With the Brazilian government postponing by 90 days the institution of a visa fee for Americans, Canadians and Australians, it might be a good time to take a trip down to Brazil, where it’s summer now. There are a few reasons why now might be a good time, though it seems that it could never be too bad a time to experience Brazil.
Among the many travel industry luminaries I was able to brush shoulders with at the U.S. Tour Operators Association conference in Los Angeles last December was Joao Rodrigues, a Brazilian/American who has been working to promote tourism to Brazil for many years. I’ve traveled in Brazil with Joao a few times, and speaking to him reminded me of how amazing the country is. It’s really a place not to miss. At least once in your life, you owe it to yourself to experience Brazil.
Joao gave me some tips on why it might be an especially good time to plan a trip to that glorious country that everyone wants to go to, but only a much smaller number actually do visit.
This could be a good moment to make that travel dream come true. “When my baby smiles at me, I go to Rio,” said the song. And maybe if your baby is not smiling at you, you might want to go to Rio even more. It can lift your spirits. Rio de Janeiro is as good as the song implies.
Rio is one of the most amazing, legendary cities in the world. It seems that every American should have the benefit of that experience. Certainly, any music lovers should go there at least once. Rio is the home of samba and bossa nova all the great Brazilian music that swept the world, and left its mark everywhere, especially in the U.S. How many cities launch their own internationally-adored musical style? For that and many other reasons, Rio is unique.
The song by Antonio Carlos Jobim “The Girl from Ipanema” is up there with “Yesterday,” as one of the most often-recorded songs in the world. Ipanema is a beach in Rio. The song is a true story. Copacabana is also a beach in Rio. Corcovado is a mountain in Rio. All these song titles from the bossa nova period come to life in the geography of Rio.
Rio is one of the most stunningly beautiful cities in the world, with its great harbor, marked by the unmistakable Sugarloaf Mountain poking up at the edge of Guanabara Bay. And there is the amazing giant Christ the Redeemer statue, with its arms outstretched, overlooking the city from Corcovado Mountain, one of more than 1,000 peaks in Rio.
Since a disproportionate number of the supermodels in the world come from Brazil, it’s reasonable to conclude that there is something very special about that place.
However, as phenomenal and self-contained as it is, Rio is only one small part of Brazil. The country is nearly the size of the continental United States, and has as much variety of landscapes, climates and cultural mixes in its various cities as we have in the states.
Sixty percent of the great Amazon rainforest is in Brazil. The rest spreads through eight other countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela and French Guiana. The Amazon itself is an incomparable phenomenon. While Brazil has 60 percent of it, the Amazon has 75 percent of Brazil. The Amazon Basin, the area drained by the Amazon, occupies half of the South American continent, including parts of Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Suriname and Guyana. Amazônia is the world’s largest rainforest, covering 2.5 million square miles.
Besides Rio, there are many other great cities to explore in Brazil, including Salvador, Sao Paulo and Brasilia, all markedly different in culture, climate and geography, and many other small towns and villages across that vast landscape. The great Iguazu Falls, one of the largest waterfalls on earth, is on the border between Brazil and Argentina.
Brazil is, in a way, like a mirror image of the United States, similar in many ways, but inverted. Brazil’s summer is our winter. It makes it an especially nice winter getaway destination, to give yourself a break from the cold winter we are experiencing now up north.
For the next three months, you can go to Brazil without having to have a visa. That saves you the $80.90 cost of the visa. It’s not a huge expense, as part of a transcontinental trip. But more significantly, the suspension of the visa requirement frees you from any hassle associated with having to get a visa.
The fee was set to be instituted on Jan. 10. Now it won’t be done until April 10. This is the latest episode in a long drama over the visa fees for Americans. It’s all about reciprocity. Since the U.S. charges a visa fee to Brazilians to be allowed entry into the U.S., Brazil returns the favor by doing the same to Americans visiting Brazil.
During the COVID-19 lockdown period, under the administration of Brazil’s last president, Jair Bolsonaro, the visa fee was suspended. It was something the travel industry wanted, and it had been suffering because of COVID-19.
When the lockdown period ended and the travel industry got on its feet, the government moved back toward its previous stand. If the U.S. is not going to reciprocate to make it easier for Brazilians to visit America, then Brazil will re-institute its visa fee. That is the reasoning. But there will be an electronic means of getting the visa, which will make it a lot easier than in the days when it had to be done through manual processes, in-person visits or snail mail.
The reason given for the delay is to give time to get the electronic visa system up to speed in handling the applications. People were having trouble using the electronic system, and there were a lot of complaints.
So now, for 90 days, Brazil is a visa-free destination for Americans. This is also Brazil’s peak travel season. It’s summer, the New Year, and soon it will be Carnaval, Feb. 9-17. Because it’s a peak travel time, the government decided to delay the visa fee implementation for three months, as a favor to the travel industry.
I would think the visa fee, or anything that makes it harder to travel to Brazil, would be bad for its economy. But according to Rodrigues, when the visa fee was suspended, it didn’t seem to have much of an impact on the number of travelers. There are many other factors as well. COVID, of course, threw the wrench in everything. And the airlines pulled back on many of their flights that had been in place to accommodate the Olympics in Brazil in 2016 and the World Cup in 2014.
After the 2016 Olympics, the visitor numbers went down in 2017 and 2018, then started to pick up again. The year 2020, when the visa waiver was put in place, was projected to be a strong year, but then came COVID-19. So there was never a good time to test for the effect of the visa suspension on the marketplace.
Another reason this next 90 days might be a good time to go is that there will be no major international events in Brazil till later in the year.
Brazil will host the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro Nov. 18-19. In 2025 Brazil will host COP 30, the United Nations Conference of Parties, its global conference on climate change. It will take place Nov. 10-21, 2025. Those events are good for the Brazilian travel industry, not always so good for the travelers because of the disruption of availability of hotel rooms and flights.
So, for all these reasons, the next three months will be a great time for a trip to Brazil. And there’s one more reason. The time is now. There’s no time like the present.
David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.
