Home » Blog » Brazil

5 Amazing Locations To Take A Family Photo While…

The Most Beautiful Locations in Brazil for a Photo

Traveling opens you up to the world. It expands your knowledge and sometimes your outlook on life. However, at times, it also ignites a wanderlust that can be difficult to quench even years later.

Brazil is a country of great variety, with something for everyone. As a Brazilian myself I must admit that crossing it to take photos can be a challenge. Transportation can be time-consuming and remote locations can be difficult to find.

But more than photos, you are invited to a good time!

(Besides, after the World Cup 2014 and the Summer Olympics 2016, the infrastructure of the country improved. It is not ideal, but it is much better and the largest airports can even be considered up to international standards).

In the next paragraphs, I will invite you to some of the most splendid places in this enormous, gigantic country. Not only to take pictures but to create some of the best memories of your life.

Ready?

Book recommended: Budget Travelers, Digital Nomads & Expats: The Ultimate Guide: 50 Tips, Tricks, Hacks and Ways to Free Stuff & Cheaper Flights

Paraty, State of Rio de Janeiro: A Stunning Historical Location in Brazil

A picture I took during an evening walk in Paraty. One of the most stunning historic locations in Brazil for a photo.

One of the most well-known attractions in the State of Rio de Janeiro is the city of Paraty! But why this old colonial city is so captivating to people? Why does everyone who visits it want to return?

The Historic Center, a group of harmonious colonial buildings, is without a doubt the most responsible for the enchantment that the city awakens.

Portuguese-style architecture is present. The houses were constructed close to the streets, with their white and joined facades. The doors and windows, which are stunning and so distinctive and come in an infinite variety of colors, make the entire area joyful.

Another example of the Portuguese influence are the various churches that are still located in the Historic Center. Hiring a city tour is a great way to discover more about the area’s history and find spots worthy of holiday cards.

There is nothing more enjoyable than hearing a resident of the city describe the city. These two-hour tours visit the most interesting locations, including some that you might not have found on your own like the charming Rua do Fogo.

While in the past Rio (both the state and the capital) were considered very dangerous, things are improving.

MASP and Avenida Paulista, São Paulo

São Paulo city’s most well-known street, Avenida Paulista, has amassed a lot of history over the course of its nearly 130-year existence. Today, the street hosts over 1.5 million visitors each day and serves as the city’s commercial and cultural hub. The three kilometers of avenue are never the same twice.

The MASP, the most significant museum in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as cafes, bars, restaurants, other cultural centers, movie theaters, parks, shopping areas, and book stores are all located there. Check out this itinerary for the locations you should be aware of.

While São Paulo may not be an example of a safe city, it is the safest capital in Brazil.

Parque da Independência and Museu do Ipiranga, São Paulo.

The Parque da Independencia, or “Independence Park,” opened in 1989. It is called “Independence Park” because it has important historical pieces for the history of Brazil’s independence, which have been listed by agencies at the municipal, state, and federal levels in charge of preserving history.

There, you can see the famous Ipiranga Museum, the beautiful gardens that were inspired by Versailles, the Independence Monument, and the Casa do Grito, which is close to where D. Pedro shouted “independence or death!” to declare the country’s independence.

Cataratas do Iguaçu (Iguazú Waterfalls), Foz do Iguaçu, State of Paraná.

Located in the state of Paraná, one of the most stunning natural sights in the world may be found in the city of Foz de Iguaçu and the surrounding Iguaçu Falls.

The length of the wooded trails and the size of the waterfalls are famous all over the world. The falls thrill visitors and offer experiences that no other location can. It’s understandable why the place was recently named one of the world’s new seven wonders.

There, you’ll discover a setting with clean air, gentle scents, delectable food, and even information about the Natural Heritage of Humanity.

**Jardim Botânico de Curitiba (Curitiba’s Botanical Garden), Curitiba, State of Paraná**

The Jardim Botânico de Curitiba, opened since 1991, is a glass-enclosed greenhouse surrounded by diverse varieties of plants.

A picture I took in 2019 in front of the botanical gardens of Curitiba,, one of the most beautiful locations in Brazil for a photo.

French gardens served as inspiration for their design, and the first thing you notice is a carpet of flowers. Additionally, the greenhouse we previously discussed contains botanical species that are important in Brazil.

The Botanical Garden is known as the “garden of senses” because visitors can experience various plant scents and textures.

This is a wonderful area to go to if you want to take a peaceful and lovely walk. Besides, since December is summer in Brazil, it is a perfect place to produce (custom-made) one of the best Christmas cards for 2022, or at least a very exotic one 🙂

Amazing Locations To Take A Family Photo While In Brazil: Conclusion

Maybe by now, you are thinking why I didn’t include places that are always in these rankings about Brazil like Lençóis do Maranhão or the Blue Lake in Bonito. Here is the answer: because I have never been there, and I don’t want to advertise places that I never visited yet 🙂

So here is my tip of 5 incredible places to visit and take memorable pictures in Brazil (not in order):

Centro Histórico de Paraty, State of Rio de Janeiro
MASP and Avenida Paulista, São Paulo
Parque da Independência and Museu do Ipiranga, São Paulo
Cataratas do Iguaçu, Foz do Iguaçu, State of Paraná
Jardim Botânico de Curitiba, Curitiba, State of Paraná

If you enjoyed this article about the most beautiful locations in Brazil for a photo, here are a few other reading suggestions for you:

Things That Brazilians Buy for Much Less Than You

3 Reasons You Should NOT Move to Brazil (and 4 Reasons to Go)

The best place for Digital Nomads in Brazil and entire South America

A Little Sample of Bizarre Brazilian Laws

Levi Borba is the founder of the Expatriate Consultancy, creator of the channel The Expat, and best-selling author. Some of the links of this article may be affiliate links, meaning that the author will have a commission for any transaction.

Brazil

Is Rio de Janeiro Safe?

The reality about how safe is Rio de Janeiro is not what you imagine.

Listen to “Is Rio de Janeiro Safe? (It is NOT what you imagine!)” on Spreaker.

Rio is often in the spotlight for negative and film-like violent situations. From a police helicopter downed by gangsters to celebrities kidnapped, the dangers from Rio are as famous as the natural beauty of its panoramic landscapes. So, is Rio de Janeiro safe?

Personal advice: Always read and watch the news with a pinch of salt. The truth is that Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and with a little care and attention, it can be one of the most beautiful trips of your life!

Is Rio Really That Dangerous?

Depending on what you are comparing with. If your basis of comparison the Europan continent (what explains the enormous amount of Brazilians in Portugal), yes, Rio is dangerous. Many South-American capitals, like Buenos Aires, are also safer than Rio (making Argentina a good place to retire if you earn in dollars) But if you consider cities American cities like Baltimore, Detroit, or New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro is far safer.

In 2020, Rio had a homicide rate (20.4 per 100 000 inhabitants) even lower than Chicago, the 3rd largest city in the United States (24.3 murders per 100 000 residents).

And the finest news: the violence is decreasing quickly in Rio (almost as quickly as in São Paulo, a case that I explore in detail in this article). In the last section of this article, I will prove that to you with solid numbers.

How Safe Is Rio de Janeiro?

One of the most striking aspects of Brazil is inequality, and just like in all its nuances, violence also does affect everywhere in the same way.

There are regions in Rio that are indeed violent, while others are far safer.

First of all, remember that Rio de Janeiro has two meanings: it can be one of the 26 Brazilian states, or also the capital of the homonymous state. In this article, I will talk mostly about the capital, but if there is any city you would like to know more about in particular, feel free to ask about it in the comment section.

The safest areas of Rio are in the South Zone. The tourist-friendly beaches of Copacabana (a beach praised in this article) and Ipanema are considered safe during the day. At night there are issues with criminality as with most large cities, but nothing abnormal. Take the usual precautions (listed at the end of this article) and you should be fine.

The wealthy areas of São Conrado and Barra da Tijuca, where many expatriates live, are also relatively safe during the day. However, both areas can be dangerous at night, so you should be careful at all times when in these areas.

I would not advise any tourist (unless it is for a very specific purpose) to travel to the West Zone since it holds most of Rio’s gang conflicts. This region is famous for its favelas (though some are tourist-friendly)and should generally not be visited due to safety concerns. After dark, it is wise to avoid the favelas completely, as well as national parks (unfortunately, differently than Vancouver in Canada, camping in a park in Rio is not a good idea).

Is Rio de Janeiro Safe for Tourists?

Here is the thing: most of the violence in Rio is associated with gangs and the dispute for drug-selling points.

If you are not involved with these matters, you will avoid a large part of the risks. Still, gangsters in Rio have military-grade, long-range weapons and it is not uncommon that, in the vicinity of the favelas, during large conflicts, innocent people are hit by stray bullets. In 2021 alone 100 people died in Rio due to random stray bullets.

To put it into perspective, Madrid, the capital of Spain, a city with over 3 million residents, had only 34 homicides in 2021. On the other hand, however, certain districts of European capitals like Athens may present a prevalence of petty crimes higher than the safe districts of Rio. So in the end, location is an important factor.

Other than the favelas and stray bullets, there are two other places where tourists could have bad experiences in Rio.

The beaches. Tourists love the beaches in Rio; however, this is one of the places most attractive to groups of petty criminals since they have very few guards and there have been several incidents of robbery during the daytime. The beaches are the place of the famous arrastão, when groups of thieves rob multiple tourists in a matter of a few minutes and then rush out of the scene. Follow the advice at the end of this article and you will be safe.

The other place where you may face undesirable situations related to crime in Rio is the historical center. Unfortunately, it is also one of the regions that most deserve your visit since districts like the Lapa, with its restaurants, bars, and attractions like the Arcos da Lapa.

Is Lapa in Rio de Janeiro Safe?

Lapa, which is located in the Tijuca neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, is a fun neighborhood, full of bars and restaurants, and one of the more popular places to party in Rio.

But Lapa is also an area of town that can be considered a bit sketchy. There are lots of beggars, homeless people, drug dealers, and all-around shady characters.

It’s not unusual to see drunks passed out on the sidewalk or people who seem like they might want to take advantage of you.

However, as long as you don’t wander into any dark corners late at night and walk with a considerable group, you should be just fine.

Always keep your valuables locked up tight in your hotel room, or if you do bring them with you when you venture out for an evening, be sure to secure them in one of those money belts that all tourists seem to wear. (One of the many valuable tips taken from the book Budget Travelers, Digital Nomads & Expats: The Ultimate Guide)

Budget Travelers Digital Nomad and Expats Book — Budget Travelers, Digital Nomads & Expats: The Ultimate Guide: 50 Tips, Tricks, Hacks and Ways to Free Stuff & Cheaper Flights

The Safest Areas in Rio de Janeiro

(Those are the safest areas in the city of Rio, not the state, which also includes splendid historical cities like Paraty that deserve their own article).

Ipanema

Ipanema is a popular neighborhood immortalized by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. The neighborhood has many high-end properties and is in Rio’s South Zone’s prime location. Next to Copacabana, it’s one of the best-known areas in the city.

This neighborhood’s view is charming and beautiful. Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas on one side, Ipanema beach on the other, it’s a movie-worthy landscape! Ipanema has also plenty of bars, theaters, restaurants, and other cultural and leisure options. Pedra do Arpoador is also in Ipanema, where tourists gather to watch the sunset. This region’s properties are highly valued due to their prime location.

Ipanema, one of the safest areas in Rio de Janeiro

Copacabana

Rio’s Copacabana needs no introduction, right? Next to Ipanema, this is a famous neighborhood where is located Copacabana Beach. This beach hosts one of Brazil’s biggest New Year’s Eve shows. It is an area with excellent infrastructure.

Copacabana, in Rio’s bohemian South Zone, offers many leisure and entertainment options. It has bars, restaurants, clubs, and two subway stations. The region also has supermarkets, shops, public transport, banks, and other daily essentials.

The boulevard close to the beach is a great place for healthy people to exercise outdoors. You can walk, ride a bike, or run, and there are also excellent open-air gyms.

There are some excellent and (surprisingly!) inexpensive hotels in Copacabana. You can find them below.

Leblon

Leblon’s picturesque beaches make it one of the city’s most beautiful postcards. Leblon, also in Rio’s South Zone, surrounds Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas.

The neighborhood has lively nightlife, as well as cultural and leisure options. As a small neighborhood with few buildings, Leblon’s property prices are high. This neighborhood is worth investing in if you want a high quality of life, a safe neighborhood, and a fair share of luxury.

Barra da Tijuca

Barra da Tijuca is a prestigious neighborhood in the city’s West Zone that has grown dramatically thanks to its wide streets, subway, and bus lines. It has many schools, colleges, and a very, very large shopping mall.

This neighborhood is ideal for beach lovers because it has a busy, open-sea beach and a large number of green spaces, such as Bosque da Barra. Outdoor activities include walking or cycling on the boardwalk and swimming. Barra’s gated communities are mini-cities with full infrastructure and security.

How to Be Safe in Rio de Janeiro

To make your trip to Rio as safe as possible, here are some tips:

1st – Buy travel insurance that also covers theft-related expenses. Although it is often very inexpensive to purchase such insurance in Europe (even in the most dangerous cities of some European countries), many people ignore this small precaution and end up disappointed. I recommend the company Ekta, which provides some of the most innovative solutions for travelers, allowing you to relax and enjoy your vacation without worry.

2nd – Areas surrounding airports and train stations can be dangerous. Book a transfer in advance from the Galeão or Santos Dumont airport (or from any station) to your destination and vice versa, so you can avoid scammers and criminals. I often used Get Transfer for that and it always worked fine.

3rd – Avoid walking around with your luggage. Radical Storage is a website that shows safe locations where you can leave your luggage, pay a small fee, and pick it up after touring the city.

4th – If you are visiting places like the center of São Paulo (and there is SO MUCH to visit there!) or Cantareira Park, but prefer it without the risk of getting lost (or worse), hire a guide. You can find some amazing and reliable guides and tours at Viator. They will give you insider information about historical facts and curiosities, and also warn you of risky areas and keep you safe.

5th- (Personal opinion) If you are young (or feel young), stay in hostels in regions like Copacabana, Ipanema, or Leblon. People working in these hostels are used to foreign guests and can offer both safety advice and some great tips on places to sightsee. When looking for hostels, I visit Hostelworld and filter for those above grade 7.

6th – Use a money belt to carry your credit card, documents, etc. In your pocket, leave a dummy wallet with expired cards and small money, in case a robber attacks you (something that shouldn’t happen if you follow all the recommendations above).

Avoid walking around after dark in areas with not many people around. Violent crimes are more likely to occur at night than during the day.
Do not go out alone or with a small group after dark. Stay in groups for safety; the larger the group, the safer it is (although an arrastão may still affect your group no matter how large it is).
If you go out alone, stay on well-lit streets where there are plenty of people walking around and avoid using parks or beaches alone at night.
Be aware that police officers may stop you on the streets and ask for an ID. Do not resist giving them your ID even if they are acting rudely; otherwise, you could be arrested.
Do not carry or wear flashy jewelry or expensive-looking electronics around town since these can attract unwanted attention from robbers. For example, do not flash your brand new iPhone off while walking down a street in the Lapa district.
Avoid carrying large amounts of cash with you anywhere in Brazil, especially Rio de Janeiro.

Remember: Be aware of where you’re going and what you’re doing. Be aware of your surroundings, especially in areas you are not familiar with. It’s also a good idea to let someone know where you are at all times, so if something does happen they will know where to look for you.

Uber in Rio de Janeiro: Safe? (Also Valid for 99Taxis)

The rise of Uber in Rio has been met with challenging times. Taxi drivers have protested against the company, sometimes violently.

Still, there are no reports of Uber drivers robbing or hurting passengers. Ride-sharing apps may not have the best security, but you don’t hand a total stranger your credit card and cash.

You can use the app to see the driver’s name, car model, and license plate number before getting in the car. It also has a feature that lets you share your ETA with friends and family via text message or email.

Rio has more than its fair share of criminals preying on tourists and locals, but there are no reports of an Uber or 99Taxis driver being involved in a crime against a passenger so far.

Despite the safety concerns, Uber (or 99Taxis) is still popular because it’s more convenient than hailing a taxi off the street or waiting for a radio taxi to drive by. It’s a great option when you’re trying to get somewhere quickly and don’t want to walk or pay for a taxi ride from.

Moving Out, Working Abroad and Keeping Your Sanity Cover — Book recommended: Moving Out, Working Abroad, and Keeping Your Sanity

Conclusion: How Violent is Rio de Janeiro?

The violence in Rio de Janeiro is decreasing, especially in the South Zone, which includes Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon.

The city’s southern area is still a safe place, but tourists should avoid walking alone at night and avoid areas close to favelas. Tourists are advised to stay away from isolated places after dark and exercise caution at all times because of the high rate of crime. Also, if you want to travel to a large, lusophone city to learn Portuguese, maybe Lisbon in Portugal is a safer choice.

Most of the bad fame of Rio is still a reflection of former decades when it was one of the most dangerous regions in the world. By the way, since we discussing safety, we also wrote an article with tips on what to do in case of war.

In the chart below, you can see that Rio had a 61% decrease in violence during the last 20 years. Today, it has violence rates comparable to Puerto Rico, an autonomous region from the USA.

It is still far from ideal, and there is a lot to improve. However, it is not as bad (and violent) as it once was.

State	Homicide Rate in 2000	Homicide Rate in 2010	Homicide Rate in 2020	Difference between 2000 and 2020	Country with similar homicide rate.
Pernambuco	56.17	39.48	33.8	-40%	Nigeria
Bahia	9.46	41.69	44.9	375%	Jamaica
Minas Gerais	12.06	18.6	12.7	5%	Uruguay
Rio de Janeiro	52.75	35.44	20.4	-61%	Puerto Rico*
Sao Paulo	42.89	14.64	6.96	-84%	Russia
Parana	18.85	34.33	18.37	-3%	Namibia
Rio Grande do Sul	16.55	19.5	15	-9%	Botswana

Homicide rates in the 6 most populous Brazilian states, and comparison with other countries. Source: IPEA and Government agencies.

Check also:

The Most Dangerous Cities in Europe

Save Money on Travel — 4 Travel Hacks to Give You Peace of Mind

Best Place to Visit in Europe on Each Month of the Year

Subscribe to my articles (for free) and receive the digital book 20 Essential Hacks for Saving Money While Travelling.

If you wish to become a Medium member and have access to articles like this, check this link. It is only $5 per month.

Levi Borba is the CEO of expatriateconsultancy.com, creator of the channel The Expat, and best-selling author. Subscribe to my articles (for free) and receive (also for free) a special gift.

Brazil

Where Do Most Brazilians Live Abroad?

The list of the countries with the most Brazilian Immigrants has some surprises

Recently the ministry of foreign relations from Brazil (also known as Itamaraty, a peculiar name for one of the most prestigious institutions in that country) released a list of countries answering the question where do most Brazilians live outside Brazil?

The Brazilian Diaspora

Here are the top 10 countries where most Brazilians live (outside Brazil):

The USA: 1 775 000 Brazilians.
Portugal: 276 200
Paraguay 240 000
The UK: 220 000
Japan 211 138
Italy: 161 000
Spain: 156 439
Germany: 144 120
Canada: 121 950
Argentina: 89 020

The high number of the Brazilian population in the US should not come as a shock, since this is a normal thing in most Latin American countries.

But the second and third places may be unexpected. When we compare the number of Brazilian immigrants to the population of the country as a whole, we get even more surprised.

Country	Number of Brazilian residents	Total Population	Brazilians per each 1000 people
The USA	1,775,000	329,000,000	5
Portugal	276,200	10,310,000	27
Paraguay	240,000	7,133,000	34
The UK	220,000	67,220,000	3
Japan	211,138	125,800,000	2
Italy	161,000	59,550,000	3
Spain	156,439	47,350,000	3
Germany	144,120	83,240,000	2
Canada	121,950	38,010,000	3
Argentina	89,020	45,380,000	2

Countries with most Brazilian immigrants according to the Itamaraty (Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

Things get even more dramatic when we consider in which cities are those crowds of Brazilians in Portugal and Paraguay. According to the same source (the Itamaraty):

180 thousand Brazilians live in the region of the Lisbon consulate in Portugal.
98 thousand Brazilians live in the region of the Ciudad Del Este consulate in Paraguay.

Lisbon has a population of roughly half a million people.

That means a European capital with a shocking 35% of the population non-European and from a single, South-American country.

Recently, one of the 3 largest influencers in Brazil, the economist Ricard Amorim, shared on Facebook a table that showed this information, raising comments about how Lisbon had become 1/3 Brazilian.

How is that possible?

Simple: it is not, and here I will tell you why.

Why there are so many Brazilians in Portugal

It is not new for Brazilians to move to Lisbon. Even one of the Portuguese kings, Dom Pedro IV, was a Brazilian emperor before assuming the crown on the European side of the Atlantic. The colonizers went to South America and built a nation from the scratch, and some of the most splendid Brazil historical towns, like Paraty, are also gems of Portuguese architecture.

Still, much more common until a few decades ago was for Portugal’s former colonies in Africa and Asia to send their citizens to Lisbon.

Brazilian immigration to Portugal has its roots in centuries of common history.

But then came a sequence of economic crises in Brazil, culminating with a presidential impeachment in 2014. Violence erupted (although not equally everywhere, since places like São Paulo are far safer than Northeastern capitals).

Brazilians started to flee in droves owing to the economy and crime (I was one of them).

But less than 2% of the Brazilian population is fluent in English. Therefore, except for this minority, anyone willing to move abroad needed to face a language barrier.

The solution was to move to another Portuguese-speaking country. And in this case, they are plenty of options: Angola, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, and so on.

However, among all of them, only Portugal is a developed nation.

Is that the reason that made turned Lisbon into a city with 35% of all the inhabitants from Brazil?

No, because this is simply not true.

The Consulate Jurisdiction Problem

The number of Brazilians in Lisbon is way overestimated because the Brazilian diplomatic mission in Portugal only has three consulates in the whole country. The other two are in the northern city of Porto and the southern city of Faro.

This number is lower than the number of Brazilian consulates in China (4), Canada (4), and Argentina (5), all of which have fewer Brazilian immigrants than Portugal.

Therefore, the numbers of Lisbon are inflated by other cities and even Brazilians that reside in different provinces in central Portugal.

18.6% of the people in Lisbon are foreigners, according to the Portuguese census. This number includes individuals who came from other parts of the world, not just Brazil.

What about Paraguay?

Where do most Brazilians live? A Surprise.

While in absolute numbers, the US has the largest Brazilian diaspora, proportionally to the population, it is Paraguay.

Brazilians residing in neighboring Paraguay are known as “Brasiguaios”. In some areas of the country, especially near the border, Brasiguaios make up 10% of the population. Ciudad del Este, a border city with almost 100 thousand Brazilians mentioned a few paragraphs above, has a population that is almost 30% Brazilian.

Brazilians have migrated to Paraguay due to a combination of factors, including cheap land and real estate, and more favorable tax and labor laws. (Brazil has one of the most chaotic legal codes in the world). It is a different profile of the Brazilian immigrant to Argentina, which is often seeking safety (check here our article about violence in Buenos Aires).

Land prices in Brazil are among the highest in Latin America. In rural areas, a hectare (2.47 acres) can cost close to US$15,000. As such, many Brazilian farmers are attracted to cross the border to Paraguay to buy larger patches of land. Often they also bring Brazilian workers to their ventures, increasing the immigration numbers.

The increasing land purchases by foreign farmers even created conflicts in the region that demand government intervention.

But not only cheaper farmland attracts Brazilian immigrants. The favorable investment policies from the Paraguayan government and the far less complicated labor laws generated a flow of Brazilian industries moving their manufacturing plants to Paraguay. In another article, I explained how this country became the new Latin-American paradise for investors

If you like this article about where do most brazilians live, check also:

Save Money on Travel — 4 Travel Hacks to Give You Peace of Mind

4 Tips for Flying (From an Airline Insider)

Why Coffee is Flying from Brazil to Europe?

If you wish to become a Medium member and have access to articles like this, check this link. It is only $5 per month.

Levi Borba is the CEO of expatriateconsultancy.com, creator of the channel Small Business Hacks, and best-selling author. Subscribe to my articles (for free) and receive (also for free) the ebook “The Blueprint for First-Time Business Owners”.

Brazil

Shipping Crisis: Why Coffee is Flying from Brazil to Europe?

Why is there a shipping crisis?

With difficulties to transport coffee because of the shipping crisis, Brazilian exporters have resorted to another, much more expensive modal: Airplanes

For example, in the first week of October, Labareda Agropecuária, located in Franca (SP), exported around 9 tonnes of coffee to London. Usually, coffee is exported by ship, on an operation that takes weeks. Companies like Labareda and many others, however, are opting to send it by plane.

The transport cost increase from this change is gigantic. For Worse.

As informed by Labareda, the cost to ship the product by sea, in the current scenario, without urgency, has been around US$ 2,000 per shipment, and under normal conditions before Covid, the value would be lower. Boarding by plane had a cost of US$ 11,000.

More than a 400% price increase.

But why companies are opting to send basic, agricultural products like coffee by air instead of by sea?

Because of the shipping crisis.

A crisis that will have deep effects on your pocket in the months, or even years, to come.

Why the world is in a shipping crisis?

Since the middle of 2020, maritime transport suffers from a lack of capacity and high prices, because of the crisis generated by Covid-19, causing tons of cargo to be stopped at ports all over the world.

As you may guess, an explosion in demand caused the high prices.

This demand surge began when governments created emergency income programs, such as the stimulus checks in the USA, to revive markets and help people who were unemployed.

People spent an enormous share of the stimulus money on online shopping — as you can guess, stuff transported by ship.

Why Are Shipping Containers Delayed?

Put the surge in demand together with the fact that most ports started to operate according to new sanitary rules and reduced staff, and you have the recipe for multiple bottlenecks in global logistics.

To put it into perspective:

On a normal day — meaning pre-pandemic — the port of Los Angeles had a waiting line between zero to 1 ship waiting to dock. The shipping crisis increased this number to over 60.
Before the pandemic, the waiting time to dock at the Los Angeles port was on average 12 hours. Now it is 8 days and 12 hours.

Similar scenarios repeat in every continent, from Rotterdam in Europe to Yantian in China.

Problems like the Suez Canal obstruction in March of 2021 by the Ever Given container ship only made the already chaotic situation worse.

As a result, companies like the Coffee exporter from the first paragraph are resorting to other ways of transportation, less efficient or more expensive.

Here is where things get ugly for all of us — even those that don’t drink coffee.

The Effects of the Shipping Container Crisis

The shipping crisis is not a single-cause event, but it has multiple origins, resulting in a perfect storm:

A shortage of workers — because of the reopening economy but also due to COVID19 sanitary rules.
Massive traffic jams at important ports.
Lack of shipping containers available (since most of them are in the gigantic waiting lines at major ports).
Growing demand for imported goods — a result of stimulus checks and money-printing.

The shipping obstacles are driving shortages of multiple products from semiconductors used by car manufacturers, to coffee beans and food ingredients — Mcdonald’s pulled out Milkshakes from the menu, and Nando’s temporarily closed 50 stores in Britain due to lack of ingredients.

One of the first things learned during my economics major (just before I drop out of it since I am suspicious of economists) is that scarcity prompts price hikes.

According to the Drewry World Container Index, shipping containers cost nearly four times as much as they did this time last year.

Exporters will transfer higher freight costs to industries and industries to consumers. In such a scenario, even mortgages — often indexed to Inflation indexes — tend to increase.

That is why we are already experiencing the highest inflation of the last 40 years.

On the enduring effects of this crisis (worsened by the war in Eastern Europe), Volker Wieland, an economics professor at Frankfurt’s Goethe University in Frankfurt, told to Business Insider:

Even if the order of magnitude is smaller than estimated, the dynamic builds over a year and has significant effects. That means there’s a danger we’re underestimating the impact.

For some industries that benefit from high inflation, this may be a new golden era. For unsuspecting citizens willing to enjoy a daily takeaway coffee, this is bad news.

Why Does Norway Have So Many Electric Cars?

Retirement Crisis: Why Most of Us Will Work to Death

The Best Countries for Coffee in The World

If you wish to become a Medium member and have privileged access to articles like this, check this link. It is only $5 per month.

Levi Borba is CEO of expatriateconsultancy.com, creator of the channel Small Business Hacks, and best-selling author. You can check his books here, his other articles here, or his Linkedin here.

Brazil

3 Rules for Buying a House, a Car, or…

Rules to Buying a Car and Not Regret Later.

Some context about how I came with these rules about buying a house, a car, or a smartphone: Brazil is not a rich place. It has plenty of natural resources, but in terms of per capita wealth, it is far from the first tier.

According to the latest IMF report, the Brazilian annual GDP per capita (or annual income per capita) is $7011. It is in the same category as Turkey, Peru, Thailand, or China. Among the 195 countries present in the IMF report, Brazil has only the 87th highest per capita income.

It may surprise you to know, however, that Brazil is also one of the major markets for luxury goods and expensive vehicles on the planet.

It is one of the 10 largest markets for the luxury SUV manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover. Their most sold car, the Range Rover Evoque, costs R$280 950. More than 54 000 dollars. This is the equivalent of 92 months of Brazil’s average income.
Despite having the highest iPhone prices in the world (in good part thanks to extremely high taxes and bizarre laws), still Brazil is one of the 6 largest markets for Apple.
60% of all the smartphones sold in Brazil have a price tag at least as high as the national monthly income (1380 Reais). 21.6% of all the phones marketed in Brazil cost more than 2500 Reais.
Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy — the world’s leading manufacturer and retailer of luxury products — considers Brazil one of its main sources of growth.

How is it possible that in a relatively poor country, luxury brands find so many potential customers? One could say that inequality plays a big role: billionaires and multi-billionaires in cities like São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro are rich enough to afford all these luxuries.

But they are not that numerous to justify the almost 100 thousand cars that Jaguar Land Rover alone sold in the last few years. They are not that significant to explain why LVMH considers Brazil one of its strongest markets.

The truth about how Brazilians purchase such a sizeable amount of luxury items resides in another thing.

Consumer Credit

In Brazil, people take loans to buy stuff. It may not surprise you that someone takes credit to buy a house or even a car. But what I mean is a general custom of taking credit to buy anything: clothes, cell phones, laptops, even whiskey — Brazil is the largest consuming market of Johnnie Walker’s Red Label.

This could lead you to believe that credit in Brazil is cheap. Otherwise, why people would use it to purchase superfluous items?

Wrong conclusion. Credit is expensive in Brazil. The average interest rate for a vehicle loan is 21% per year. Credit for durable goods like cellphones and laptops has even higher rates.

While credit is expensive, it is also widely available. Therefore, people enter a debt circle where they are always paying installments for their phones — swapping it for a new model when they finish the previous loan — cars, etc.

So Why Brazilians Don’t Buy Cheaper Things?

That is a good question. I would bet it is cultural. If you are a middle manager or a self-employed professional (lawyer, stockbroker, etc), riding an old car can be seen as a sign that you are not good at what you do.

So people purchase things way over their reality because of a desire to show status and success. That explains why the average age of the Brazilian motor vehicle fleet is only 9.7 years. Brazilian have newer cars than people from richer countries like Sweden (10 years of average car age), France (10.2), Norway (10.7), or Italy (11.4).

The place where I live, Poland, has a per capita income over two times higher than Brazil. Still, Poles drive cars on average 14.1 years old. My wife, a professional with 5 years of experience in global banks, has a 10-year-old car. Meanwhile, in Brazil, most of my friends with similar experience drive vehicles for 5 years or less. While my wife paid for her car with part of her savings, my Brazilian friends buy their vehicles using bank loans.

Because they don’t want to drive old cars. Instead, they prefer to live indebted.

Once I was discussing this topic with my friends from the University of Sao Paulo. They asked me “So, what would be your rules for buying a car, or a house, or a cellphone, Mr. Frugal?”

Below is what I told them. Rules that certainly I will teach my kids. Not only do they serve as a basis to adapt your consuming habits to the available resources, but also to avoid debt and have a decent financial life — instead of jumping from loan to loan.

Who Can Use These Rules Buying a House, a Car, or a Smartphone?

A short disclaimer: these are rules from a middle-class individual. The super-rich will not count money in terms of months to buy their favorite car but in hours. In the other extreme, a student with a part-time job may think I am telling him to not have a smartphone at all.

No, this is not what I am saying. These rules may not work for extreme cases. These rules are for middle-income people — sorry for the lack of inclusivity, but I would not dare to establish numbers for situations that I am not familiar with.

In other words: these are rules for buying a house or a car that I use for myself and they have worked so far. For you, it may be different.

How Much Should I Pay For a Phone Or Laptop?

My principle is to never spend on a laptop or cellphone more than 10% of the value of a monthly net salary, considering that we change these things on average every 2 years.

A friend of mine — the economist with whom I often make some bets — prefers to pay higher prices for smartphones that, in his opinion, resist longer, which makes sense too. Despite that, you should be able to pay for your phone with your own money, never take credit just to boast the last Apple super-expensive device.

How Much Should I Pay For A Car?

For many people, including me, a car is simply a transport mean. So the first question you should ask is: do you really need a car? Do you need something that certainly will lose value with time while requiring maintenance and taxes to pay?

If the answer is yes, then think about how much you use a car, and for which purposes. A family with kids has completely different requirements than a bachelor’s.

My personal rule is that a car should not correspond to more than 4 times my monthly income. This is a command that I obey since I was a teenager, driving a 10-year-old budget Corsa with no AC, but paid with my own salary as a trainee. No debt.

How Much Should I Pay For A House?

Here, the question is more complex, and, differently than the other examples, it is acceptable to take a loan to buy a home. In fact, it is often even desirable to get credit for this purpose, as I explained in this article about when to buy a house.

Mortgages have far lower interests than any type of consumer credit — not because the banks want you to have a roof, but because the risk for them is reduced since they use the real estate as a guarantee in case of insolvency.

Still, you should not buy a castle if your pockets are not deep enough. My advice for a bachelor or couple with no dependents is to look for properties whose price is at most the equivalent to 48 times their net monthly income.

By following these simple rules for buying a house, a car, or a smartphone, you will not enter the credit loop that consumes entire decades of hard work and turn people into slaves of their debts.

What to do with the rest of the money? Save for early retirement, because the public pension system is an illusion.

Subscribe to my articles (for free) and receive (also for free) the ebook “The Blueprint for First-Time Business Owners”. 65 pages of essential points, secrets, and hacks for you to launch, manage and expand your own business.

If you wish to become a Medium member and have access to articles like this, check this link. It is only $5 per month.

As an entrepreneur, the help I found on Fiverr and Freelancer.com was essential for a smooth beginning.

To Join Fiverr and start with a $20 Bonus, Click Here.

Join Freelancer using this link and earn a USD20 discount on your first purchase

Brazil

When to Buy a House? How to Answer It…

Renting vs Owning a House: Compare it to Answer When to Buy a House

The question of when to buy a house is not alone among the few major decisions with the potential to change our paths.

When we are still teenagers or in the early 20s, picking careers and (if any) academic degrees.
When we decide to marry and have kids, or not.
If we will rely on public pensions (hint: don’t) or private savings for retirement.

It is difficult — it not impossible — to decide about the first two listed above based on calculations. But the answer to the dilemma between buying or renting a house is easier to get.

Don’t worry, it is not complicated math — I am not an engineer or a physicist myself, so even my own mathematical resources are limited.

In this article, however, I will approach the decision between renting and buying a house from a financial point. Of course, there are other advantages and disadvantages on both sides. Eg: in the case of an invasion by a foreign power, the renter can escape without caring if insurance covers mortar explosion. Sorry for the weird example. I live in Poland.

In ordinary times, people praise real estate ownership as an investment that may build equity and tax deductions. To rent, on the other side, gives flexibility with no maintenance headaches.

Still, there is a common belief that buying a house is a more financially sound decision. Not always this is true, and here you will learn how to discover if this is your case.

The Costs of Buying A House

The first step is to gather all the costs from both sides (buying and renting).

We will not consider some expenses, like furnishing for two reasons: first, because they often exist regardless if you are a renter or a homeowner. Second, because onetime costs are diluted over the years and are of little significance over long periods of time.

So what are a homeowner’s yearly, recurring costs?

Loan interests (L)
The opportunity cost of the money spent(O)
Property taxes (P)
Maintenance costs (M)

Loan Interest (Mortgage) Costs of Buying a House

First of all, the loan costs are not the same as the total mortgage, but only the interests. Most of the value of your mortgages will add to your equity (meaning, the house), except for the interest you pay to the bank.

To calculate the loan costs, we use the effective APR (annual percentage rate). It includes fees and compound interests. Be aware that the effective APR is always equal to or higher than the nominal interest rate, and not everywhere banks disclose these values — here in Poland a law obligates them to do so.

During this exercise, I will use two countries: Poland, where I live, and Brazil, which is where I came from.

The effective rate for a mortgage contracted by a middle-class couple with no dependents in Poland is somewhere around 2% to 4%. To make it simple, let’s consider an effective rate of 3% per year. In Brazil, it is between 6% to 12%, so we will consider 9%.

In both cases, the values are net of inflation — remember that mortgage rates often have a variable, indexed component, so they may fluctuate over time.

The Opportunity Cost of the Money Used

In most mortgage loan contracts, the bank demands a down payment from the buyer. Usually around 20%.

Some loans don’t demand this 20%, but they have higher interest rates. It is a matter of calculated risk for the bank: your down payment reduces their exposure, therefore the higher the down payment, the lower the interest rates.

Imagine if you invested this 20% in high-yield fixed-income in your country. How much it would pay you per year? In Poland, around 1%. In Brazil, somewhere near 5%. Again: both are net of inflation.

But when you buy a house, you will not earn this 1% or 5% over your down payment because you spent the money to buy a house. This money you don’t earn is the opportunity cost. As defined by Investopedia:

Opportunity costs represent the potential benefits an individual, investor, or business misses out on when choosing one alternative over another.

Since your down payment is only 20% of the total house value, this means that the opportunity cost in Brazil is 1% and in Poland is 0.2% of the total house value.

If the house value is $200 000, the 20% down payment is $40000. In Brazil your cost of opportunity is 5% of 40000, meaning $200 per year. In Poland, it is 1% of 40000, resulting in $400.

One crucial thing to consider: if the house you bought appreciates more than the inflation, you should subtract this extra appreciation from the opportunity cost. But if your house appreciated less than the inflation, or even depreciated, this increases the opportunity cost.

In most situations, real estate prices will not depreciate but also not spike, except in rare cases like someone finding oil in his backyard. In our exercise, we consider that real estate prices just follow inflation.

Property Taxes and the Maintenance Costs of Buying A House

Except for unusual rental contracts, the responsibility to pay the property tax is from the landlord or homeowner, not from the renter.

In Europe, property taxes vary drastically. From 0.09% in Austria to a painful 1.93% in Great Britain. In Poland, it is 0.91%. In Brazil, 1%.

There are also maintenance costs. Things that homeowners pay, but renters don’t.

Roof, pipes, and other structural repairs
Pest control
Air-condition or heating filters
Leaky faucets
Lender-required insurances (flood, fire, earthquake, etc.)
Period inspections and permits, when and if required by the local authorities

According to the expert Maurie Backman, writing for MillionAcres, you should expect to spend between 1% and 4% of your home’s value each year for maintenance. Newer homes usually are in the lower range of this interval. In our exercise, we will consider maintenance costs representing 1.5% per year of the total home value.

Explained all the annual costs, here is a summary of them for both countries (Poland and Brazil) we will use in our exercise of when to buy a house:

Loan interests (L): Poland = 3%, Brazil = 9% of the total house value per year.
The opportunity cost of the money used (O): Poland = 1%, Brazil = 5% of the value used as down payment OR Poland = 0.2% and Brazil = 1% of the 20% used as down payment, per year.
Property taxes (P): Poland = 0.9%, Brazil = 1% of the total house value per year.
Maintenance costs (M): For Both Countries, 1.5% of the total house value per year.

The Costs of Renting A House

The monthly cost of renting a home is simple. It is:

The rent you pay (R). Both in Brazil and Poland, this on average corresponds to 6% of the total house value.

Expenses like utilities are not considered because we need to pay them regardless if we are renting or buying.

One could also argue that renters have the additional cost of contracts adjusted annually by an inflation index. However, most mortgage loan contracts also have inflation adjustments — at least mine has. Since these things affect both sides almost equally, it does not make sense to consider them, unless you managed to rent a house or take a mortgage with no inflation adjustment (if this is the case, congratulations).

There are double-edged benefits to renting a house. From one side, it allows you to move without penalty each time your contract finishes. However, it also means your landlord may not accept to renew your contract.

A renter also may face unpredictable rent increases every time he needs to renew his contract. In districts with rising popularity, rent hikes can be steep. In contrast, the only increase in mortgage payments will be due to inflation.

The “Buying a House” Equation (Please don’t be scared, it is easier than it looks)

The decision if renting is better or worse than buying a house will come from a simple calculation:

If the annual cost of buying a house (ACB) is bigger than the annual cost of renting a house (ACR), for the same house value (HV).

ACB = (HV*L) + (HV*O) + (HV*P)+(HV*M)

ACR = (HV*R), or ACR = Annual Rent

If ACB > ACR, it is better to rent a house. If ACB < ACR, it is better to buy a house.

I know it still may look complicated, but it is not. Just look at the two examples below, both considering house values (HV) of $200 000.

Is It a Good Idea to Buy a House In Poland?

HV = $200 000

Loan interests (L): 3% * 200 000 = $6000 per year

Opportunity cost of the money used: 0.2% of 200 000=$400 per year

Property Taxes: 0.9% of 200 000= $1800 per year

Maintenance Costs: 1.5% of 200 000 = $3000 per year

The total cost of buying a house: 6000+400+1800+3000 = $11 200 per year.

The total cost of renting a house = Annual Rent: 6% of 200 000 = $12 000 per year.

Therefore, considering the parameters we used, buying a house will save you $1000 per year in Poland. That is almost a monthly average salary in Poland. In this case, it is a good idea to buy a house there.

Is It a Good Idea to Buy a House In Brazil?

HV = $200 000

Loan interests (L): 9% * 200 000 = $18000 per year

Opportunity cost of the money used: 1% of 200 000=$2000 per year

Property Taxes: 1% of 200 000= $2000 per year

Maintenance Costs: 1.5% of 200 000 = $3000 per year

The total cost of buying a house: 18000+2000+2000+3000 = $25 000 per year.

The total cost of renting a house = Annual Rent: 6% of 200 000 = $12 000 per year.

Therefore, considering the parameters we used, buying a house will make you spend an additional $13 000. In this case, it is a bad idea to buy a house in Brazil.

Shocked by the result? There are a few things that are cheap in Brazil, but that does not include mortgage loans. The lack of Brazilian legal stability adds to the high costs.

If, in My Case, It Is a Bad Idea to Buy a House, What Should I Do?

A better alternative (from the financial point of view) is to do what a friend of mine — head economist of a local bank — does: he saves his money and invests it in high-yield fixed-income titles. The risk of these titles is mitigated by the FGC (a device that covers any loss caused by banks defaulting until a certain value).

The interest paid by his investments covers his rent.

Remember, however, that all these are purely financial calculations.

Not always the decision of buying a house is about the money. It may also depend on your life plans or family requirements. Just avoid point-blank statements like X or Y is always better.

Instead, do the math.

The formula I already gave you, so all you need is to change the numbers I used (taxes, cost of opportunity, etc) for the figures of your circumstance and location.

As an entrepreneur, the help I found on Fiverr and Freelancer.com was essential for a smooth beginning.

To Join Fiverr and start with a $20 Bonus, Click Here.

Join Freelancer using this link and earn a USD20 discount on your first purchase

Brazil

Living Cost in Brazil: 4 Things Incredibly Cheap for…

Is Brazil Cheap?

Listen to “4 Things Brazilians Can Buy Cheaper Than You” on Spreaker.

Tell a Brazilian that his country has some good-quality stuff for ridiculous prices, and it is likely that he will disagree or expect a joke involving bribes and crime. But there is something curious about the living cost in Brazil.

As a Brazilian myself, for long I held this belief that in my country, almost everything is overpriced and overtaxed (like iPhone or PlayStations), or has a lower standard of quality — like some Brazilian basic car models that cannot be sold in Europe due to safety concerns).

Electronics and industrial goods can be costly in Brazil, but this is not valid for many utilities and staples.

Things that are often more necessary than a new Xbox

Prices in Brazil that May Surprise You

Water

Brazilians seldom notice that they are paying peanuts for things like water. It is a shock that many of us have when moving abroad. Eg: I always heard during my childhood that in Europe people don’t take multiple showers per day because it is cold or because they use a lot of perfume to disguise body odor.

The truth, however, is that bathing in Europe is expensive.

Some simple math:

Cost of a cubic meter (1000 liters) of water and sewage in São Paulo: R$4.54 (if you live in social housing, it is even cheaper). That is USD$0.87.

Water used in a 10-minute shower, with a modern showerhead: approx. 90 liters.

Cost of the water of a 10-minute shower in São Paulo: (90/1000)*0.87 = Approx. 8 cents of dollar per shower.

In Poland, the same shower almost 3 zlotys, meaning 77 cents of US dollar.

If I kept my Brazilian habits in Poland, I would spend 47 dollars per month on shower water only. The price of a shower in Warsaw is almost 10 times higher than in São Paulo. In richer European countries like Denmark, it is even worse.

Lower water prices also decrease other components of the living cost in Brazil, like the price for flushing the toilet (something harder than baths to reduce the frequency) or having a swimming pool in your backyard. Even washing your car in Brazil is cheaper than nearly anywhere else because of the inexpensive water.

Garbage Collection

If you tell someone from the city where I was born that the garbage collection is crazy cheap there, they will think you are fooling them.

For a simple reason: it is not cheap. It is free (free meaning paid by taxes).

You can generate as much domestic garbage as you want and you will not pay a single cent for a truck to collect it. I could put “free” garbage collection in my list of bizarre Brazilian laws, but since most people don’t complain about it — instead, they complain about their taxes — , I left it out.

In other cities, like São Paulo, there was once a cost for this service, but it was canceled, and now the current mayor is trying to bring it back. In places where there is a charge for garbage collection, the values are often modest. Curitiba, the capital of Paraná state, has a price for domestic garbage considered expensive: R$275 (US$52.7) per year. 4.4 dollars per month.

For comparison, for the same service in Warsaw, Poland — a country that is rich by any means — I pay close to 50 zlotys (12.9 USD), per month. Garbage collection is on my list of the 5 things unusually expensive in Poland.

Coffee

Inexpensive coffee should come as no surprise since Brazil is the largest coffee-producing country in the world.

The largest difference, however, is not in the grains per se but in the coffee consumed at cafeterias. In the Brazilian long-distance bus stations (rodoviárias) it is common to find places selling a cup of coffee for 2 or 3 reais — around 50 cents of a dollar.

A good café de rodoviária (literally “bus station coffee”), in my opinion, is at least as good as a Costa black coffee sold for 3 euros or more in Europe.

Other coffee-derived beverages also have favorable price tags in the Brazilian territory. Maybe they are not a game-changer in the living cost in Brazil if you prefer tea, but for the lovers of the black, bitter liquid, it is a tremendous plus.

The portal Numbeo examined the cost of a Cappucino in 589 cities around the world, on all continents. Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, and São Paulo are all among the cities with the lowest price for this hot beverage.

A Cappucino in Finland or the United States will cost over 300% of what it costs in Brazil. That is why Brazil is among the best countries for a cup of coffee.

Cigarette Prices in Brazil

A friend of mine always carries an extra pack of cigarettes for personal use when he travels out of Brazil. This is a sure way to save money.

It would be unfair to compare São Paulo with richer cities like London ($17.2 for a pack of Marlboro) or Boston ($12), but even considering countries in an income bracket similar to Brazil, the difference is considerable.

A pack of Marlboro in São Paulo will cost between 10 to 12 Reais, a bit more than USD$2. Similar prices are only seen in countries like Ukraine, Iraq, or Paraguay.

The same Marlboro 20-cigarette pack is $5.5 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, $5.23 in
Santiago, Chile, and $4.76 in Bangalore, India.

Of 482 cities researched by the portal Numbeo, São Paulo is only the 446th in the ranking of cigarette prices.

The low prices, however, do not increase tobacco popularity. Brazil is one of the countries with the lowest proportion of smokers in the world: only 15% of the population is addicted to nicotine.

Other things that are relatively inexpensive in the living cost in Brazil.

Uber is comparatively cheap in São Paulo, despite the high prices of gasoline. Likely this is related to the high amount of people interested in driving for ride-sharing apps.

Beef, even considering the recent price increases, is still cheaper than in most other middle-income countries.

Brazilians can also buy oranges — another product where Brazil is the largest global producer — for a fraction of the price that people from colder countries pay.

And, needless to say, it is very easy (and free) in Brazil to take pictures of splendid natural scenes.

Putting it all together, it is easy to see that in one way or another, all prices in Brazil that are cheap, are linked to the privileged natural characteristics of this gigantic country. Meanwhile, nearly everything that is expensive is affected by the precarious infrastructure and questionable government tax policies.

How Much Does It Cost to Live in Brazil

The cost of living in Sao Paulo, Florianopolis and Brasilia are the 3 highest in Brazil — The cost of living in São Paulo, Florianopolis and Brasilia are the 3 highest in Brazil

On average (and that considering prices all over Brazil), in the year 2022, a single person will need R$4886 per month to live in Brazil with a good standard of life. A family of four requires R$11.510.

Since Brazil is a country with a continental size and enormous economical differences between the states, the prices vary drastically from one part to the other. Considering the average cost of living as 100, researchers from CustodeVida arrived at the following breakdown per capital:

141	Brasília – DF
132	Florianópolis – SC
118	São Paulo – SP
111	Recife – PE
100	Belo Horizonte – MG
99	Cuiabá – MT
97	Porto Alegre – RS
92	Curitiba – PR
90	Rio de Janeiro – RJ
89	Belém – PA
86	Fortaleza – CE
85	Manaus – AM
81	Boa Vista – RR
80	Maceió – AL
75	Campo Grande – MS
74	Natal – RN
70	Porto Velho – RO
69	Aracaju – SE
67	Salvador – BA
65	Goiânia – GO
64	João Pessoa – PB
64	Palmas – TO
64	Rio Branco – AC
62	Teresina – PI
56	Vitória – ES

Prices in Brazil and cost of living in each state capital (Brazilian average = 100).

As an entrepreneur, the help I found on Fiverr and Freelancer.com was essential for a smooth beginning.

To Join Fiverr and start with a $20 Bonus, Click Here.

Join Freelancer using this link and earn a USD20 discount on your first purchase

If, living in Brazil, you can save money enough to invest, here is a list (in Portuguese) of the melhores livros sobre investimentos.

Brazil

Weird Laws in Brazil That Surprise Foreigners

Unusual and Weird Laws in Brazil

Since 1988, Brazilian authorities have created 5 million new norms and laws. This article about weird laws in Brazil shows just a small sample of them.

There is not a single book with all Brazilian laws. A lawyer tried to compile all the tax legislation in one volume. It became a behemoth of 41 266 pages printed in A0 paper (the largest type existent). The weight of the publication was 7 tons—more than an elephant.

In case the sheer absurdity of the size made you forget: the entire book was only about tax law.

It also affects entrepreneurs daring to venture in to Brazil:

Labor law
The Civil Code
Consumer rights
Corporate and business law, etc.

All of them are among the most complex codes in their areas on the entire planet. This is the reason Brazilian subsidiaries of global companies often have legal departments larger than their headquarters.

Brazilian firms spend, on average, 1958 hours per year only calculating their tax obligations. A time better used to develop new products or improve their services, but it is wasted untangling the odd game rules.

The World Bank compiles the Ease of Doing Business rank. It measures business regulations and how they affect small and medium-sized companies in 190 countries. New Zealand has the first position.

Brazil is in 124th place, below much poorer nations like Papua New Guinea, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Senegal.

Why is Brazilian Tax Law So Complex?

The average answer to this question is better than what most economists would say.

Laws are complicated because the Brazilian government is always hungry for money. The quickest and easier way to satiate this hunger is by creating new taxes.

In 1966, the national tax burden was 15% of the GDP. Only 35 years later, in 2001, this number jumped to 33%. It took less than a generation for the government to double the amount taken from everything produced in the country. Of all this money, 40% is used to pay debts, 40% goes for public payroll, and 18% for social security. The remaining 2% is shared by the rest — education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc.

Brazilian laws are expensive, obscure, and even ridiculous. Since you are not an entrepreneur there — if you are, you have my admiration — below are some examples of weird laws in Brazil to laugh about.

Weird Laws in Brazil Creating Jobs That Do Not Exist Nearly Anywhere Else

Brasília, the national capital, is the source of many of the existing stupid laws in Brazil

Imagine if in your country a law turned mandatory to employ an attendant in every elevator. His function would be only to press the floor buttons.

It sounds absurd, right?

Not in Brazil, where there is something similar. Not with elevators, but with gas stations. There, you cannot refuel your own car without help. Even if there are 4 pumps available and only one busy attendant (called frentista), you need to wait in line.

I traveled to 51 countries during the last decade and I saw nothing like it. It is literally illegal for you to pump gas into your vehicle because of a law created in 2000 and sanctioned by president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The reason for it? To preserve the health of drivers and keep the jobs of gas station attendants.

If the law’s purpose was to keep a job that makes little sense and instead increases the costs of fueling a car, congrats! Your idea succeeded, Mr. Rebelo.

Another profession that only exists in Brazil is the despachante de trânsito.

What does he do? He ensures your car documents, inspections, and fees are up to date.

Why would someone hire an expert for something so trivial?
Because dealing with the local traffic departments (DETRAN) is falling into a limbo of bureaucracy, winding corridors, and hours, maybe days, wasted.

Weird Laws in Brazil That Prohibit the Importation of Used Vehicles

One of the many weird laws in Brazil makes challenging to import used cars, increasing the prices of second-hand vehicles.

In Brazil, for most purposes, only imports of zero-km vehicles are allowed.

As a Brazilian that lives in Poland, that creates an extraordinary discrepancy for me. In Poland, a middle-class citizen can buy a used, but in good state, BMW or Mercedes — imported from neighboring Germany — for affordable prices.

This makes the average age of registered cars in Poland (14 years) much higher than in Brazil (10 years). Since Brazilians cannot import used cars from richer countries, they need to use only local models, often ripped from accessories available in Europe or the USA. Some of the economical cars available in Brazil, like the Renault Kwid or Fiat Mobi, would not be even sold in European countries because of safety concerns.

This prohibition, however, affects more than the market for second-hand cars. It also hits the industry and agriculture.

A Brazilian farmer has a restricted second-hand market of agricultural vehicles such as combines and tractors. Either he finds the money to purchase expensive new vehicles or resorts to agricultural cooperatives, where consortiums member purchase equipment and share it between their farms.

Congressman Marcel van Hattem filed for regulatory changes to liberalize vehicle imports.

The Weird Law Establishing That an Hour Has 52.5 Minutes

They compiled the Brazilian labor legislation in something called CLT, an acronym for Workers Law Consolidation in Portuguese.

Sounds like stuff created by collectivist bureaucrats during the 40s, right?

Because this is exactly what it is. The CLT is from 1943, conceived by the dictator Getulio Vargas. It has 922 articles and over 500 binding legal precedents.

It is a gold mine of odd stuff.

Article number 71, for example, provides that between 22:00 and 05:00, each hour has 52 minutes and 30 seconds. The intention behind this norm is to ensure that employees with night shifts earn an additional 7 minutes and 30 seconds per hour worked.

The collateral effects are prone-to-error procedures and complicated processes to calculate salaries.

Two-Years of Prescription for Labour Lawsuits + In Dubio Pro Operario

The period of prescription is the maximum time after an event that legal proceedings based on that event may be initiated. In other words, how long after an event you can sue (or be sued by) someone.

In most western countries, the period of prescription for labor lawsuits is a matter of weeks. Germany, for example, has fourteen days.

The Brazilian labor law, on the other side, establishes two years. This forces firms to keep documents, vouchers, receipts, timesheets, and even CCTV recordings for this entire time. The cost of keeping such a vast archive is considerable.

Considerable, but necessary. The Brazilian labor law uses an exotic inversion of the universally accepted principle of In Dubio Pro Reo (meaning guilty until proven otherwise). There, it becomes In Dubio Pro Operario(the employee is always right until proven otherwise).

If a firm suffers a lawsuit in the two years after a particular event (eg: employee termination), it is the company that should present all the documents to prove innocence. Otherwise, they are guilty.

Conclusion about Weird Laws in Brazil

I use the laws mentioned above as an example when someone asks me:

Why did you decide to open a business in Eastern Europe instead of in your home country?

But they are just drops in an ocean. The Brazilian labor law has almost 1000 articles. A book compilation of the tax legislation weighs 7 tons.

Since 1988, Brazilian legislators have created, on average, 4163 new laws or norms —

Per Day.

Some affected people I know — people brave enough to start a business in Brazil. One example is the (former) owner of the only cinema in my hometown. He received a fine for not exhibiting enough national movies. The product of a law created to favor Grupo Globo, a media giant that produces over 80% of all national films and has enormous influence among politicians.

However, national films are such a public failure that is often better to pay the fine.

One day he, as well as thousands of small business owners, just gave up doing business in Brazil. Some leave to other places far more attractive for entrepreneurs. Others become employees at large corporations.

Do you have any other examples of weird laws in Brazil? Tell us in the comments!

If you are an entrepreneur or are planning to start a business, here are some other articles that may be useful to you:

5 Books Every Entrepreneur Must Read This Year

The 7 Best Business Channels on YouTube in 2021

How to Rank Website on Google First Page

The 5 Top Fiverr Gigs for New Entrepreneurs and Creators

As an entrepreneur, the help I found on Fiverr and Freelancer.com was essential for a smooth beginning.

To Join Fiverr and start with a $20 Bonus, Click Here.

Join Freelancer using this link and earn a USD20 discount on your first purchase

Levi Borba is CEO of expatriateconsultancy.com, creator of the channel The Expat, and best-selling author. You can check his books here, his other articles here, or his LinkedIn here.

Brazil

Before Investing in Emerging Markets, You Should Have These…

The definition of developing economy hide some crucial elements.

Often, great opportunities hide behind dreadful risks. Anyone investing in emerging markets knows that. Risks are of a different magnitude in developing markets when compared to stable locations like Western Europe or the USA.

This is not bad at all. The definition of risk is the chance that an outcome or investment’s actual gains will differ from an expected outcome or return. Therefore, as much as it can cause losses above expectations, it can become profits above measure.

To catch the upper side of the risk tail, however, there are some features that both entrepreneurs and investors should have when venturing into emerging economies. Here, we consider emergent as a developing nation engaged with global markets showing characteristics from both developed and non-developed economies. As Investopedia puts:

Emerging market economies typically feature a unified currency, stock market, and backing system, and are in the process of industrializing.

Emerging market economies can offer greater returns to investors due to rapid growth, but also offer greater exposure to some inherent risks due to their status.

All the countries where I lived, worked, and started business in my life are emerging economies, although in different parts of the world — South America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. I also used my personal observations of non-mainstream emerging countries like Paraguay, Ethiopia, or Botswana.

Considering all this information, here are 3 essential things needed before investing in emerging markets.

Definition of Developing Economy

A developing economy, also known as an emerging market, means a country with a generally significant degree of financial development and security. Standard rules for assessing a nation’s degree of advancement are income per capita, the degree of industrialization, the overall way of life, and the economical matrix.

Noneconomic factors, for example, the human development index (HDI), which measures a nation’s degrees of income, education, and health into a single indicator, can likewise be utilized to assess the development level of a country. There are also some common characteristics among developing economies, like regional inequality, an element that is very present in places like Russia or South Africa.

Examples of developing economies: Turkey, Brazil, Russia, China, etc.

Survival Skills Under Tax Terrorism

Tax disputes are as Brazilian as string bikinis or samba. The Economist

When I tell my European friends that in Brazil, it is common local branches with larger legal units than their European headquarters; they ask me if this is not a waste of resources.

It is not, because Brazil and other emerging nations like India or — on a minor scale — Poland, live under a regime of tax terrorism.

In the same way that firms in war zones like Iraq or Sudan must invest extra resources in security, firms in countries like Brazil or India need to protect themselves against the vast government’s hunger for money.

Since I opened my first business in Poland, I couldn’t stop seeing similarities with the Brazilian complex, dubious, and expensive tax regime.

In Poland, inheritance of practices from the communist era explains this — the monetary surveillance apparatus and the need to take resources from private to public hands. Curiously, Brazil has a post-communist tax system without never being communist itself.

Complicated fiscal controls are almost a rule in these markets. In the Tax complexity index compiled by the Paderborn University and LMU Munich, of the 7 most complex systems, 6 are in emerging economies — the other is Italy. There are, however, emerging countries with simple taxes and low bureaucracy: Georgia, or Macedonia, for example.

Three points to expect from tax laws when you are investing in emerging markets are:

They are constantly changing and you must be up to date. Excuses like “I was not aware of the recent changes” are rejected in court.
They are dubious, paving the way to free interpretation by government officials and to corruption.
The universal principle of in dubio pro reo(meaning that you are innocent until proven guilty) is regularly ignored. There are situations where the entrepreneur must prove his innocence, that he paid his taxes, etc. This results in an enormous amount of registries, archives, and bureaucracy.

Middle-Class Focus: Affordability with (some) quality

Researchers often separate the middle from the lower classes by income. This may lead to wrong assumptions if you do not consider local prices or economic changes.

I prefer another definition: what differs them is their ability to spend larger portions of income on items other than food. Things like household durables, holidays, and leisure.

Therefore, a growing middle class results in an explosive demand for non-basic items like cars, electronics, digital services, food delivery, etc.

This demand has a singular characteristic in emerging markets: anchored prices. The rising middle class will often expect items of superior qualities but for prices anchored by their previous, lower-income.

The immense market of 1.0 engine cars in Brazil is an example of how the automotive industry adapted an item (cars) for the purchasing power of the local middle class. Many of the vehicles sold in Brazil, like the Volkswagen Gol, were domestically developed, stripping out accessories to reduce the price and increase affordability while keeping a modern, pleasant design. The Gol was the best-selling car in Brazil for 27 consecutive years, from 1987 to 2014. Later it went to other emerging markets like Argentina, where it also turned into a best-seller.

The skyrocketing increase in the middle-class size in India, Brazil, China, or Indonesia includes almost two billion people, spending nearly $7 trillion per year. A figure that can reach $20 trillion during the next decade and be akin to the growth experienced by Post-War Europe, as explained by David Court and Laxman Narasimhan for McKinsey Quarterly:

These new spenders offer an opportunity for early winners to gain lasting advantages, just as companies in Europe and the United States did at similar points in their development. In 17 product categories in the United States, for example, we found that the market leader in 1925 remained the number-one or number-two player for the rest of the century. These companies include Kraft Foods (Nabisco), which led in biscuits; Del Monte Foods, in canned fruit; and Wrigley, in chewing gum.

Awareness of the Transitional Nature of Investing in Emerging Markets

I will not state the obvious fact that emerging economies are volatile. Even kids building sandcastles know that.

Emerging markets have a feature that is confused with volatility: the fickle nature of their economies.

If volatility is the daily temperature change, the transitional nature is the seasonal fluctuations. But here, we don’t know when winter finishes or summer starts.

Nothing defines better this concept than 2 covers from The Economist:

In 2009, the British magazine had an image of the Christ Redeemer (the most well-known Brazilian landmark) taking off under the title Brazil takes off. The main article had an optimistic tone about the South-American country and excellent projections.
In 2012, the same magazine had a similar cover, but this time the Christ Redeemer was falling, under the title Has Brazil blown it?. The main article had a pessimistic tone and gloomy forecasts for the Brazilian economy.

Less than 4 years separated both covers. Less than 4 years between wonderful perspectives and a dark future. The same happened with Turkey, which less than 10 years ago was considered a Breakout Nation by fund managers like Ruchir Sharma, and now is far from attractive for most investors.

These changes are not to be considered volatility because they are part of a longer trend, not daily or weekly fluctuations.

The conversion from a closed to an open market economy also affects the nature of emerging markets. To accomplish this, they try to promote international trade and focus on industry or services. Sometimes reducing their protective tariffs to diversify their exports and imports. Sometimes reducing restrictions on creating and operating businesses within their own country.

When these changes generate the desired results for society and governments, these emerging economies keep climbing the ladder. But when they fail, revolutions, armed coups or impeachments come to the surface.

Conclusion About Investing in Emerging Markets

Venturing in emerging markets is not the same as starting a business in Western Europe, it has its own risks and opportunities (especially when you consider the complicated moment of mature markets like the USA).

There are three characteristics that an investor or entrepreneur should have before investing in emerging markets:

Survival skills under tax-terrorism, because of government changes and economical downturns resulting in complicated, dubious, and unstable fiscal laws.
Middle-class focus, looking for affordability with decent quality. The growing middle class in emerging countries has free income to spend on goods other than food. They desire quality with affordability, since lower salaries may still anchor their price perception.
Awareness of the transitional nature of emerging economies. Everyone knows that emerging markets are volatile, but they are also transient. That means entire trends going upside down in a matter of a few years, and a promising, exciting nation becoming a collapsed society — and vice versa.

If you are an entrepreneur (or is planning to become one), I bet these two posts below may be helpful:

The 5 Top Fiverr Gigs for New Entrepreneurs and Creators

How to Rank Website on Google First Page in only 10 Months

Brazil

Moving to Brazil? Here Is What You Must Know

Reasons to move to Brazil and the best places to live.

Listen to “Reasons to Move to Brazil (WAIT, WHAT?🤔)” on Spreaker.

If you tell most Brazilians (even myself) that you want to leave a stable, developed country because you are moving to Brazil, they will get surprised. In fact, often Brazilians are moving to Europe due to issues such as safety.

After the astonishment comes the question: Why do people move to brazil?

While individuals in cities with higher living standards – like Curitiba – may give you a few reasons, this will not be the case for most of the country. In fact, it is more likely that they will upfront inform you of some challenges you will face.

And challenges are plenty, as are opportunities.

In this article we will tell you:

Is Brazil a good place to live?
Reasons to move to Brazil.
Reasons to not move to Brazil
Cost of living in Brazil
Best places to live in Brazil for expats
The safest place to live in Brazil
Best place to live in Brazil for pensioners
Best paying city in Brazil for english teachers

Is Brazil a Good Place to Live?

Short Answer: It is if you earn your income in Dollars or Euros (not relying on the unstable Real exchange rates) and is planning to live in a place like Florianopolis, one of the best cities in the world for remote workers, Brazil is a good place to live. For other cases, better check the reasons to move to Brazil (or not) below.

Reasons to Not Move to Brazil

1 – How far away is Brazil…

Brazil is far from Europe or North America, and either you will spend considerable money on airline tickets, or you will see your family and friends rarely.

If you live in Europe, only a few of the major cities (mostly in Western Europe) have flight connections with Brazil. The majority of those flights depart either from São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. If you live outside those two cities, you will need to purchase an additional domestic flight or bus ticket. The roads in Brazil (outside a few states like São Paulo) are not in the best conditions and bus rides can be tough.

Americans are luckier since prices from Brazil to the USA tend to be cheaper than to Europe.

2 – Inequality in Brazil may confuse foreigners.

And here I am not only talking about economical, but also social and cultural inequality.

Brazil is one of the most diverse countries on the planet, therefore advantages – and disadvantages – often do not apply to all states.

When we say Brazil is like this or Brazil is like that, likely we are rather talking about specific regions instead of general concepts.

Phrases like “In Brazil they horrible highways!” will sound obvious to someone living in Tocantins, but unfair to a São Paulo state resident – used to their world-class, toll-charged roads.

A similar statement applies to popular behaviors. In general, Curitibanos (people from Curitiba) are considerably more reserved than Cariocas (from Rio de Janeiro).

3 – Brazil is not a serious country

Here I may get a bit polemical, but…

The shock for most westerners in Brazil is not cultural shock per se, but rather a structural shock, be it from the legal, governmental, or even behavioral aspects.

Prices are not clearly stated anywhere; instead, there are always hidden costs and fees that you only discover after you’ve made the purchase. There are always signs with “prices starting at…” but that doesn’t help when you don’t know what they’re starting at.

People are not punctual, laws are created and canceled from nowhere and with no notice…

Even with all those contrasting characteristics, the biggest reason for the shock is not the population’s behavior alone. Cultural shock, in its 4 dimensions, might be heavier for non-westerners. However, the biggest challenges people question us about are the heavy bureaucracy, complicated tax system, and warped sense of urgency from public offices.

Reasons to move to Brazil

1 – Instability creates opportunities

The constant ups-and-downs of the Brazilian economy have its own idiomatic expression by the locals: Vôo de Galinha (chicken flights), due to its short-lived duration.

While this instability creates the need for safeguards like a low-risk (and often dollarized) savings account, varied investment portfolio, and multiple sources of income, it comes with few advantages.

Not everyone can protect themselves against one or two economic turmoils per decade. Therefore, after each one of them, the survivors have plenty of good-quality real estate, assets, and even companies to invest in for advantageous prices.

2 – The exchange rate is very favorable, for now.

With the devaluation of the Real against the dollar, living in Brazil as an American became cheaper.

The constant economic turmoils, especially in the last two decades, created an opportunity for people with income in foreign currency: the exchange rates.

Brazilian Reais lost nearly 70% of their value in the last decade. With this devaluation came some serious bargains, like beachfront apartments in one of the best state capitals for less than 500 dollars per month.

3 – Moving to Brazil for work might be a good idea in 2022.

Also, because of the exchange rate and the constant depreciation of the Brazilian currency, people with the ability to work for jobs that pay in foreign currency can find a sweet spot there.

Traveling abroad can be fun and exciting, but it is not always easy to get a working visa in other countries. In some cases, you may even have to send your resume to several companies until one of them decides to hire you. This can take months.

However, in January of 2022, Brazil changed its visa rules in an effort to attract more digital nomads.

One-year visas will be issued to foreign professionals who work remotely while based in Brazil. Professionals can apply for the digital nomad visa at any Brazilian consulate, presenting proof of their remote worker status as well as documents such as an employment contract with an international organization, health insurance, and proof of availability of means of subsistence in Brazil.

4 – With the local currency devaluated, you can find cheap beach houses for sale in Brazil.

Brazil is a good country for remote workers or pensioners looking for a beach house, and Santa Catarina is one of the favorite destinations.

With the above-mentioned favorable exchange rate, and the recent easing of procedures to purchase real estate, some parts of Brazil are becoming attractive for those seeking a sunny place to escape from the north-hemisphere winter.

Foreigners have become increasingly interested in purchasing beachfront properties in Brazil since the 2014 World Cup. Prices are still very reasonable, and there are some excellent opportunities available.

Purchasing a beach house in Brazil is a popular option for those seeking a warmer climate, less expensive real estate, and an easy path to land ownership.

Brazil is one of the world’s most popular summer destinations. Flight prices from Europe to Brazil are quite high during the summer, when most Europeans take their vacations because everyone wants to escape the winter cold. However, if you purchase a beach house in Brazil, you will be able to visit it anytime at a fraction of the cost. It’s like getting two airplane seats: one for your flight to Brazil and another for your flight back home!

In fact, if you live in London, buying a beach house in Brazil would be less expensive than renting an apartment in London during the same period!

To buy a beach house in Brazil is also an attractive idea for pensioners and retirees, which have an additional advantage, mentioned below.

5 – Private hospitals in Brazil are frequently of world-class caliber.

Brazil has a universal healthcare system (SUS). Its quality, however, is questionable when compared to international standards.

The same does not apply to private healthcare services in metropolitan regions like São Paulo or cities with high-standard medical universities, like Ribeirão Preto.

The city of São Paulo alone has 2 hospitals among the 100 best in the world.

Brazilians often will say that private healthcare is expensive – especially when considering the local reality – but compared to similar standards abroad, the prices are considerably lower. The cost of giving birth at Hospital Albert Einstein (the 38^th best hospital in the world) is less than four thousand dollars, compared to the 32.140 dollars estimated by Mayo Clinic.

Cost of Living in Brazil

1 – Cost of education in Brazil

The widespread middle-class habit of sending kids to private schools may be a surprise, especially for Europeans used to decent public educational systems.

Brazil also has a public education system with national coverage. But the quality is truly awful (with few exceptions, like schools kept by research centers or armed forces).

It is enough to say that Brazil is among the 10 worst countries in the PISA international ranking.

There are also safety concerns, with many schools harboring gangs and used as recruitment fields for criminal organizations.

Given the near-necessity of sending children to private education, expatriates must consider those costs. Ideally, education possibilities should be researched in advance (Colligere Expat Consultancy can help you with it).

Another surprise may arise from the lack of vacancies in some private schools and the application of admission tests due to the high demand.

2 – Health

The considerations in this point are very similar to the ones regarding education.

Brazil has a free-of-charge and universal healthcare system, but unless you live in cities with high-quality public medical schools, you would be taking additional risks relying on it.

The SUS (Brazil public healthcare system) lags far away from similar systems like the British NHS – which is understandable considering the wealth differences between Brazil and The United Kingdom.

With an ample offer of planos de saúde (the local version of healthcare insurance operators), foreigners moving to Brazil should look for one with good local coverage and reviews.

3 – Security (The Most Crucial Point When Moving to Brazil)

Is Brazil a good place to live? Because of violence, many people give a negative answer to this question.

Unless you lived in a war zone like Iraq or Somalia, it is unlikely that you ever imagined spending money on electric fences, infrared movement detectors or even hiring armed guards for your house or ranch. In Brazil, if you live outside a guarded apartment block in a metropolitan zone, it may be the case.

On the other hand, if you live in a closed apartment block, most of them have fees (taxa de condomínio) to pay for the security and conservation of the common areas.

Additionally, expatriates with children should consider the costs of private transportation to and from schools in big cities. Rarely is responsible to let them go alone.

The Best Places to Live in Brazil

Hopefully, the extra costs listed above were not enough to make you give up moving to Brazil. Now it is time for some good points. Starting by the best place places to live in Brazil, according to your stage in life.

1 – Best places to live in Brazil for expats

If you are looking for professional opportunities allied with an entrepreneurial environment and leisure possibilities, coastal cities like Florianopolis – the capital of Santa Catarina is the place to go for Digital Nomads and technology entrepreneurs – and Santos comes first in the rankings.

They have the additional benefit of living standards better than huge cities. However, in sectors like finance, banking and services it is unlikely to escape from the duo São Paulo-Rio. We wrote another article to solve your doubts about whether São Paulo is safe.

2 – The Safest Place to Live in Brazil

Best place to live in Brazil for families. Jundiai is only 59km from the financial center of São Paulo. Source: Wikimedia Commons — Jundiai is only 59km from the financial center of São Paulo, the place where most expats live in Brazil.

Sao Paulo is the safest place to live in Brazil. Remember that there is both a state and a city with this name. The city is the capital of the state, which has a safe and developed countryside. Families with working adults will find their place in cities like Ribeirao Preto or Jundiai. They are close to the economical center of Brazil.

Their plus?

The price of an apartment in a good neighborhood in São Paulo (capital) is similar to a comfortable house there in the countryside. They are also safer, with a cleaner atmosphere and have cheaper schools.

3 – Best place to live in Brazil for pensioners

Curiously, the same cities that top the list for young professionals are also the first here: Florianopolis and Santos. In the ranking made by the portal Envelhecer Sem Vergonha, completing the top 5 are Porto Alegre (capital of Rio Grande do Sul state), Niterói (Rio de Janeiro state), and São José do Rio Preto (São Paulo state). All of them have good scores in terms of quality of life and health services.

4 – Best paying city in Brazil for english teachers

Brazil is a very diverse country, and the pay rates vary greatly depending on where you work. Cities like São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Florianopolis are three of the best paying cities in Brazil for English teachers.

According to Glassdoor, the average salary for a native or certified English teacher in São Paulo is $2300 per month. This is far more than most Brazilians earn.

But where do most expats live in Brazil?

The answer is easy: the majority live either in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. Below you will discover in which parts of these cities they live.

Where Do Expats Live in Sao Paulo

The city of Sao Paulo has over 12 million inhabitants, and it is the third-largest metropolitan city in the world. As such, it has many different neighborhoods and districts that suit a variety of lifestyles. Some of the most popular areas for foreign residents are Jardins, Itaim Bibi, and Vila Madalena.

Vila Madalena

This neighborhood is known as the bohemian district of Sao Paulo. It is popular with expats who are looking to live a more artistic lifestyle and be surrounded by like-minded people. The neighborhood also has a large number of bars and restaurants, which makes it popular with younger expatriates.

Itaim Bibi (a favorite of American IT professionals moving to brazil).

This area is one of the most affluent districts in Sao Paulo and attracts visitors who are interested in high-end shopping, dining, and nightlife. The district also has many modern buildings, reflecting its more recent development status compared to other neighborhoods such as Vila Madalena.

Jardins

This area contains some of the best real estate in the city and caters to those who have a higher budget. Jardins is located in the west zone of Sao Paolo and includes Avenida Paulista, which contains many museums, shops, and theatres.

Where Do Expats Live in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro is a city that attracts many expatriates. Some are here for the climate, for the beaches, or because of corporate headquarters located there. Most of them will live in southern districts, like Ipanema, Leblon, Barra da Tijuca or Copacabana.

Ipanema and Leblon

These two neighboring districts are probably the most well-known in Rio de Janeiro. They are home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world: Ipanema and Leblon.

As a result of this beauty, they have become extremely popular with expatriates, especially Americans and Europeans. The reason is simple: they offer a unique lifestyle. You can walk or jog near the beach, go biking along the lake or have lunch at one of many restaurants overlooking the sea.

The apartments tend to be luxurious and spacious, making them ideal for families, especially if you work in Rio’s South Zone: Barra da Tijuca, São Conrado, or Jardim Oceânico.

Copacabana

If you want to be closer to downtown Rio de Janeiro, Copacabana is an excellent choice. The neighborhood has had its ups and downs over time but it has now been revitalized by a series of projects for the Summer Olympics and the FIFA World Cup that Brazil hosted.

Why Do People Move to Brazil

1st: Because Brazil is relatively unstable. This means opportunities.

2nd: The exchange rate is very favorable, for now. Your dollars or euros will buy more for less.

3rd: Moving to Brazil for work might be a good idea in 2022.

4th: With the local currency devaluated, you can find cheap beach houses for sale in Brazil.

5th: Private hospitals in Brazil are frequently of world-class caliber.

Should I Move to Brazil?

The conclusion to this article about moving to Brazil is: if you considered the Pros and Cons above (and have an income in foreign currency), and this large country still attracts you, yes you should!

The idea of a foreigner leaving his country and moving to Brazil may surprise Brazilians more than other nationalities.

In part, due to self-depreciation, in part due to an idealization of life out of their own country made by telenovelas.

Brazil has a continental size and continental contrasts. The idea of moving should balance with a careful provision for the additional costs (namely: education, health, and security) and particular characteristics of each region. While northern regions are rich in natural gifts (with some of the most beautiful places in Brazil to take pictures), the southern portion tends to have better standards of life and infrastructure.

Overall, there will be a region in Brazil matching your current professional needs and stage in life. With favorable exchange rates and recent turmoils, there are plenty of investment opportunities, affordable real estate, and business possibilities.

What are your thoughts? In your opinion, is Brazil a good place to live? Is there any other cost you think people should consider when moving to Brazil? Are there any other reasons you know about why do people move to Brazil?

If you enjoyed this article about moving to Brazil, we also recommend:

Is Rio de Janeiro Safe? The reality about how safe is Rio de Janeiro is not what you imagine.

The 8 Safest Big Cities in the US Right Now

Author: Levi Borba, founder of Colligere Expat Consultancy, former RM specialist for the world´s greatest airline, co-founder of Nearby Airport Hostel Warsaw, and author of the book Moving Out, Living Abroad and Keeping Your Sanity. You can check some of his articles here.