Mapping the Route.

The road to Brazil will be an epic journey through treacherous terrain, crucial climate, and the edacious edifice of each toll, border, and unknown law. Our whole idea behind this documentary is to promote safe and smart traveling through territory that isn’t really deemed “safe and smart” by media tabloids. One thing we agreed upon is that we will not be driving at night. Period. We are going to map each city in which we shall stay overnight, make sure the distance between each city is an appropriate amount to leave after sunrise and arrive before sunset. This will be time consuming of course, with days getting shorter as further south we go, but we are more concerned with being safe than being late. If we don’t leave one particular city in time, we will stay another night.

After each city is picked we will reach out via Couchsurfing to make contacts in these cities. http://www.couchsurfing.org is an incredible way to travel.  Not only is it traveling on the cheap, it’s safe and you experience the culture a whole lot more than you would staying at the Marriott. The way Couchsurfing works is you build credibility by hosting your “couch”, getting “coffee” or showing another traveler around town. That traveler will rate you based on their experience, so when you do the traveling and request people’s “couches” they will see if you deem credible enough to stay with them. When I mean credible I basically mean safe enough. When telling my mom about Couchsurfing her immediate response was, “what if you get killed?” Well, based on the whole idea it’s pretty safe, kind of like hostels. People are there for the same reasons, cheap travel and meeting cool people. It is actually safer to do than the alternative hotel stays. When you stay with someone local you are eating, drinking, and experiencing things regular tourists do not.

So, that is our plan as of now. Determine the distance between each city, count in traffic, filling up the tank, bathroom breaks, food breaks, border crossings, tolls, etc.