brazil curitiba

Foreigner’s 2-Month Journey Living in Curitiba, Brazil

I lived in Curitiba, Brazil for two separate months in 2017. Curitiba was recommended to me by several Brazilians as the cleanest and safest major metropolitan area in the country. My original plan was to stay in the concrete jungle of São Paulo, but after visiting and finding it overwhelming, I opted for Curitiba instead to experience Brazil’s best city.

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Ecuador - galapagos

Swimming with Sharks: My Epic Adventure in the Galapagos Islands

Join me on my epic adventure visiting the Galapagos Islands! My trip includes swimming with sea lions, spotting reef sharks and penguins, hiking volcanoes, and feeding 100-year-old giant tortoises by hand. This remote island chain is home to wildlife that seems extraterrestrial – a magical glimpse of evolution untouched by humans. A must-read guide for adventure travelers and nature lovers!

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Florianopolis brazil travel

Florianopolis The Best Place In Brazil To Live, Adventure, And Travel Guide

My journey to Medellin Colombia concluded with dopamine exhaustion due to too much fun, and not enough work.

So I decided to venture onto the island of Florianopolis in brazil, and settle into a little town, train in kickboxing, and enjoy the island beach lifestyle.

After living for 3 Months in Florianopolis, I would say this is THE Best place to live in Brazil! Hiking, biking, surfing, adventures, Climbing, beaches, mountains, hills, this place has it ALL!

Literally, a day or two after filming this review, I twisted my ankle, and could no longer walk properly. Furthermore, my 3-month tourist visa was concluding, and I had a flight out of Florianopolis just 4 days after twisting my ankle.

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Colombia - Medellin

The Shocking Truth About Living in Medellin Colombia For 3 Months: The Good The Bad The Ugly

After living in Sao Paulo Brazil, it was time to venture into Colombia for a living and working adventure.

I would first do a 7-day excursion into Bogota, to get an understanding of the political capital of Colombia.

Then it was time to start renting an apartment with a good buddy of mine in probably one of the most beautiful and chaotic cities in Latin America; Medellin Colombia.

Medellin Colombia is like the Wild West! You Can do Everything here, but it’s also always a risk! I even got robbed in Colombia back in 2015!

Fast forward to now, and the city has become a paradise for adventures, discovery, festivities, debauchery, crazy police, and excitement!

You need to watch this video before coming!

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Sao Paolo Brazil

Foreigner’s 2-Month Staycation in Sao Paulo & 20 Things You NEED To Visit While In This Concrete Jungle

After a 2 month stopover in Toronto Canada to see family, and friends and perform a refresh, it was time to venture back out into the world.

On my radar, was the absolutely enormous concrete jungle of Sao Paulo Brazil.

I was in Sao Paulo back in 2016 on a brief 4-day adventure while living in Rio De Janeiro, and said to myself that one day, I would have to come back, for a deeper, more thorough experience.

After living in Sao Paulo for almost 3 months, I have to say, this city might be the concrete jungle of your dreams if that’s your thing.

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Toronto Canada Travel

Exploring Downtown Toronto Canada On A Hot Summer Day

I had just completed living in Mexico City for a year and completed a tour of Houston Texas, El Salvador, and even a little bit of Costa Rica.

Then without thinking too much about it, embarked on a tour of Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City in Canada.

And yet, after all of those places, I had barely explored Canada in the last few years. This is because “the grass is always greener on the other side”, or there are more interesting things out there than where you are.

So, I still had an epic 65km-range electric scooter, and all of my photo gear ready to explore the place I grew up for the majority of my life… Toronto Canada

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Quebec City, Canada

Quebec City, The Most Beautiful City In Canada?

Quebec City was a place I knew practically nothing about, yet this was the one city in Canada that completely blew my expectations.

When I was young, my father, coming from the old European world of St. Petersburg in Russia, mentioned that Canada didn’t have that much culture.

That the city landscapes of Canada primarily consisted of shopping plazas, massive cookie-cutter replica housing developments, and gas stations.

Perhaps he knew something I didn’t?

It was only during and after visiting immensely beautiful European cities, the Colonial capitals and towns of Latin America, the massive temple compounds of Asia, and even the gorgeously palace-like city of St. Petersburg in Russia did I really understand what he was comparing Canada to.

But then I arrived in Quebec City and was completely blown away!

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Summertime in Montreal, Canada Part 2: Mount Royal, Walk Anywhere, Rollercoaster, Parks, and Night Time

Despite only having 3 days in this wonderful city, I entertained the thought of maybe doing a 3-month staycation (living here for 3 months) in Montreal.

Montreal kept coming up in conversation among friends who mentioned it as a go-to place for longer-term stays.

I even recently had a friend commit to a 1-year lease in Montreal with his girlfriend, instead of living in Toronto.

But ultimately, these are just ideas to entertain, and perhaps they may never manifest themselves.

Either way, I really enjoyed the walkability of Montreal, especially in the summertime.

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Summertime in Montreal, Canada Part 1: Old Montreal, Lakeshore & Downtown

After Ottawa, the next leg of my journey was Montreal or the Royal Mountain 😉

Upon crossing into Quebec, you feel like you are in an alternate reality of Canada.

Everything looks the same as your typical Canada; the buildings, the people, the roads, the infrastructure, yet everything is in the French Language.

In every country I traveled, there wasn’t a single person I spoke with, that didn’t know about the distinctly French-speaking part of Canada.

Everyone knew that an entire part of Canada was dedicated to speaking French, instead of English.

Luckily, I had spent a good 2 weeks re-learning French using Pimsleur French. During this entire road trip, I would actively listen and repeat the lessons in my car, and while riding around on my electric scooter.

“Bonjour madame, comment allez-vouz? Est-ce que vous voudriez boire quelque chose avec moi ce soir?”

Furthermore, having a general grasp of Spanish AND Portuguese, it was amazing to see the similarities in the languages, ultimately making French just a bit easier to understand.

So by the time I arrived in Montreal, I had a minimal, yet functional amount of French in my vocabulary.

But either way, that didn’t matter, since everyone I interacted with spoke fluent English.

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Ottawa, Canada

A Road Trip To Ottawa, The Capital of Canada

Ottawa, despite being the political capital of Canada, isn’t an enormous city and hosts only about 1.4 million people in the greater Ottawa area.

Most businesses here either serve the political elite or serve the enormous influx of tourists every spring and summer.

More than 150 years ago, Ottawa was just a small trading outpost for lumber and other goods. But eventually, Ottawa was declared the capital of the Dominion of Canada by the Queen of England.

150 years ago, Ottawa, was located in a dense region of forest, and on top of a cliff. This location was much more defensible against the looming threat of the post-revolutionary United States.

While riding around, you could feel the cultural significance of Ottawa, with its high density of universities, historic and political structures, and monuments dedicated to various causes and important events throughout Canadian history.

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San Jose, Costa Rica

Costa Rica & The Capital of San Jose That No One Ever Mentions

Through whispers and other conversations, I heard a lot of amazing things about adventures, beaches, mountains, and nature in Costa Rica. But interestingly enough, everyone managed to skip mentioning anything about San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica.

Interestingly enough, Costa Rica managed to escape from the corrupt, genocidal violence of other central American countries and instead is considered one of the most prosperous and well-educated out of all of its neighbors. Costa Rica invests more than 6% of its total yearly earnings (GDP) into the education system.

Costa Rica also decided to abolish their military in 1948, thus preventing the incessant military overthrow of power that plagued Latin America throughout its history. Instead, Costa Rica relied on the USA, in case anything ever went the wrong way.

Thus, Costa Rica is flooded with American tourists, because it’s relatively safe, and because of this, Costa Rica adopted the U.S. dollar as their unofficial currency.

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El Salvador

104 Beautiful El Salvador Photos: Magical Towns, Volcanoes, Hot Springs & Coasts

After getting my shot in Houston, Texas, I found a direct flight for barely $50 to El Salvador.

Having not been there before, it was only logical that I decided it was time to visit.

I knew absolutely nothing about El Salvador at the time, nor did anyone I know ever mention it in their travels.

I only found out later that a good buddy of mine had backpacked and surfed in El Salvador for several weeks, back when it was one of the most dangerous places in the world.

But by mid-2021, the President at the time, a young guy of 40 years old, had managed to clean up a considerable level of crime and violence in the country.

So when I arrived, my plan was to see the capital city and then do a tour-de-force (a rapid adventure) with a rented car, and ultimately drive over 500km around the country of El Salvador

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Houston Texas USA

Downtown Houston Texas & Giant NASA Rockets

By May of 2021, I had lived in Mexico City for a full year, and managed to avoid most, if not all, lockdowns, quarantines, and whatever else was causing people to go wild and conspiratorial in other parts of the world.

After all, the Mexican government wasn’t going to pay for people to stay home, nor did it have the capability of enforcing such measures. So they let the people decide on their own fates.

So, my time in the land of freedom was ending and it was time to go home to Canada, but to get there involved two complicated steps.

Step One, I needed to hop into Houston Texas to get a single shot of the J&J Vax. Then step two, wait a full 2 weeks for the vax to start working, and ensure I didn’t have any symptoms.

Thus, I would hop into Houston, explore for 3 or 4 days, then, instead of staying just in one place, I would hop into El Salvador, then Costa Rica, and then finally, back to Canada.

Complicated, but not an impossible mission objective.

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Peña de Bernal, Mexico

A Quick Day Trip to Peña de Bernal, The 13th Wonder of Mexico

Originally the Peña de Bernal was a volcano that overflowed with lava and eventually solidified. But then over 8 million years, various weather factors eroded the rock into the enormous protrusion from the Earth that it is today.

After a 4-hour bus ride from Mexico City, I immediately hopped into a cafeteria to grab some lunch, some Cafe de Olla (sweet cinnamon coffee cooked in a pot), stocked up on water, and began the journey to the top.

Luckily, it’s extremely straightforward, and along the way you pass through various tourist shops, and stalls selling all types of Mexican delicacies.

From the start to finish, you probably only need about 2 or 3 hours, and on a hot sunny day, lots of water and sunscreen. But otherwise, bring your strong quadricep muscles, and start climbing.

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Queretaro, Mexico Travel Guide

The Hyper Spanish Colonial City of Queretaro Mexico

Mexico is adorned all over with Colonial towns and cities that still have incredibly vibrant and strong Spanish-colonial architecture and design. Whether it’s the downtown core of Mexico City, the colonial city in the desert of Oaxaca, or the small colonial Villages of San Cristobal de las Casas, among dozens if not hundreds more.

One such city is Queretaro, which was originally founded by an indigenous group called the “Otomi” before being conquered by the Aztec Empire in 1446, and then eviscerated into catholicism by the Spanish empire in 1531.

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Puerto Escondido Mexico

Puerto Escondido, Mexico: A Small Beach Town Before It Becomes Cancun

Over the course of several months, I heard great things about the Beach town of Puerto Escondido (or perhaps it’s already a city?)

I personally wasn’t impressed with the beach city of Cancun, since it was simply a large strip of massive walled hotels facing the ocean, while the rest of the city is your typical grey concrete blocks.

Nor does Cancun feature any of the absolutely rich historical Mexican cultures, instead feeding into a simply spring-break narrative of alcohol, and sunshine.

Playa Del Carmen, which is just 1 hour south of Cancun, was a bit better, since it allowed locals and foreigners to mix freely within the long touristy boulevard. But the recurring phrase of “tourist trap” kept coming up since prices were inflated by atleast 2 or 3 times.

But then there was the idea of Puerto Escondido, a Cancun and Playa del Carmen BEFORE they became massive tourist traps, and walled-off hotel compounds.

So I hopped on a bus from Mexico City, and after a couple of stops in Tehuacan, the Magical Colonial City of Oaxaca, and the psychedelic mountain retreat of San Jose Del Pacifico, I made it to this new adventure of Puerto Escondido.

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San Jose Del Pacifico Mexico

The Psychedelic Mountain Village of San Jose Del Pacifico, Mexico

Near the tail end of my living adventure in Mexico City, I began voraciously consuming content about psychedelics, in particular, mushrooms, DMT, and ayahuasca, among others.

Listening to dozens of psychedelics-related podcasts, as well as rapidly consuming audiobooks, I gained a general, although passive, understanding of psychedelics.

This ranged from psychology, sociology, biology, and chemistry, all the way to the legal systems of various countries, the histories within indigenous cultures, western society and western medicine, and various conspiracies that involved experimenting on people passively, as well as, actively to see if they could give special powers (hint: the answer is no).

Nonetheless, Mexico has a deep and rich, yet secluded culture of using psychedelics as an indigenous medicine.

San Jose Del Pacifico was a name of a town in Mexico that came up several times throughout learning about psychedelics. In a sister town several hundreds of KM away, a scientist from the USA arrived in the 1950’s, and began experimenting with mushrooms.

He arrived back in the USA, and slowly the message spread of a substance that can ‘open your mind’, thus leading to the first ‘psychedelic tourism’.

By the 1960’s and 1970’s, this tourism, started to corrupt the towns with money, and thus began a decline in indigenous traditions, and a rapid rise in hippies who simply wanted to get high, with no regard to anything else about the cultures.

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Mexico City Travel

Living in Mexico City For A Year Part 4: Volcanoes, Balloons, Frida Kahlo & More!

While the rest of the world was in the grip of a rapidly spreading virus, and various governments around the world were locking in their populations due to a massive amount of uncertainty, Mexico City, on the other hand, was taking it slow.

The president decided not to shut everything down, and let people figure things out for themselves whether they wanted to stay at home or not work.

Thus, I treated the openness of Mexico as an opportunity to continue enjoying life, as if nothing ever happened 🙂

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