What is it Like to Live in Brazil?

Paradise, wonderful food, amazing culture, beautiful people, a booming economy. These may be a few of the first impression you may have about Brazil, but what is it really like, is it the proverbial land of milk and honey?

Defining what it is exactly like to live in Brazil is a complex subject with many opinions and something that I have dedicated an entire website to understanding. Therefore, I have decided that I will do my best to give you my fastest and most direct impressions of how I view life in Brazil.

Disclaimer: this will probably be quite biased, as I love Brazil!

The friendship capital of the world

If you watched my free video series “The Golden Ticket to Brazil”, you have definitely heard me call Brazil “the friendship capital of the world”. This isn’t a term I made up (wouldn’t be clever enough to figure that out hehe) this is literally what I have heard time and time again from numerous foreigners who come to live in Brazil.

This is probably my favorite part of life in the friendship capital: how a buddy will just randomly show up at your house to see how it’s going and hang out, how Brazilians are focused on having a good time and making sure you do the same, how they will take you in as one of their own and so on.

Making friends is something extremely cultural and very easy. I mean, you would have to lock yourself in a room with no windows, stay in there all day and never come out in order to not make friends!

This is due to the fact that when you meet a Brazilian for the first time, they are focused on seeing how they can include you into their personal network of buddies in some way. This is also how anything gets done in the country – via friendship favors.

If you show interest in befriending someone, before you know it, you will be at their house partaking in a back yard “churrasco” with their close neighbors and friends (for those who don’t know, “churrasco” is the Brazilian word and the world renowned way of having a BBQ – I will write a blog on it sometime).

You will never lack people to talk to and hang out with, even if you go to the beach alone you will find someone to hang out with/talk to!

“A do as I feel” culture

Ever heard the term “when in Rome”? This very much applies to the lifestyle in Brazil and is a very Latin culture thing.

Due to the fact that Brazil is not a very time oriented culture, you can pretty much leave your watch at home and just allow destiny to guide you.

This can be irritating for some cold cultured people who are a slave to their calendar and watch, but I don’t seem to mind it at all. I enjoy the flexibility and freedom it gives me to allow daily surprises and circumstances to intervene in my life.

And when and if I need to get something done, I can just ignore my phone, go into my office and focus on what needs to happen. Within my 4 walls, I can be however I want to be.

It is not uncommon to go out to get some groceries for dinner, meet a buddy while shopping in the supermarket and end up changing dinner plans in favor of hanging out and BBQing at the beach (or at each others house).

We always have enjoyed inviting friends at the last minute to come over and have dinner with us, and they usually are happy to get some good home cooking.

The land of natural riches

The natural beauty of Brazil is something that cannot and will never be paralleled in any other country. The variety from region to region is amazing.

You can see lush fertile jungle in the northern Amazonian region, to exotic beaches to the east, to the rural and idyllic areas all over, to the big city metropolitan areas, to the subtropics of the south and so on.

But I’m not just talking about scenery; I’m talking about the riches in general. Where else can you fill your shopping cart up with fresh tropical bananas, papayas, juicy mangos, coconut water and “green” meat (Brazilian cows are known as the “boi verde – green cow” due to the fact that they graze on lush pastures)?

What about the idea of basking in the warm sun on the beach, bathing in pristine aqua green water, drinking a fresh green coconut, playing beach volleyball or hanging out in a hammock under palm trees?

How about experiencing breathtaking sceneries, standing in awe of amazing waterfalls or hiking trails leading to hidden and coveted spots?

I could go on and on, but the point being that I really enjoy the natural riches that Brazil has to offer and the diversity of them!

A fertile economy

It’s no secret that the old 1st world economies are on the downfall. Joblessness is at it’s all time high and it’s just not as secure and safe as it used to be.

Brazil has pretty much remained untouched during this worldwide financial crisis due to their strong ties with other developing countries.

I once heard a Harvard Professor mention that big corporations and prosperous entrepreneurs have begun to focus most all of their investing on “up and coming” countries.

Brazil is an up and coming country with a consistently prospering economy. It’s growing fast and with all of recent attention and investing due to the Rio Olympics and World Cup and money that they will bring in, it is going to explode! And not to mention that the country’s infrastructure is going to improve immensely to suite this.

So with all of this outside focus on Brazil and a growing infrastructure, it means that there are more jobs for Brazilians and more jobs for foreigners.

More and more Brazilians will need to learn English, and they prefer having a native/near native teach them ,which opens up a lot of possibility in that area of the job market. There will be more and more specialized jobs that natives wont be able to perform and corporations will be looking to expand as well.

Laxed immigration

Despite the casual encounter with bureaucracy with the Brazilian immigration, finding a way to immigrate is pretty easy.

Since Brazil is an up and coming country, they want to attract as many immigrants as possible – they need the outside skills, knowledge and investment it brings with it!

You can literally come on a tourist visa (for up to 6 months), have a child in Brazil, the child is born Brazilian and right after the birth go down to the Federal Police and apply for residence. And you can get dual citizenship after only 1 year of permanent residence.

Even though I met my wife in Brazil – she is Danish (odd way to find a Dane eh?) – it was really easy for us to immigrate. Our solution was to give birth to a child so that the above mentioned could happen. Easiest immigration I’ve ever seen.

If you don’t have plans on having a child, the same can be accomplished via marriage/partnerships.

It can also be accomplished via investing, retiring, getting a job and so on.

I will do a detailed write-up on how to immigrate to Brazil in the near future!

Finally

Seriously, I could go on and on which is pretty much the whole reason behind the creation of this website.

I should mention as well, that I don’t want to be deceptive in any way by only focusing on the positive as there are drawbacks, but I will cover those on another occasion.

I hope that you have enjoyed this little article and look forward to the next one!

Valeu!

Kevin