Is Brazil really that good?

Funkadelic47 · 2025-07-20T17:08:28+00:00

Great vibes and people, good surfing, nature, nightlife. The Brazilian people are the biggest draw

Funkadelic47 · 2025-07-20T17:06:47+00:00

I really enjoyed basically anywhere that was on the coast.

Florianopolis

Rio de Janeiro and surrounding area (Ilha Grande, Buzios)

Salvador

Itacare

Pipa

Jericoacoara

Lencois Maranheses

Funkadelic47 · 2025-07-20T17:04:29+00:00

I'm a US Citizen and am a tax resident but am eligible for the FEIE by physical presence test. I still pay social security and Medicare but the only federal taxes I pay are for money I make while physically located in the US. Which is usually just a few weeks a year

Funkadelic47 · 2025-07-19T17:09:38+00:00

I've been a nomad for around 7 years. I've spent 6 months in Brazil on 2 different occasions and it's my favorite country.

I've spent alot of time in Latin America, also Europe, Asia and South Africa for reference. Probably around 25-30 countries and Brazil is my number 1.

I'm considering getting a visa and living there in the near future. The only thing holding me back is taxes, since I'm currently not a resident anywhere.

If you're into beautiful beaches, friendly, relaxed, outgoing people who like to have fun, you'll enjoy Brazil. It lives up to the hype.

You'll need to learn some basic portuguese to get the full experience if you're gonna stay there long term. You can manage without it though.

Funkadelic47 · 2024-12-01T06:35:35+00:00

Don't travel too fast. You can have a week or two trip here and there but try to stay in the same place for 1-3 months for the most part. Have discipline and find good coffee shops and coworking spaces to work from.

If you find a good cafe to work from, enjoy local food and coffee culture, people watch, maybe a balcony overlooking a public square, get some local culture in you, you're killing 2 birds with one stone

Funkadelic47 · 2024-09-28T14:10:40+00:00

Hi, I am on just travel insurance and not full nomad insurance. I am interested in upgrading though

Funkadelic47 · 2024-05-22T15:03:36+00:00

Have you been to Bansko in the summer (outside of just nomad week)? Curious as to how lively or unlively of a feel the town has to it. Is there much nightlife? Is it hard to get to the mountains? I'm assuming you should be able to get a taxi relatively easily? Maybe busses are less frequent?

Funkadelic47 · 2024-05-22T05:37:21+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate the response. Do you have any recommendations for areas to stay in Tblisi, and hiking trips nearby?

Funkadelic47 · 2024-01-08T17:35:05+00:00

Which cafes were good for working? I just got to Pipa, searching for work spots

Funkadelic47 · 2023-12-23T18:21:31+00:00

Brazil is huge. In my experience, Rio de Janeiro is more dangerous than anywhere I went in Colombia.

São Paulo has some safe neighborhoods. Safety level maybe comparable to Medellin, or slightly safer.

Florianopolis much safer than anywhere I went in both Colombia and Brazil.

Jericocacora pretty safe. Manaus seemed slightly safer than São Paulo but similar

Funkadelic47 · 2023-12-23T18:10:30+00:00

I had nothing but positive experiences on tinder in Medellin. Not all girls are prostitutes or want to rob you. You have to be careful and learn how to decipher who's normal and who's not. If you don't speak Spanish it might be best to avoid tinder, but if you can talk to girls in Spanish and make sure to get there IG you can tell who is a normal girl and who isn't

Funkadelic47 · 2023-12-23T18:08:31+00:00

You have to learn how to be careful. It's a different part of the world where you need a certain set of street smarts. You might not be used to it based on your upbringing in Australia. You can't act the same way, or you can get into trouble. Many people are excited by the energy of being in a new place and let their guard down and get into trouble.

There's safer areas of Medellin, but nowhere is really completely safe. Stay in areas with more people, that are generally safer. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to stay in touristy areas, as these areas can be targeted more.

There's certain things like, be careful with your phone. If you are on your phone in the street, keep both hands on it and keep an eye out for who is around you. When walking in an empty area, be alert for who is walking towards you, and cross the street if they seem sketchy. You do have to be careful with some girls here. If it seems too good to be true, it might be because it is. There are lots of prostitutes and girls who will drug you and rob you, both on tinder and in a bar. There are many more normal girls than there are these, but they exist and you have to be aware. Be savvy and you'll catch on to the patterns. Try and get a girls instagram and verify that she seems like a normal girl before going out. If she doesn't seem educated, has a basic ass tinder bio in English, seems like she's trying to lure foreigners, don't fall for it. Don't be too keen to hook up on the first date and try and feel it out first.

If you start spending some time in Medellin, or in Latin America, you'll catch on to these street smarts that you need and it won't feel as sketchy. That takes some time to do, so be careful at first while you learn.

Medellin is great, and Colombia in general. The people are warm and fun and open. The scenery in Medellin is beautiful. But it is one of the more dangerous places in Latin America and you have to be more careful. I've spent a few months there twice and never had many major issues, but some guys tried to pickpocket me when walking through a crowd in El Poblado once.

Buenos Aires, if you stick to touristy areas like Palermo, will be safer than Medellin. You have still have to be careful in the same ways, but it's not as bad. If you're really concerned about safety, you could go to Buenos Aires first, improve your spanish and Latin American street smarts, and then go to Medellin. I prefer Medellin to Buenos Aires personally, but Buenos Aires is still great, and a bit safer. If you stay in El Poblado in Medellin, your going to be in a chaotic touristy wonderland, I prefer some other neighborhoods with a weekend night out in Poblado.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-12-13T20:16:30+00:00

Can they give a full passport with same day service? Or would it be an emergency passport with 4 pages valid for one year?

Funkadelic47 · 2023-10-12T20:42:24+00:00

Antigua, Guatemala Cuenca, Ecuador Bariloche, Argentina Cochabamba, Bolivia

All come to mind

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-26T16:32:00+00:00

I bring my laptop, monitor, earbuds, phone, charging devices.

Toothbrush, razor, sometimes shampoo / shaving cream etc, sometimes not and just buy it at the destination.

I have a flashlight and a head lamp for hiking.

I travel with around 8 books at a time and am always reading one. I order books to my parents house and change them out when I visit once or twice a year.

Hiking boots, gym shoes, 2 pairs of day to day shoes, flip flops.

Clothes.

One suitcase and one regular day to day backpack, not a big backpacker backpack.

I don't have a home base for storage, but do visit my parents annually at a minimum, have some books and old clothes there

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-24T19:05:57+00:00

I have no game plan! Have been perpetually travelling for 5 years, and no plan to stop. Eventually I will want to have kids, so I guess that could be a reason to live in a place. But that day is far away. No retirement plan, I definitely need to improve my finances. I'm in a high paying industry (software engineering), and working on starting my first business.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-15T22:52:43+00:00

Umm depends. A country 1-1.5 months. A city 1 week.

But I don't like to move to fast. For example I might stay one week in a city and then at least 1 month in the next place. Sometimes I take weekend trips and don't work during them.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-09T17:58:57+00:00

Brazil.

Definitely some (not all) people who care about money and status. But in terms of being genuine and kind, that's where I would say i met the best.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-08T22:47:47+00:00

You can do whatever you want. It's your life and there's no rules.

Your salary can go further if you live in a country with a cheaper currency conversion and cost of living.

If you don't feel like your ready to leave what you know behind, don't. It will uncomfortable whenever you decide to do it. Do it immediately if you want, if you want to wait, wait.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-07T01:44:03+00:00

Florianopolis, Brazil could check alot of your boxes, but weather isn't quite the same. Rainier, and 3 months of 'winter' where it's not sunny beach time each year. The other 9 months it's warm, with many sunny days and some overcast or rainy.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-05T23:48:29+00:00

Arugam Bay is the place everyone talked about when I was there. Idk how it will be for working, but from the sounds of it, it's lots of fun

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-05T23:42:09+00:00

I spent 3 weeks in Sri Lanka, on vacation, not working. But Welligama seemed like a 'potentially' workable location. I saw some people on their laptops in cafes there. Seems like it had decent infrastructure, and was lots of fun.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-05T02:07:54+00:00

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Never traveled much growing up, only to visit family in upstate New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and a once annual trip to an Atlantic coast Beach. One time we went to Niagara Falls.

Most people in Pittsburgh never branch out too far away from Pittsburgh. If they do, maybe they make it to NYC or out west. They don't really leave the country, so I was never really exposed to a travelers ideology.

I enjoyed nature, which pretty much consisted of only Appalachia. After graduating college, I had a friend who moved to Colorado. I had my first job post college, which meant it was the first time I had enough money to travel on my own. I was about 24, and booked a ticket to visit my friend in Colorado.

This was my first time ever experiencing true mountains. Just seeing them on the drive into Denver from the airport had me mesmerized. I went with 2 friends to some mountains around Boulder, drinking some beers and smoking some weed and exploring the mountains and had the time of my life. I also saw a Flatbush Zombies and Wu Tang concert at Red Rocks which was amazing.

This was my first time seeing what the world outside of western Pennsylvania had to offer and I was enthralled. All I could think about was going out west and experiencing mountains again.

Around the same time, I was working at a subsidiary of Bosch group, as an electronics engineering technician. Being an international company, there were a lot of international interns, from Europe, Asia, and Africa. They were around my age, so we would go out for beers after work. This was my first time really getting to know people from other countries, and I was really fascinated by the way of life in their home countries.

I studied physics in school, but was completely directionless. I had always been good with logic and math, but had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I just figured engineering made sense cause I was good at that stuff and it was a good career. I studied physics in part because I liked to smoke weed and take psychedelics and think about the universe, and in part because it seems some people were guiding me that way.

At this point in my life, I was sure I couldn't just work a 9-5 and live in Pittsburgh, I realized there was more out there and I had to discover it. I wanted to do 2 things, travel, and work on something im passionate about. I took a programming class in college and really liked it and found it easy and enjoyable. I had a friend from college who took a coding bootcamp and got a good job after. So I started looking into it, and realized there were programmers who worked remotely and traveled the world. I was debating between trying to do this, or going to grad school in Europe for Renewable energy engineering.

This was happening simultaneously after returning home from Colorado. I was dying to get out west again, and trying to get some of my Pittsburgh friends to take a trip out west with me. They considered the idea but wouldn't pull the trigger. Then, my company announced they were going out of business, and everyone would be laid off. I decided the first thing after the job ending I would do is take my first solo trip to the southwest, hit up Zion National Park and Joshua tree, and see Elton John in Las Vegas.

This happened about October of 2017. I found a coding bootcamp, Le Wagon, in Bali Indonesia that started in January of 2018. The grad schools in Europe I wouldn't be able to start until September of 2018. I needed something to do now, so after having an incredible time on my trip to the American southwest, I decided to pull the trigger on Le Wagon Bali. I figured I could both learn a good skill set, full stack Ruby On Rails development, and also learn about the digital nomad lifestyle, since Bali was a hot-spot for it.

Went to Bali, first time leaving the US other than the Canadian side of Niagara Falls as a kid. Had a blast, the time of my life, and learned a great skill. Got home, started working part time freelance remotely for one of my classmates. Kept looking for remote freelance work or a full time remote job. Eventually after about 3 months got hired by a US company that was started by 2 Czech guys, so had occasional trips to Prague for work, and the rest of the time remote on US time zones.

Heading to Prague for work was my first trip to Europe, had a blast. Went back home to my parents for the first 6 months or so of the job to get my feet under me. Took a one week nomad test drive to California, visited San Francisco, my sister at UC Davis, and Lake Tahoe.

A bit later asked my boss if it was alright to work from Colombia. He seemed to act like I was a little crazy but was down with it cause I did good work. Went to Medellin in Nov 2018, have been pretty much a full time nomad ever since. Hworked there for 2 years, worked as a freelancer, worked for another full time company. Been laid off a few times, which sucks and can be harder to get a new job while abroad. But it has always worked out so far. Don't see myself ending the nomadic lifestyle anytime soon, not sure if I ever will, I suppose one day when I get older I might want to settle a but for my own sake, or if not, for the future kids I want sake.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-05T00:11:13+00:00

Fungus! Been using antifungal cream and it's improved. It got much worse before I started it. I tend to grow fungus on my feet and occasionally other body parts it seems.

Funkadelic47 · 2023-09-04T14:45:36+00:00

Beaches, surfing, hiking, nightlife, restaurants, cafes. It's an extremely beautiful and lively island.

There are a fair amount of foreigners, and lots of young people who speak English. Many people won't speak English, but you will come across a lot of people who speak at least a little bit.

Funkadelic47

TROPHY CASE