long, useful, information-ridden threads on Thailand/Argentina respectively was huge in getting a lot of poker players to those countries.

i have the same questions are goose. sounds intriguing, especially since SA is the next continent i want to hit.

I don't know about Visa. I am from Bulgaria and they didn't require one for entry. I am sure it is not too hard to stay there. There is obv very good internet. Prices are super cheap. I went to all you can eat sushi for 25 USD at very good restaurant. In Porto Alegre 3 meal lunch cost me 7 USD. It had salad, steak and great desert. I felt very safe. It looks like San Francisco and normal people are very decent and hate favelas. There is obv some danger of kidnapping if you get involved with wrong people and they know you have money but that's anywhere in the world. There is big difference between Porto Alegre and Rio. Rio is only 60% white and much poorer and crime ridden. Porto Alegre is over 80% white and looks super nice. I never seen favela in PA. In Rio they are all over the place. In fact, I am right now in Rio and just went to a favela tour.

I mean I wrote this post because I went to BA right after Porto Alegre and my initial reaction was what a dump. Why would anyone live here? The great thing about Brazil is that there is great variety of people / women. They are mixed from all over the world and have any kind of look you wish to find. In BA there were some hot women, but most had the stubby spanish look. And as I said the city felt like a much more getto place.

Citizens of countries that do not demand visas from Brazilian nationals usually do not need visas to enter Brazil (most European and South American countries fall in this category). If you intend to enter Brazil with a non-U.S. passport, check here to verify if you need a tourist or business visa.

This is what it says on brazilian consulate site.

If you are from US you have to get tourist visa.

If you go in as a tourist you can stay 180 days. After that you have to leave and cannot enter for 180 days. However, if you like it there are many ways to obtain a permanent visa, like get a fictional work visa or get an investment visa. I checked on immigration forum and there are agencies on Brazil that can work out the documents.

jj12,

That still limits you to 90 days. Try to stay more than that and see what happens. Pretty sure exit/immediate re-entry isn't cool with Brazil.

I haven't been to Brazil yet, but I'm dying to go. Do you have any pics of Porto Alegre? It sounds pretty cool.

Adam it is 90 days but it can automatically be extended to 180 days at your request. And as I told you there are numerous ways to obtain permanent visa if you wish.

Here are the pics:

http://www.skyscraperlife.com/city-v...-brazil-2.html

Note that the above pictures are what the city really looks like. It is not like these travel magazines where they show you nice pictures and when you arrive it is a dump. I was surprised to see such a nice place in Brazil of which I thought of as a Second / Third World country.


The thread compares Curitiba to Porto Alegre and has tons of pictures from both cities. As I explained Curitiba is also very nice but more cloudy while Porto Alegre has very nice weather and is quite sunny.


http://www.weather2travel.com/climat...n=porto-alegre

This is what the weather is like.

Try Florianópolis and Camboriú, (beaches of Santa Catarina, south of brazil also.)
I think one of the best cities to live, I am brazilian.
And kidnapping here are not usual as you guys are thinking, just sometimes with big businessman, but you dont hear that all the time, its rare.

I'm with mothafoxx.
Really, Camboriú is a great place to live, Florianópolis too.
Try travel by the litoral of Santa Catarina and you will find a lot of beatiful city.
And here, in the south of brazil, is very rare kidnappes.

My plan is to move to Brazil this winter after leaving Thailand and was thinking about Florianópolis. I imagine there is quite a language barrier, but until I learn conversational Portuguese, do enough people speak basic English?

In Florianopolis there´s a lot of students that may speak, and its a tourist city so I think its ok. Also the brazilians are very friendly and will try everything to communicate with you.

Hi guys, I'm always reading but never posting here, I'm brazilian, and u know what else? I'm from Curitiba !

And I looooooove this town, it's a very clean and safe place for sure, I walk everywhere with all my stuffs and never been robbed, Curitiba it's a very organized city, with a great soccer team
(Atlético-PR)
http://vidaboa.brasilflog.com.br/1214317561.jpg ,

very arborized streets, even in downtown, lots of parks and a high per capita(Is that exist in english?) win...



A lot of pretty girls (I think that's the best), great places like Lique Club(e-music), Czar Bar(Brazilian music and the best place to see gorgeous girl, but that's an off circuit place and I will not tell where it is ), Wood's Bar (it's a country place but every kind of people go there and u dance witht the girls, drink tequila, reeeeally awesome), and muuch more...

And it's Brazil, I'm one hour and half from Rio by plane, each dollar it's equal to R$2.5 Real(our money), I already live in Florianopolis, I know Porto Alegre and I don't change here...

U can make me questions if u want....

Kidnapping is very common in Brazil. I wouldn't go around telling people I'm american. And if you do get kidnapped it's very possible it will end badly because the police has basically no training.

Here is a video of the police dealing with football fans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iL8hDVLB_G0&NR=1

The internet is not reliable at all unless you are very lucky.

Violence is overrated in Brazil. You won't find that much outside the major cities (Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo), which are REALLY tense from a foreigner's point of view.

On the downside, smaller state capitals - especially north of Rio - will make a non-Portuguese speaker life way more difficult. Poverty increases as you go north, so rich (by their standards) and non-savvy gringos should be on the lookout.

Curitiba is a really nice and well-organized city, but the weather sucks and people are not that friendly to strangers, don't ask me why. I'd stick to Florianopolis or Porto Alegre instead.

And yes, I'm Brazilian. Born, raised and living in Rio de Janeiro.

BTW, I don't think permanent visas would be an issue here as stated. Anyway, check it out before planning the move.

By the way I went to Florianopolis and hated it. Even though they say it is very safe, it had quite a bit of favelas around it and the city was very small and didn't look nice like Porto Alegre or Curitiba. It is a tiny vacation town that gets dead in the winter. It has gorgeous beaches if that's your thing. The weather is worse than Porto Alegre and a bit better than Curitiba. For nice clubs and restaurants and good cultural life I think PA or Curitiba would be best.

Don't be afraid of it. I'm pretty sure of most people in floripa speak english, and how mothafoxx said, people in brazil are very simpatic and receptive, they will do everything to comunicate with you.

And yes as President said Portuguese is very important if you plan to come here. You should sign up for a class if you come. Portuguese doesn't seem very hard and should be super easy if you know Spanish. Before coming I listened to about 10 lessons of Pimsleur Brazilian Portuguese audio program and get by just fine. Also I don't know about people in Curitiba being unfriendly. They were quite friendly with me and I even got accosted by girls on the street 2 times.

Lol@ posting a video from Sao Paulo which is one of the most crime ridden cities in Brazil and is totally different from the cities I mentioned. It is like comparing Detroit to San Diego. And yes the internet is ok. There are many multinational companies and corporation and lots of business. Everyone here is using orkut and MSN. Internet has extremely high penetration and is available everywhere.

It isn´t that common as you said and not so rare like people guess, in general. I´m 23 years old and never met someone who suffered a kidnap, or even someone who know someone else who was a victim. Obv, if you´re going to a favela to buy drugs the odds increases.

In fact, 90% of the foreign tourists spend all the time in Brazil visiting Rio and its one of the most violent cities in the all country. I need to drive for 2 hours to be in the famous Copacabana beach and I don´t use to go there because I think there are better places, like small towns around Rio (Buzios, Cabo Frio, etc) or even in other States (The northeast region is pretty famous and the south is amazing)

One of the most crime ridden cities and the police has no traning. Imagine what it will be like on other cities. Good for Lindemberg.

I guess you live in Brazil, but I think are wrong. Kidnapping is not common in Brazil unless you stay home all day watching the news and start thinking the real life is just the TV. You know there is probably about 3-5 kidnaps a year in the whole country (In a country huge populated with 200k people, I don't think you can call that "common")

About the police, you are right, they're not well trained.

By the way, I live in Rio, I am 28, I live in a very poor town about 40min far from the center and near some favelas, and I've been travelling almost every day for the last 13 years or so via Bus or Subways (cause I don't drive), most of the times I'm doing it very late in the night like 3am etc (I work with Music, so about 2 days I'm leaving late from studios or shows).

I got robbed only twice in my life, a few years ago. Both of them were in the day by kiddies who robbed my wallet with a knife and some $30. Most of my friends in the same situation are just like that.

Am I (and most of the people I know) very-lucky or the world-news are overrating? Think about it.

lol, seriously, most of the posts in this thread are completely delusional.

You got robbed "only twice" and you think that's normal. The saddest part is that it really is normal. That says everything.

I live in a small city near porto alegre and the violence is OK I guess, not too big, but not too small. I don't know of anibody who was kidnapped, that's crap.

The only thing that happens on a more going on basis is car theft and smaller thefts. My car got robbed once and of all my friends I think a couple got theirs stollen as well. But most of the time they find the car a few kilometers away abandoned, in the worst case the insurance pays it. As for smaller thefts I never have been, but my sister has one time (I got 3 brothers).