What's up guys? One of those frequently asked questions that I get from non-Brazilians about the time that I spent living and traveling around Brazil is Brazil safe to go visit as a tourist. Now if you've seen a couple of my other videos you know that I like to ask other non-Brazilians what they think or what they know about Brazil. Stereotypes about Brazil are pretty universal around the world of talk to Europeans, of talk to North Americans, and the majority of non-Brazilians know the classic stereotypes about soccer, about the beaches, the beautiful women, they talk about carnival. But there are a few people or groups of people who ask me or talk to me about the violence in Brazil and the crime on the street. And as somebody who's traveled to a lot of different countries around the world I know that something I always do before I visit a country is look into how safe the country is, how safe is it to walk down the street, how safe is it to go out at night, how safe is it to enter into a neighborhood that you know nothing about and just walk around. So hopefully I can give you a few tips from my experience living in Brazil and traveling around Brazil, if you're thinking about going and visiting this amazing country. And for a country almost as big as the United States in area and population, the fact that they only receive about 7 million tourists, international tourists, the year blows my mind. So hopefully I can share with you guys some of my experiences and encourage you all to go down and visit Brazil. Now I'm going to go over some of the negative stereotypes that I hear a lot about Brazil. If somebody has seen the films like City of God or Elite Squad, they have this glorified idea of what Brazilian cities are like. Now there are favelas in every city. When you go to a major city in Brazil or not even a major city but like a city of 100,000, 200,000 people, there are always going to be these areas of the city that are favelas that are areas that people lay claim to and constructed, make shift halges and they live there. So they are a main part of every city in Brazil. But going down there as a tourist and following some of the tips that I'm going to give you later in the video, you're not really going to have too much interaction with the favelas. You might pass through on the highway, but you're not really going to be in a situation where you're going to be in a favela and feel like you're in danger. Now I actually got the chance to go visit a favela for the first time this year in São Paulo. It's one of the most famous favelas in the entire country. It is something that's becoming more touristic when you're visiting these bigger cities in Brazil. I heard a tour guy so we went out with some local residents of the favela, stopped off at their community center, saw some of the good things that were happening within the favela and it really opened my eyes to the fact that yes, the majority of drug activity in Brazil happens in these favelas. There are also communities of people who are just living normal lives. So if you're interested in doing something like going to visit a favela and Rio or São Paulo, those options are available. Some Brazilians that I talked to don't really agree with this type of tourism. One Brazilians told me that it's like you're in a fishbowl driving through looking at animals in a zoo. That was the analogy that they used. But the experience I had was really enlightening and I didn't interview with a young man who is becoming a doctor. He's from the favela and he's talking about how it's a community and he wants when he becomes a doctor, he wants to return to the community and give back to the community. So anyway, if you're interested in doing that, it's definitely a possibility that there are safe ways to go visit the favelas and see what it's like there. But just know that not everybody 100% agrees with that type of tourism. Something else I could ask about a lot is about street crime in Brazil. So it's pretty common here, some of the social media sites that I visit on a regular basis. Every once in a while, I'll see a video. It'll be an attempted robbery or an attempted carjacking. And kind of a meme on the internet has become, oh, this must be in Brazil when you can't really tell. You know that it's in a South American country based on how the people are dressed and the cars and everything. And then they'll be a comment with somebody saying, oh, it must be, it has to be Brazil. Whenever you see this type of video, it's always in Brazil. For a lot of people, I know that that's the only contact that they have with Brazilian culture is seeing these videos on on YouTube or on Reddit or on Facebook and they don't get the whole picture of what Brazil really is like. Now, I lived in Brazil for 14 months and I never saw any type of violence like this. I was never assaulted, I was never robbed. I do know people that have been robbed. I do know people whose homes have been broken into. But I also know people here in the United States that this has happened to. Yes, this type of stuff exists, but it also exists here. It also exists in Europe. It also exists anywhere else in the world that has big cities and lots of people. Traveling around a lot of the big cities in Europe has also taught me to be very mindful of your surrounding. In Barcelona, they have a big problem with pick pocketing, same thing in London. So when you're in those cities, you kind of have to always be looking over your shoulder. It's the same idea in Brazil, just maybe a little bit more heightened. So what I always tell my friends when they came to visit me in Brazil or my family is that if you don't have to have your phone out or be talking on your phone, just put it in your pocket. Walk down the street, put it in your pocket, make yourself less likely to become a target. Not like I said, nothing has ever happened to me, but I have heard stories about people walking down the street and somebody comes buying grabs their phone and runs off or takes off on a motorcycle. But I've also heard about that happening in Asia. So it's something that I'm kind of used to as a traveler and I think if you guys are thinking about going to Brazil too, most likely you've traveled other countries in the world before. So you know that you just always have to be mindful of what's happening around you. And talking about walking on the street. So let's say you fly into Rio your first night there, you're really excited and you want to go walking around. If you're staying in one of the tourist areas, you can always go to the hotel and ask, hey, can I go walk around? Is this safe for me to go walk around in this area? It's just a general sense of understanding where you are, what you're doing. Do I need to be walking across the city at night when I can take a taxi? These little decisions that you make as a savvy traveler. Unless you're planning on going there and just, you know, in a backpack and walking in one direction in a major city and hoping for the best, you're going to be fine. Go to your hotel, ask about tours that the city has. I've been to Rio de Janeiro and there's this other really awesome city called Falls de Guasu and they have these waterfalls and it makes, I think it's like seven times bigger than Niagara Falls. It's just an incredible place. But when I go to these new places, I always get a tour guide. Even my wife was Brazilian, she says the best thing to do is just get a tour guide. That's the best way to do it. In Rio, you can see like Christ the Redeemer impound you a sucker in the same day with a couple other stops along the way too. And it's not that expensive. That's another reason why I love traveling in Brazil because if you're from the United States or you're from Europe, your money is going to go farther when you're traveling in Brazil than it would, you know, traveling around Europe in the United States. The exchange rate right now is really good for people who are going down there with dollars or euros. So you can hire a tour guide for the day and with transportation and food included and I think in Rio is around a hundred dollars a person. So the tourism in Brazil is really reasonably priced so that you can experience a lot with the tour guide and not have to pay a small fortune to do it. A couple of other general tips I have for you guys, if you're going to go down there, at least, you know, the first time you go, I wouldn't recommend using an Airbnb. Especially if you don't speak any Portuguese because of my experience with Airbnb's in Brazil, only a handful of the hosts actually speak English. So when you need to ask for directions or ask about the neighborhood, that kind of thing, it's harder to do that with Airbnb hosts than it is with hotels because hotels will always have somebody who can speak English, set you up with tour guides, explain how to get around the city. So hotels are generally a good idea. The other thing that's really, really cool about Brazil, they have these things called Posadas and they're kind of like bed and breakfast and mixed with a resort but just smaller than a resort and usually they'll be like 10 or 15 rooms and they'll have a pool or reception or restaurant or bar but they're also kind of quaint. The customer service is amazing. Some of the best meals I've had in Brazil have been at these little Posadas, these little hotels in various parts of the country. So Posadas and hotels instead of Airbnb's would be my recommendation. But yeah, like I said, Brazil is an incredible place with incredible people. So I hope you guys have learned a few things about Brazil and traveling down there in this video and I hope I've convinced you that Brazil really is a safe place to travel and it's super, super worth it.