Travel To Brazil Alone
Traveling with friends or family may seem like the best way to see the world. They are the people you love talking to, you like spending time with them and you enjoy experiencing moments together.
Some people are afraid of doing things alone; going to catch a movie or grabbing a bite to eat is impossible unless there is someone to do it with them.
But for the lone ranger who has no qualms with taking life head on with no one else, check out why you should travel to Brazil alone at least once.
Doing What You Want On Your Time
People Can Slow You Down
Have you ever wanted to do something, but your friend, significant other or family member just didn’t have the energy or desire to get up and go with you?
Traveling abroad will not change your buddy’s personality.
Some people aren’t cut out for adventurous traveling. I know a few people who rarely want to leave their home city, let alone go to another country.
They don’t see any benefits of traveling. Don’t beg these type of people to go with you. They will frustrate you and keep you from getting all that you can out of Brazil.
People Can Hold You Up
On the other hand, they can keep you TOO busy tending to their wants and needs.
You may be the traveler who loves to sit down somewhere and soak up the sun on the beach while reading a book or having a drink. But your best friend would rather climb a mountain or para glide off one!
Significant others or older family members going to Brazil with you can be even worse.
I love the older crowd, but they can’t keep up in regards to walking, catching the bus/taxis and learning different cultures without wasting A LOT of time.
I know you love your dad, but he might need your love too much during your trip and that will hurt your vacation.
Also, no man can enjoy Brazil the way he really wants to with his wife or girlfriend tagging along.
Your head will be turning back almost 24/7 while in Rio; you won’t be able to control your eyes for too long and it’s inevitable that your woman will catch you taking a peek.
Good luck to the guys who plan on taking their girl with them to Brazil. You’ll need it.
The Benefits Of Traveling Alone
1) Meet More People
Brazil is the land of friendship and family. And sometimes its easier to meet new friends when you don’t have a companion going everywhere with you.
Whether you’re riding a bus or eating at a boteco, when you are alone you will think more about talking to total strangers and finding out more about them.
In regards to going to a Brazilian club or party alone, I know many guys are apprehensive about it.
If you haven’t been to a club in the United States alone, how could you possibly go to a club in a foreign country and succeed?!
Easy.
This is what you do. First of all, you should never go to the club or party alone if you are in bad mood or don’t feel well.
You won’t have a good night and will just waste your time. A couple of hours before the club, you should get a drink or two at a boteco and chat it up with the bartender and other people to get in a social mood.
I find it best to drink just enough to feel tipsy. Feel social, but not enough to feel almost drunk.
Try to get to the club a little early, say around 10PM before it’s too packed. You don’t want to show up when everyone is already stationed in their spots.
And you also want to talk to people in line. Use your gringo status to your advantage; speak in Portuguese and make friends before going inside the club.
As you go in, you feel more comfortable knowing you already “know people there”. But you don’t know them enough to slow you down interacting with everyone else, especially the women.
Getting a woman at the club alone is a great achievement by itself. Doing it alone, overseas and in a different language brings twice the confidence boost.
Every time I go to Brazil, I meet someone new who I stay in contact with after I leave. Would I meet so many people if I already had a friend with me everyday? Maybe. Maybe not.
2) Your Portuguese Will Improve Faster
When you travel to Brazil alone, you are not only forced to make friends or else you run the chance of having an AWFUL, lonely trip; you are also forced to speak in PORTUGUESE.
You won’t have your friend there to talk to in English all the time.
You can cheat and seek out other tourists or Brazilians who speak English.
But you’re only hurting yourself. If you are the type of person who isn’t afraid to travel alone, I assume you are looking for more out of a trip besides meeting other foreigners or getting Instagram photo likes.
You get an adrenaline rush being in Brazil alone and figuring out how to order something or how to get somewhere without English.
If you have studied Portuguese enough and are using it, your success doing everything alone will boost your self-confidence and motivate you to continue learning the language.
3) Become A Better Decision Maker
“Should I Stay In This Van?”
“Which Way Should I Go?”
“Ok, So I’m doing 3 nights in Sao Paulo, 4 in Rio and I might go to Salvador for the last 2, let me plan this out.”
You learn a lot about making the right decisions going to a foreign country alone.
You’re on your own time without a specific purpose or daily schedule that comes with other international trips like volunteer work, study abroad programs and business assignments.
No one is there to hold your hand. As soon as you land in Brazil, the clock starts and you have no one to tell you what to do or how you should do it.
There’s power in decision-making. Calling all the shots with no one else’s input builds character and a skill set for success.
The Worst Of All
People Can Convince You Not To Travel
I had no idea so many people had foreign cities on their bucket list, but didn’t go due to the fact that their mother, father, best friend, or even a stranger told them NOT to go.
“You’ll get robbed!”
“It’s dangerous over there, people get kidnapped all the time”
The media uses scare tactics to keep U.S. citizens from traveling to certain countries.
They just can’t flat-out tell you NOT to go somewhere.
But they will feed specific images and statistics to the public to get their message across. How many people do you know won’t go to any country in Africa because of the propaganda spread on television and online?
Unfortunately, people who don’t know anything about said countries will pass the message on and scare you into not taking that trip you once wanted to take. Don’t let them.
The only two groups of people who should be cautious of traveling alone are women and elderly people. Even then, I have met PLENTY of women and people over 60 who travel to Brazil alone. What’s your excuse?
If there was one country that I’d recommend you to travel to alone, it would be Brazil.
It’s friendly and relatively safe so that you shouldn’t have any problems being by yourself; it’s also exotic enough where you will learn a lot of new things and return to your native country a different, more positive person.
There are great reasons why you should travel with your friends and family. But traveling alone is like having a personal journal or diary; there’s something enlightening and special about experiencing the world on your own.