Hitchhiking Brazil. Some practical tips

It’s been 6 weeks now since I started travelling around Brazil and I’ve learned tons of things along the way. One of them is to hitchhike.

Transportation is particularly expensive in this country, a 6 hour bus ride can be 160 reales. It might not sound as a big amount but since I’m a stingy low budget traveler and I’m used to colombian prices and that’s very much 3 or 4 times more that what I’m used to pay.  Under those conditions in all this time I’ve only payed for 3 buses and taken many “caronas” (lifts in portuguese) around the states of São paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio and Espirito Santo. It’s not as easy as a bus but It’s definitely not impossible and most importantly it’s way more fun than taking a regular bus. There are also some websites available where cars and hitchhikers post their estimate plans and wait to find a match but I think it’s unlikely and boring so I’ve only hitchhiked in the proper road.

So, here are my tips! 🙂

1. Plan your route. 

For 15 reales you can buy a mapão, which is a standard roadmap of Brazil. There you can see the names of the roads, intermediate towns, alternative routes, etc. The names of the roads are very important since you’ll ask where they are all the time, and truckers speak lots about them so you’ll be less lost on a conversation. In my personal experience a 10 hour bus ride is the maximum you can do with a carona per day. Trucks are way slower than cars and buses, so don’t expect to cross the whole country in a day. My latest carona was 10 hours from Vitoria to Rio and took me around 16 hours to complete.

2. Go to bed early!! 

Hitchhiking is an exhausting activity and very time consuming. You´ll have to wake up early to squeeze day hours at the maximum and  probably all your energy to complete your track. It’s quite likely that you’ll have to take more than two or three trucks to get wherever you go, and waiting under the rain, or under a very strong sun can easily brake your mind and make you grab a bus.

This might be obvious but wear very comfortable and flexible cloths, and bring water and a few snacks for the way. You never know when your truck is gonna stop to eat or pee.

3. Find a good hitchhiking spot

In my experience, best hitchhiking spots are out of the city in the actual main road that takes you to your destiny. So let’s say that if  you are hitchhiking Belo Horizonte to Rio you’ll need to get to the BR 040, this puts you on the straight way to Rio and you won’t loose time stopping trucks that are going somewhere else. Go as far as possible from the urban are you are departing from. Big cities usually have attached sub-urban cities that are easy to cross with urban buses.

Gas posts increase your probability and sometimes there are lil villages on the outskirts of cities dedicated to repair trucks or maintenance. Trucks stop on this spots, either to refuel or repair something so you’ll have a lil more time to speak with them and ask for a hitch.

If for some reason you are in the middle of the road try to find a bump, those asphalt bumps made to make cars slow down. they give you a lil more time to be seen.

4. Be patient (and persistent)

As said before, you’ll have to wait wait and wait.. and then wait a bit more. My personal wait time is between 1 and 3 hours on the road, it has never been less than 40 minutes. This is apparently not true for women tho, as far as I’ve spoken with some women  hitchhikers they don’t wait more than 15 to 20 minutes on the road. Stay with your right hand up in the classic standard pick-me-up! position and…

BONUS HINT!! (for men)

Find a women to hitchhike with you!! Women decrease radically the time you will have to wait in the road. you can pass from waiting 4 hours to wait for 30 minutes or less. And is just not only about time!!  If you are with a girl they will drop you on more convenient spots, help you more, let you walk less, etc.  Believe me, that is a MASSIVE difference.

The hotter the girl, the better.

BONUS HINT!! (for women)

Avoid hitchhiking with men!! I mean, from a practical point of view is just an unnecessary load. You will last longer waiting on the road and less space on the cabin. It might only be compensated if the guy is cool enough to hang out with or makes you feel safer.

5. Stay positive

This is the only way you can stay on the road for several hours under adverse conditions, specially when truckers make you an ass face. That really turns your attitude down.  Just ignore it, focus on the cool truckers and keep trying 🙂  It might not sound very important but it is crucial.

6. Try to make eye contact

I think this is really the key to make a 20 ton truck stop. Try to make eye contact with the driver! As simple as that. Your trucker wont stop and make you an interview to know if you are a cool person. You only have a few milliseconds to capture his attention and convince him to press the break. You are a cool person so show it! Big smile also helps.

And yes, since you don’t know who will pick u up you should try to make contact with every car and truck that passes in front of you. It’s energy demanding but I truly think that’s the key of finding a carona. Once you get on the truck you’ll feel awesome, like a hero  most of these massive trucks have air conditioning and very comfortable seats, so you’ll feel the reward. All you’ll have to do next, and never forget, is:

7. Be nice to your caminhãoneiro!!

This is not a practical tip. Your trucker (caminhãoneiro) won’t leave you in the middle of the road unless you behave like an idiot but he’s making you a massive favor. The minimum you can do is be nice to him. Being nice basically includes two things:

8. Not falling sleep

This is not a safety hint, hitchhiking is safe. I just find really unpolite to sleep while your trucker is working, willing to talk to someone and trying to avoid falling sleep!!. Also, you miss all the fun. In my opinion it’s acceptable to fall sleep only after several hours of talking or when your trucker tells you explicitly that it’s ok.

9. Be chatty!

In my opinion most caminhãoneiros pick you up most of the times just to have someone to chat with. They spend several hours driving in boring roads totally alone so they talk a lot! and they expect you to do the same. All the truckers that I’ve met were very chatty about themselves and always expecting to know a lot about you. The most common conversation topics may include where are you from, how is your country compared to Brazil, women, football, how is your life back home, etc.

10. Grab his number

Sometimes truckers do the same routes back and forth for entire months. If you happen to need a carona from one point to other any day or simply you need to come back you might give a call to your caminhãoneiro and try to fit in his schedule. This obviously saves all the effort of looking for a new carona.

So thats it.. easy right??

Here some pics

Note: Speaking portuguese definitely helps, but not speaking it shouldn’t stop you from hitchhiking (Specially if you are a women). It’s totally obvious to the trucker why you are there, so the first word he will probably want to hear from you is the name of the city you are going to, if it matches you are on the cabin and the rest comes spontaneously. And if you don’t speak a single word then it is the perfect self-enforcing exercise to learn.