禁漫天堂

07/18/25聽 Welcome, William!聽 It sounds like your Brazilian adventure has been going well so far.聽 Glad to have you here.

Hey Expat People,
Hope this finds you all in good spirits. I鈥檓 [William].

I鈥檝e spent the last four years diving into life in Rio and Fortaleza, and I鈥檓 super excited to join the ride here with all of you. I鈥檓 a massive [Brazillian Steak and Fish) lover and so-so surfer

Would love to get to know more about you folks 鈥� maybe even jam with some of you.

Let鈥檚 catch up soon, maybe over a coffee break?

Cheers
Will - @Will Hewitt

Hi Will, welcome, this is a good place to be.

I am originally from Iceland, but spent most of my life in the USA. Doing what all Icelanders culturally do, I have traveled, a lot, to many countries, and to most of those, many times. I have been coming to Brazil for about eighteen years, I am a CRNM Permeant Brazilian Resident spending about half of my time now in Brazil. I've owned a couple of cars and apartments in Brazil and drive here, a lot. Best of luck to you, I love Brazil

appreciate the 鈥渉ello.鈥�

Ray , how do you find driving in Brazil. Got my Brazilian DL. Recently almost bought a second hand Toyota pickup鈥� at the last minute鈥� got cold feet鈥� walked away.

im prone to making dumb decisions.

19 July 2025

Welcome to the forum, Will.

Re: expat meeting - what city is your base in Brazil?聽 I know that there are small but good groups of expats in Jo茫o Pessoa, Recife, and Ilha de Itamarac谩.聽 I am also aware that there are groups in other areas, Rio, S茫o Paulo, Manaus, etc....

My suggestion for getting coffee is to propose a meeting date and place where you are or will be.聽 I tend to schedule this as a new thread but the expat.com site allows members to post events (under the top right link) and you can get attendance information.

Brazil is a great place to visit and I am sure that you will be able to connect with many expats almost everywhere.

Good luck.

Hi Pablo ! Appreciate the advice. Split my time between Rio (south zone) and have some friends I visit in fortaleza.

im always up for coffee meetup in leblon or ipanema. Happy to share my journey and experiences聽 with fellow members

@Will Hewitt Welcome Will! I represent small village life. I live in a very small village about 6 hours west of Fortaleza and about a half hour from Jericocoara. We live in a very, very large property we built ourselves.

Roddie in Retirement馃槑

Hi Roddie. How wonderful. Your compound you built sounds fabulous.

Would love to hear your thoughts on doing Brazil in a 4wd vehicle?聽 If others can weigh in on this I鈥檓 appreciative and ALL EARS馃憤. Thanks!

Hi Roddie. How wonderful. Your compound you built sounds fabulous.
Would love to hear your thoughts on doing Brazil in a 4wd vehicle? If others can weigh in on this I鈥檓 appreciative and ALL EARS馃憤. Thanks! - @Will Hewitt

20 July 2025

Traveling Brazil by road is a great topic for everyone.聽 I think that if you couple the topic with when to go as well, you will get quite a rich thread.聽 For example, having spent S茫o Jo茫o in (mostly dead) Recife, I wished that I had been in Campina Grande instead.聽 The festa is fantastic there.

Alternatively, there is a fair amount of interest in what kind of car an expat should / could buy depending on cost / eco friendliness.... I am pro-electric vehicle but the charging infrastructure and the roads are not there....聽 However S茫o Paulo is a great place to own an EV - I think.

Good luck with this initiative.

Offroad travel exists on all levels here in Brazil. There are the weekenders that head to drive (often illegally) across sandy ocean shores (with bad effects on coastal systems). There are those that simply live off of the main roads in the backlands and simply unserved by asphalt/cement roads (there are some real challenges there). There are clubs of offroaders that band together for adventures to challenging and often beautiful interior destinations. There are those that invest in fantastic machines to overcome offroad challenges and there are those that take popular cars through the most impossible places (my favorite are the popular Fiat Way model owners that often out-do fancy Defender Land Rovers on the mud roads of the Amazon). There's a huge almost-Dakar-fame annual offroad race called Rally dos Sert玫es which brings international teams to the sport.

I have a 2019 Renault Duster, 4wd which is (was?) a lower cost 4wd vehicle because of the place that I live. Our country house is located a good 30 minutes from the nearest asphalt (by choice) and the roads of the region can be a challenge during the rainy season. I regularly haul a trailer through rough terrain and getting stuck isn't a popular option - but it still is a good adventure.

I have a friend who has taken his 2wd, 1.0 liter Fiat Way up and down the cordilheira to the bottom tip of S America - two times - and plans to do more such trips with the same car.

Most of those seeking offroad adventure in the notheastern region opt for dirt bikes and if I were 20 years younger I'd do the same. Dirt roads begin at my city's limits and I still bike (pedal) them but I've avoided getting a dirt bike because I know my tendency to push limits and get into trouble - too many years of that back in the states.

So it all depends on what kind of adventure you seek.

My personal dream is to get a 2014 VW van (last year produced) and prep it for a ride from Cabedelo, PB up the "Transamazonic Highway" (BR230) to the end, with stops in Fordl芒ndia and along the 4200+km extension to L谩brea. I'm no "Globerider" (like Helge Pedersen) but I've done plenty of rough-roads (USA, Finland and much of South America).

What kind of offroad travel are you thinking of?

mberigan

@Will Hewitt Welcome Will! I represent small village life. I live in a very small village about 6 hours west of Fortaleza and about a half hour from Jericocoara. We live in a very, very large property we built ourselves.
Roddie in Retirement馃槑 - @roddiesho

20 July 2025

@roddiesho, I was told that Jericocoara is a must place to visit - may be on the way to Len莽贸is Maranhenses.聽 Could your small village be a good pit-stop for expats?

When will your youtube channel be up?聽 I think that Will has a great idea to start mapping places to visit in Brazil.聽 I see a lot of youtube videos of places that brasileiros have been but those are not very appealing.....

I think that an effective expat information crowdsourcing would make a very successful youtube channel....

@Pablo888

Jericocoara used to be a must-stop on the old "hippie route" days of the 60s-80s. I'm sure that things are all so different in the region today but back in the early 80s we were told to avoid Jericocoara because of some illness that was taking down all of the visiting gringos.... so we hopped along to Morro Branco - which apparently has become overwhelmed by development today. It all changes so fast.

Janis Joplin made Arembepe famous in Bahia. The backpacker trails of those years, where one survived by their hitch-hiking skills to find cheap food and lodging on unknown beaches is a thing of the past.

The Rio-Santos road used to include marvelous stretches that no roads existed and the buses traveled down the beautiful beaches. Getting to Boipeba (Bahia) used to require ox-carts (now people fly in via Morro de S茫o Paulo).聽 Getting in to Cap茫o (Chapada Diamantina) used to be a dirt road adventure and it has become a traffic nightmare given asphalt was installed.

There still are adventures but it is all changing fast.

mberigan

Just found a book hidden amongst the other books - by Silvio Amorim, "Por dentro da Transamaz么nica: Uma viagem ao cora莽茫o da floresta," 2012. Silvio did the trip on a motorcycle.

@Pablo888
Jericocoara used to be a must-stop on the old "hippie route" days of the 60s-80s. I'm sure that things are all so different in the region today but back in the early 80s we were told to avoid Jericocoara because of some illness that was taking down all of the visiting gringos.... so we hopped along to Morro Branco - which apparently has become overwhelmed by development today. It all changes so fast.
Janis Joplin made Arembepe famous in Bahia. The backpacker trails of those years, where one survived by their hitch-hiking skills to find cheap food and lodging on unknown beaches is a thing of the past.

The Rio-Santos road used to include marvelous stretches that no roads existed and the buses traveled down the beautiful beaches. Getting to Boipeba (Bahia) used to require ox-carts (now people fly in via Morro de S茫o Paulo). Getting in to Cap茫o (Chapada Diamantina) used to be a dirt road adventure and it has become a traffic nightmare given asphalt was installed.

There still are adventures but it is all changing fast.

mberigan - @mberigan

20 July 2025

Thank you for the information.聽

This is exactly that the type of trivia that would be extremely useful for the traveling expat....

Much appreciated.

鈥漅ICH鈥� information鈥� much appreciated from Sir鈥檚 Pablo and Mberigan.

one big dream is a couple year old 4wd Diesel Hilux. Would it make sense to pull the trigger? Not cheap but as a buddy tells me, we only live once.

well into my midlife years鈥�

love all the great input coming in鈥�

@Will Hewitt

What kind of vehicle depends entirely onwhat kind of traveling you do. If you're going to stick close to cities where parts and service are easy then more exotic vehicles are OK. If you're going to be far from parts/service then you need something that locals or you yourself can resolve (popular cars).

I have a family member with a beautiful Land Rover Defender (130) and while he has made some significant trips, like to Bonito in the Serra da Bodoquena, his Defender spends a lot of time in the shop awaiting costly parts. Defenders USED TO BE vehicle made for the outback but have become luxury items used to show off wealth (they are expensive) or emulate a personality they don't really live.

In the 70s I used a 130 Defender in Finland that came with a crank-start for when you had no battery inthe hinterlands. I broke it a number of times and it was easily repaired by locals. When on a project in Belize in the early 2000s we bought 2 Defender pickups setup for sale to Africa because they came bare-bones.... no luxuries.

I don't know much about Hiluxes but Toyotas get decent reviews here in the northeast and folks in rural areas covet the Bandeirante even though they haven't beenproduced since 2002.

mberigan

@Will Hewitt Thanx for all the comments today. Thanx for asking. At 65 I have a very, very short bucket list. Last but not least is my Dune Buggy. More specifically the 2024 Cross TSI Yellow Super Buggy available only at their showroom / factory in Japeri, RJ. I have seen the 2025 Super Buggy Brazil but have no plans to be in a Michael Bay movie anytime soon, so I will just settle for the 2024. It's hard to investigate these things, but I think they go for $20k.

Roddie in Retirement aka Roddie 4 Real. 馃槑

@Pablo888 Thanx! Except for my Super Buggy that I talk about on another thread, I do not drive in Brazil and wish those who do well. Where I live in a very small village almost 90% of the population uses motorcycles. Toddlers, young students, pregnant woman and everything else you would put in your trunk in America go with you on these motorcycles. I have almost got used to it but have no desire to be with them on the same road. Also, I can't say they do not behave this way in the USA, but there is absolutely no patience for being the "behind driver" We live right off of the main freeway all the way to Jericoara and beyond. EVERYONE feels the need to pass the person in front of them regardless.

Roddie in Retirement aka Roddie 4 Real馃槑

@Pablo888 Thanx for asking. I have been creating a very non-VLOG channel that requires much more work than usual. I am a huge NFL Football fan, and my aim is to finish and launch my channel before the regular season begins.

(I am also a huge game show fan and i am ashamed to say that the family i was rooting for born and raised in Brazil DID NOT know that the Amazon runs through Brazil and for some reason felt that Argentina and Brazil being聽 in South America were south of the Amazon and therefore not connected to the Amazon).馃槓

Yes we are only 20 minutes away from Jericocoara and you are more than welcome to stop by.聽 I will say that I have collected hundreds of YouTube videos of Jericoacoara since I lived in the USA, however the real place is different. The beautiful scenery and fun opportunities are there, but it is very, very spread out and what you see in a video is usually miles apart from each other.

Roddie in Retirement aka Roddie 4 Real馃槑

Thanks Roddie !

@mberigan

Clearly, the build quality of the defender is something else!聽 The early 130 defender that you owned with the manual crank is pure beauty in its simplest form.

Again , as you mention, the main issue is the availability of parts.