I moved to Brazil back in March of 2025, and I've been going through my photos, videos, and stories in chronological order — with the occasional random, current-day story thrown in.

If you don't have Facebook, or you just don't feel like digging through it, here's where you can catch up...

This week I started telling the real story of how I got to Salvador, Bahia --- starting with the flight out of Atlanta in March 2025, all the way through my first heartbreak (it involves vegetables, not people) and a whale sighting I still can't believe I caught on camera.

Here's what went up this week, in order:

-- How I got here --- the visa timing, the flight, and the moment it actually hit me what I'd done, landing in São Paulo with almost no plan.

-- The layover chaos nobody warns you about --- wrong lines, shuttle buses, and my first glimpse of the bay from the air.

-- Baía de Todos os Santos --- what that bay actually is, and the cargo ships I had no idea were down there.

-- Gamboa de Baixo --- the neighborhood I landed in on day one, why it's iconic, and the wealth gap sitting right in the middle of it.

-- Whether businesses here really only use WhatsApp. (Yes.)

-- What Porto da Barra Beach is actually like, and the strangers who stopped me twice on the way to lunch.

-- My first heartbreak in Brazil.

-- Grocery store checkout lines, and why patience is basically a requirement.

-- A crazy dating story --- if you haven't heard of "ficar" or being a "ficante," you're about to.

-- The one non-negotiable I have when picking a place to live here.

-- Whales off Farol da Barra, and when to actually catch them.

-- The honest answer on working remotely for a U.S. company while living here legally.

-- I post across this blog, YouTube, Facebook, and a few different podcasts, and on purpose, I don't say the same thing the same way in every place. So if you only follow one, you're only getting part of it.

this week's videos are up on facebook and on the blog: https://foolaroundandfindout.com/sept-8-12-2026-posts-recap/

recorded on monday, august 24, 2026, this episode of move to brazil with sisi is the audio from a live conversation originally broadcast on youtube and facebook.

moving abroad is not automatically an upgrade. in this episode, i talk about something that often gets lost in relocation conversations: the things that matter to you personally may matter more than the things another country supposedly does better.

drawing from my experience living in more than ten u.s. states and now living in salvador, bahia, brazil, i use parks, libraries, beaches, healthcare, community spaces, pace of life, and access to nature to explain why relocation requires more than comparing cost of living, politics, weather, or healthcare.

i also compare life in salvador with experiences in places including phoenix, brooklyn, far rockaway, west haven, daytona beach, new smyrna beach, tampa, and rural america. the bigger question is not whether brazil, the united states, or anywhere else is "better." it is whether the place you are considering actually supports the life you want to live.

this is also a conversation about thinking independently before relocating. what conveniences can you live without? what spaces do you need? what trade-offs are actually worth making? and have you experienced enough different ways of living to know the difference?

learn more faafo.app.

quotes

“no country is perfect. no state is perfect. no city is perfect.”

“stop listening to everybody. what is important to you?”

“you can have, i promise you, some of the same experiences in the united states that some people claim can only be had by leaving the united states.”

“we all ain’t built the same.”

“if you are not a sovereign thinker, you don’t need to be relocating, especially to another country.”

main talking points

1. relocation is about trade-offs, not finding a perfect country. lower costs, healthcare, weather, politics, or slower living may come with losses you did not anticipate.
2. know your non-negotiables before you move. parks, libraries, green space, beaches, community resources, privacy, and pace of life can affect daily quality of life more than popular relocation statistics.
3. a slower lifestyle is not exclusive to living abroad. i compare brazil with beach towns and rural communities i experienced throughout the united states.
4. research the life, not just the destination. what matters is how you will actually live day to day, rather than someone else’s experience of a country.
5. think independently about relocation. moving abroad because other people say a country is better can create a new kind of dissatisfaction if you have never identified what actually works for you.

this video was filmed in 2024.

i was living in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

small beach town. quiet. beautiful in a way that sneaks up on you.

and i had no idea that less than a year later i would be on the other side of the Atlantic.

at the time i filmed this, i thought i was leaving to go back to New York.

Brooklyn specifically. where i had lived before. where the plan made sense on paper.

but when i got there i already knew. you can't move from a small beach town back to a city that smells and crowds and moves like that. not when your body has already adjusted to something slower and cleaner. Brooklyn said no before i even finished unpacking. ----

NOTE: do you need a break? find me at https://respite.faafo.app/

--- so i went back to rural America for a little while. regrouped. got quiet.

and a few weeks later i made a decision i had never made before.

i was going to try moving abroad. for the first time in my life.

first passport. no international experience. no blueprint. just a direction.

what you're watching right now is just a bike ride.

my neighborhood in New Smyrna. the road. the ordinary everyday of a life i was about to leave behind without fully knowing it yet.

i want you to watch it and understand what this channel actually is.

move to brazil with sisi is not an invitation to move with me.

i'm not here to convince you of anything.

what this is --- is all of it. every part of the journey. including the parts that don't look like brazil at all.

because here's what i keep watching people miss:

if your heart is set on something, God --- the ancestors --- the universe --- whatever name you give that force --- will give you what you want.

but it will prepare you first.

and that preparation doesn't always look like progress.

sometimes it looks like a beach town in Florida you didn't plan to love. sometimes it looks like a Brooklyn trip that lasts three weeks because your whole body rejects the idea. sometimes it looks like rural America in between, sitting still long enough to hear what comes next.

people see where i am now and they want to skip to this part.

i understand that.

but i need to be clear: i am not telling you to struggle. i am not romanticizing the hard parts. that is not what this is.

what i am saying is that the steps you want to skip are often building the capacity for the life you're asking for.

and when you quit because the preparation doesn't look like the destination --- you don't get the destination.

so yes. there will be videos on this channel about Florida. about Brooklyn. about the in-between. about ordinary bike rides in places that don't look like bahia at all.

they are all part of it.

because the life i'm living right now was assembled from every single one of those pieces.

in order. nothing wasted. nothing accidental.

https://faafo.app/