This is the data sheet of my 3 weeks in Rio. It’s long so beware.
A lot of this will be me comparing Rio to Sao Paulo since I lived in SP 6 months. My trip to Rio was only for a little less than a month, but I was going out a lot more in Rio. I’ll also put some general thoughts I have on Brazil since I imagine the Rio thread is the most looked at for people going to Brazil.
General Thoughts and Info on Rio
Getting Around - Vadeonibus.com. Best website for getting around Rio and figuring out what bus to take. I thought the bus system was pretty easy here once you know the main landmarks and can read the signs on the bus. I like that Rio is so centralized. Most everything you want to do is going to be in Zona Sul (the south zone) so it’s not like Sao Paulo where you can spend 2 or 3 hours getting somewhere.
English – I thought about the same number of people would speak English in Rio as in SP. I was wrong, more people speak English in Rio. You still need to get some basic Portuguese to order at restaurants and stuff like that, but going to tourist places or going out at night I felt like at least half if not 70 percent of people spoke English. If you’re going to Brazil for a short trip, I don’t think any other city gives you the language access to girls that Rio does. (That being said I only traveled in South and Southeast Brazil so anything north of Vitoria, ES I can’t comment on.)
Going out on Weekdays – Not a lot of luck in Rio. SP always has stuff going down (obaoba.com.br is good for what’s hot each night). Monday-Thursday I couldn’t find good venues in Rio.
Middle vs. Upper class girls. I’m absolutely biased. I don’t have the style or bankroll to roll into top places and pull. I’d rather go to cheaper places with friendlier girls and drop 50 reais than get blown out all night and drop 100+. That being said, you get what you pay for. If you want model types, you got to hit the best places.
Younger vs. Older Girls. I found generally that younger girls were more likely to make out, but it was much harder to push It beyond that. They tend to travel in packs and while they will let you isolate one at the club, it’s a lot harder to get them to let you take one back. I had one 18-year-old girl grabbing my dick in the club, but I couldn’t get her away from her friends to save my life. I also found the younger girls to be really flakey so it was hard to set up day 2s. Older girls were more likely to go out alone or with only a friend or two so they were easier to take back.
Approaching in English or Portuguese. My Portuguese is far from perfect but it’s very conversational. I got two bangs with only Portuguese so I can hold a conversation. My initial theory was that it was better to approach in Portuguese so I didn’t eliminate girls that didn’t speak English. IN the end though, I think that it’s almost better to go ahead and eliminate them. I like to be speaking in English since it’s easier for me to tease them. If they don’t speak any English they probably aren’t that into foreigners either so I think English is good pre-selection. Regardless though, I found Brazilian girls made it very obvious if they were into you or not in the first couple minutes. If I didn’t get a “where are you from” within 2 minutes I just walked away.
Make Friends – I found the Brazilians really friendly. I thought some would be sick of tourists, but most of them were very interested in where I was from, what I was doing in Brazil, etc. If you are going to be around for more than a few days, make friends and hang out with them. It’s easier to know where to go and what to do and at least for me, meeting new people is the main reason I’m addicted to travel. The fact that it’s so easy to meet people in Brazil is a big part of why I’m getting addicted to here.
Couch Surfing – Both SP and Rio have active communities and nearly everyone speaks English. Look up the weekly meetings on the site. If you are planning on staying long term it can be a good way to meet people/network too.
Going out
I was trying to think of the best way of talking about venues/nights so it would be useful. There is already a ton of info on the forum, so I’ll just tell you what we did and my thoughts on each and you can make your own judgment. As I said, I went to places with more middle class girls so you won’t find any of the top talent places here. That doesn't mean there were plenty of 8s, just not at the concentration you'd see at the more upscale places. I bolded the venue names if you want to skim.
Thursday Night: Baixo Gávea. Big street party with lots of college kids and Young professionals. Cheap beer and a lot of girls speak English. Get there early, it’s packed out by 10pm and stays that way until around 2am.
Friday Night: Casa da Matriz was empty. We hung around until 1:30ish and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Apparently there was a big concert that night that drew a lot of people. We bounced to Rio Scenarium in Lapa . I liked the vibe there a lot. Very cool décor, almost like getting drunk in a museum with all the stuff on the walls. It has one big room with a dance floor playing pop/usual club shit and another lounge area. I think the first floor had another dance floor, but it was almost empty when we were there.
Saturday Night: Got a tip from couchsurfing about a “College Party” in Lapa. It was at Teatro Odisseia (ended up being my favorite venue). There were two things I liked about this place. One, it played a bunch of classic rock which is good A. because I like classic rock and B. because Brazilians that like classic rock are a self-selecting crowd that usually speaks at least some English and like Anglo culture. My friend that didn’t speak any Portuguese cleaned up this night and we were both getting insane amounts of eye contact even when we were with girls.
Wednesday: We tried to go to Baronetti in Ipanmea, one of the more upscale places. The website made it look like they were open on Wednesdays, but when we got there it was not going down. We walked around a little and asked for places to go out, but everywhere people recommended were sit-down bars. The only event on obaoba.com.br was Indie karaoke at Casa da Matriz so we headed there. Not many people (50 tops), mainly just hilarity watching hipsters sing Madonna while trying to act rebellious. Inexplicably both me and my friend pulled this night. I will say that EVERYONE in the club spoke English. I talked to 20 people and only 1 wasn’t fully fluent.
Thursday: Casa da Matriz again. Some girls told us that it was good Thursdays. She was dead wrong. It sucked, music was awful, and maybe 100 people tops. Apparently though Thursday can be a good night though, hit or miss I guess.
Friday: Pista 3. Around the corner from Casa da Matriz in Botafogo. They were supposed to have some St. Patrick’s themed party, but it was just fucking horrible 90s pop. It was actually so horrible and I was drunk enough that it was fun. The ratio was average, but I can guarantee you’ll be the only gringo so you definitely can get the exotic factor going.
Saturday: Club Six Lapa. No doubt the worst night club I went to in Brazil. The ugliest, fattest girls I’ve ever seen in Brazil. Until someone can give a better report, avoid at all costs. Shitty music, ugly girls.
Thursday: Met up with Amour Fo (very cool guy, hit him up if you’re in Rio). We went to a bar in Ipanema that I can’t remember the name of. We caught the tail end of a birthday party so it wasn’t terribly exciting. Ended up at Emporio in Ipanema. It’s a rock bar that tends to draw a lot of tourists. I don’t think I’d go on the weekends, but it seems to be one of the few places open during the week and draws lots of tourists so English should be no problem.
Friday: Teatro Odisseia in Lapa. Met up with Amour. My friend and I both got lots of attention here again. It’s a Casa da Matriz like crowd (alternative with lots of English speakers), but bigger so you can really play the numbers game. The one major downside is it’s loud as shit so it can be hard to have a conversation, but that’s the case almost anywhere.
Saturday: Crazy night. We started at Casa da Matriz and it was empty. I liked Casa, but the numbers are what killed it. There were never that many people the nights we went. I recommend you look at listaamiga.com.br. It’s the website for the whole Casa da Matriz network and you can see how many people are on the list for each venue so you know which will be the most crowded. Anyway, we left Casa at around one for Teatro Odisseia in Lapa. The line was long as shit and we couldn’t get in (go out early). It was our last night so we didn’t want to quit on it. We ended up going to Dama de Ferro in Ipanema. It’s the only “after” (Late night) I knew in Rio. We got there a little after 3 and it was empty. Around 4am it started picking up and was pretty decent by 5am. My friend and I were talking to two girls downstairs when a bouncer walks up and pulls outside around 6am. He tells me that the girl my friend was talking to was the club owner’s girlfriend. We said cool whatever and walked back in to ask the girls what were going on. Both said they didn’t know what we were talking about, and before they could explain everything we get dragged out by the bouncer again. He says the owner is pissed that we talked to the girls again and wants us out. We say fine, but refuse to pay since we are getting kicked out for talking to girls at a club (yea, we didn’t go for your shit electronic music). The bouncers understand and say they’ll go talk to the owner. Anyway the owner turns out to be this short, old dude and he comes out screaming about how we “disrespected his girl.” He takes a swing at my friend and runs back inside the club. I try to call the cops to come and the bouncer ends up stealing a taxi to get us out of there.
Places to check out in Rio
Ilha Grande – One of the girls I hooked up with showed me pictures of this place and it looked beautiful. It’s apparently 3 hours away from Rio and since Monday-Wednesday are pretty mellow in Rio it would probably be worth checking out.
Floresta da Tijuca – We went here one day and hiked up to one of the peaks. Incredible view of Downtown and Zone Norte. I thought it was pretty awesome to have a forest like that inside the city limits and if you are at all interested in ecology the museum had some interesting info
Corcovado – big Jesus statue. Good views. R$40 to go up the train.
Conclusion: I know this is long as shit so I’ll keep it brief. Brazilian girls have a lot of things going for them. They’re diverse, you can find Japanese, white, black, and everything in between. They dress sexy. You don’t see girls at bars wearing oversize t-shirts and flip flops. They’re friendly. I almost never got that “Why are you talking to me” vibe that is tragically built into American women when I approached here. Even if they weren’t interested they were polite and responsive. Go to Brazil, just know how much it sucks coming back.
A lot of this will be me comparing Rio to Sao Paulo since I lived in SP 6 months. My trip to Rio was only for a little less than a month, but I was going out a lot more in Rio. I’ll also put some general thoughts I have on Brazil since I imagine the Rio thread is the most looked at for people going to Brazil.
General Thoughts and Info on Rio
Getting Around - Vadeonibus.com. Best website for getting around Rio and figuring out what bus to take. I thought the bus system was pretty easy here once you know the main landmarks and can read the signs on the bus. I like that Rio is so centralized. Most everything you want to do is going to be in Zona Sul (the south zone) so it’s not like Sao Paulo where you can spend 2 or 3 hours getting somewhere.
English – I thought about the same number of people would speak English in Rio as in SP. I was wrong, more people speak English in Rio. You still need to get some basic Portuguese to order at restaurants and stuff like that, but going to tourist places or going out at night I felt like at least half if not 70 percent of people spoke English. If you’re going to Brazil for a short trip, I don’t think any other city gives you the language access to girls that Rio does. (That being said I only traveled in South and Southeast Brazil so anything north of Vitoria, ES I can’t comment on.)
Going out on Weekdays – Not a lot of luck in Rio. SP always has stuff going down (obaoba.com.br is good for what’s hot each night). Monday-Thursday I couldn’t find good venues in Rio.
Middle vs. Upper class girls. I’m absolutely biased. I don’t have the style or bankroll to roll into top places and pull. I’d rather go to cheaper places with friendlier girls and drop 50 reais than get blown out all night and drop 100+. That being said, you get what you pay for. If you want model types, you got to hit the best places.
Younger vs. Older Girls. I found generally that younger girls were more likely to make out, but it was much harder to push It beyond that. They tend to travel in packs and while they will let you isolate one at the club, it’s a lot harder to get them to let you take one back. I had one 18-year-old girl grabbing my dick in the club, but I couldn’t get her away from her friends to save my life. I also found the younger girls to be really flakey so it was hard to set up day 2s. Older girls were more likely to go out alone or with only a friend or two so they were easier to take back.
Approaching in English or Portuguese. My Portuguese is far from perfect but it’s very conversational. I got two bangs with only Portuguese so I can hold a conversation. My initial theory was that it was better to approach in Portuguese so I didn’t eliminate girls that didn’t speak English. IN the end though, I think that it’s almost better to go ahead and eliminate them. I like to be speaking in English since it’s easier for me to tease them. If they don’t speak any English they probably aren’t that into foreigners either so I think English is good pre-selection. Regardless though, I found Brazilian girls made it very obvious if they were into you or not in the first couple minutes. If I didn’t get a “where are you from” within 2 minutes I just walked away.
Make Friends – I found the Brazilians really friendly. I thought some would be sick of tourists, but most of them were very interested in where I was from, what I was doing in Brazil, etc. If you are going to be around for more than a few days, make friends and hang out with them. It’s easier to know where to go and what to do and at least for me, meeting new people is the main reason I’m addicted to travel. The fact that it’s so easy to meet people in Brazil is a big part of why I’m getting addicted to here.
Couch Surfing – Both SP and Rio have active communities and nearly everyone speaks English. Look up the weekly meetings on the site. If you are planning on staying long term it can be a good way to meet people/network too.
Going out
I was trying to think of the best way of talking about venues/nights so it would be useful. There is already a ton of info on the forum, so I’ll just tell you what we did and my thoughts on each and you can make your own judgment. As I said, I went to places with more middle class girls so you won’t find any of the top talent places here. That doesn't mean there were plenty of 8s, just not at the concentration you'd see at the more upscale places. I bolded the venue names if you want to skim.
Thursday Night: Baixo Gávea. Big street party with lots of college kids and Young professionals. Cheap beer and a lot of girls speak English. Get there early, it’s packed out by 10pm and stays that way until around 2am.
Friday Night: Casa da Matriz was empty. We hung around until 1:30ish and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. Apparently there was a big concert that night that drew a lot of people. We bounced to Rio Scenarium in Lapa . I liked the vibe there a lot. Very cool décor, almost like getting drunk in a museum with all the stuff on the walls. It has one big room with a dance floor playing pop/usual club shit and another lounge area. I think the first floor had another dance floor, but it was almost empty when we were there.
Saturday Night: Got a tip from couchsurfing about a “College Party” in Lapa. It was at Teatro Odisseia (ended up being my favorite venue). There were two things I liked about this place. One, it played a bunch of classic rock which is good A. because I like classic rock and B. because Brazilians that like classic rock are a self-selecting crowd that usually speaks at least some English and like Anglo culture. My friend that didn’t speak any Portuguese cleaned up this night and we were both getting insane amounts of eye contact even when we were with girls.
Wednesday: We tried to go to Baronetti in Ipanmea, one of the more upscale places. The website made it look like they were open on Wednesdays, but when we got there it was not going down. We walked around a little and asked for places to go out, but everywhere people recommended were sit-down bars. The only event on obaoba.com.br was Indie karaoke at Casa da Matriz so we headed there. Not many people (50 tops), mainly just hilarity watching hipsters sing Madonna while trying to act rebellious. Inexplicably both me and my friend pulled this night. I will say that EVERYONE in the club spoke English. I talked to 20 people and only 1 wasn’t fully fluent.
Thursday: Casa da Matriz again. Some girls told us that it was good Thursdays. She was dead wrong. It sucked, music was awful, and maybe 100 people tops. Apparently though Thursday can be a good night though, hit or miss I guess.
Friday: Pista 3. Around the corner from Casa da Matriz in Botafogo. They were supposed to have some St. Patrick’s themed party, but it was just fucking horrible 90s pop. It was actually so horrible and I was drunk enough that it was fun. The ratio was average, but I can guarantee you’ll be the only gringo so you definitely can get the exotic factor going.
Saturday: Club Six Lapa. No doubt the worst night club I went to in Brazil. The ugliest, fattest girls I’ve ever seen in Brazil. Until someone can give a better report, avoid at all costs. Shitty music, ugly girls.
Thursday: Met up with Amour Fo (very cool guy, hit him up if you’re in Rio). We went to a bar in Ipanema that I can’t remember the name of. We caught the tail end of a birthday party so it wasn’t terribly exciting. Ended up at Emporio in Ipanema. It’s a rock bar that tends to draw a lot of tourists. I don’t think I’d go on the weekends, but it seems to be one of the few places open during the week and draws lots of tourists so English should be no problem.
Friday: Teatro Odisseia in Lapa. Met up with Amour. My friend and I both got lots of attention here again. It’s a Casa da Matriz like crowd (alternative with lots of English speakers), but bigger so you can really play the numbers game. The one major downside is it’s loud as shit so it can be hard to have a conversation, but that’s the case almost anywhere.
Saturday: Crazy night. We started at Casa da Matriz and it was empty. I liked Casa, but the numbers are what killed it. There were never that many people the nights we went. I recommend you look at listaamiga.com.br. It’s the website for the whole Casa da Matriz network and you can see how many people are on the list for each venue so you know which will be the most crowded. Anyway, we left Casa at around one for Teatro Odisseia in Lapa. The line was long as shit and we couldn’t get in (go out early). It was our last night so we didn’t want to quit on it. We ended up going to Dama de Ferro in Ipanema. It’s the only “after” (Late night) I knew in Rio. We got there a little after 3 and it was empty. Around 4am it started picking up and was pretty decent by 5am. My friend and I were talking to two girls downstairs when a bouncer walks up and pulls outside around 6am. He tells me that the girl my friend was talking to was the club owner’s girlfriend. We said cool whatever and walked back in to ask the girls what were going on. Both said they didn’t know what we were talking about, and before they could explain everything we get dragged out by the bouncer again. He says the owner is pissed that we talked to the girls again and wants us out. We say fine, but refuse to pay since we are getting kicked out for talking to girls at a club (yea, we didn’t go for your shit electronic music). The bouncers understand and say they’ll go talk to the owner. Anyway the owner turns out to be this short, old dude and he comes out screaming about how we “disrespected his girl.” He takes a swing at my friend and runs back inside the club. I try to call the cops to come and the bouncer ends up stealing a taxi to get us out of there.
Places to check out in Rio
Ilha Grande – One of the girls I hooked up with showed me pictures of this place and it looked beautiful. It’s apparently 3 hours away from Rio and since Monday-Wednesday are pretty mellow in Rio it would probably be worth checking out.
Floresta da Tijuca – We went here one day and hiked up to one of the peaks. Incredible view of Downtown and Zone Norte. I thought it was pretty awesome to have a forest like that inside the city limits and if you are at all interested in ecology the museum had some interesting info
Corcovado – big Jesus statue. Good views. R$40 to go up the train.
Conclusion: I know this is long as shit so I’ll keep it brief. Brazilian girls have a lot of things going for them. They’re diverse, you can find Japanese, white, black, and everything in between. They dress sexy. You don’t see girls at bars wearing oversize t-shirts and flip flops. They’re friendly. I almost never got that “Why are you talking to me” vibe that is tragically built into American women when I approached here. Even if they weren’t interested they were polite and responsive. Go to Brazil, just know how much it sucks coming back.
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