Once you get past the sticker shock of the cost of a round-trip flight to Brazil (around $1,000...I mean, I knew that flights were not cheap, but $1,000??), the author offers some good ideas about how to keep your other costs down. Even if you follow the author's advice about booking a cheaper flight, the best he could do was around $900, but every dollar or real counts.
Other ideas include not traveling to Rio during Carnival, New Year's, or other busy times, and finding lodging away from high-priced areas like Ipanema or Copacabana. After a limited stay in Rio (too expensive to spend your entire vacation there) the author recommends traveling elsewhere. He rules out an Amazon adventure ("Too far, too pricey, too complicated") and instead, recommends exploring the state of Minas Gerais.
He offers suggestions on how to keep your restaurant costs under control, basically by not eating at restaurants, but instead buying your food by the kilo, or from a "lanchonete" or a juice stand. For lodging, he suggests searching out a good pousada.
He recommends learning some Portuguese, warning tourists that "Your Spanish might help, but not as much as you think."
My favorite line was this one: "Rio, São Paulo and the other big cities are not nearly as dangerous as you might think from watching Brazilian movies like … well, like just about all of them." So it wasn't just my imagination that a lot of Brazilian movies deal with crime and violence.
Be sure to read the entire post if you're planning on traveling to Brazil. The author promises more tips in an upcoming post, too, so stay tuned.
This is really good information....obviously it's apparent that Brazil (and Rio in specific) has become very expensive in the past years, which sucks. Honestly though, the western hemisphere as a whole has become much more expensive over the past 7 or so years. I remember the first time I went to Mexico (and fell in love with it and the people) there were like 20 pesos per dollar or something, but now its only around 11! Ugh!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I think Brazilian movies are over the top on the violence, but Brazilians are very dramatic people so that too makes sense. Ha!!
Good tips. They should also have mentioned that there are plenty of free touristic activities in Rio.
ReplyDeleteBut it is freakishly expensive! I have, by the way, heard of tickets as low as $800 if you keep your eye out. Of course you may have to stop 300,000 times but it saves you money! ;)
Rachel
www.rachelsrantings.com