How the 2024 São Paulo Grand Prix Made Me Fall in Love with Travel
My São Paulo travel story
For more than twenty years, my life revolved around one thing: the automotive business.
Long hours. Endless weekends. Sales goals. Deliveries. Finance paperwork. It was a career I genuinely loved, but it didn’t leave much room for travel.
Vacations weren’t really adventures.
They were opportunities to recharge before going back to work.
Travel was never something I obsessed over.
It was simply something you did.
Then Formula 1 entered my life.
Working with Ferrari introduced me to an entirely different world. At first, I fell in love with the engineering. Then the history. Then the competition. Before long, every race weekend became must-watch television.
Eventually watching wasn’t enough.
I wanted to experience Formula 1 in person.
That decision would eventually take me somewhere I never expected.
São Paulo.
I Thought I Was Going for Formula 1
When I booked my trip to the 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix, I thought I knew exactly why I was going.
Interlagos.
The home of Ayrton Senna.
One of Formula 1’s most historic circuits.
The incredible Brazilian fans.
That was the reason I bought the plane ticket.
At least that’s what I told myself.
Looking back, Formula 1 was only the beginning.
I Had Something to Prove
There was another reason I planned that trip so obsessively.
I wanted to impress someone who lived in São Paulo. This is what started my São Paulo Travel Story
That might sound strange.
Most people visit a city and rely on the locals to show them around.
I wanted to do the opposite.
I wanted to arrive knowing the city well enough that I could contribute to the experience—not just follow someone else’s itinerary.
Maybe I could even introduce them to a restaurant or cocktail bar they hadn’t discovered themselves.
That became the challenge.
Could someone living nearly 5,000 miles away learn another person’s city well enough to surprise them?
So I started researching.
Then I researched even more.
Restaurant menus.
Chef interviews.
Google Maps.
Neighborhoods.
Cocktail bars.
Luxury hotels.
Food blogs.
YouTube walking tours.
Reddit threads.
I translated menus written entirely in Portuguese just to understand what chefs were creating.
I learned which neighborhoods had the best restaurants.
Which cocktail bars were worth visiting.
Which hotels truly justified their prices.
I wasn’t building a vacation anymore.
I was studying a city.
Of course, I quickly learned something important.
No matter how much research you do, you can never truly know a place until you’re standing in it.
But the research gave me confidence.
Instead of arriving completely unfamiliar with São Paulo, I landed feeling like I already knew its neighborhoods, its restaurants, and its rhythm.
That completely changed the trip.
More Than a Race
Interlagos was everything I’d imagined.
The noise.
The atmosphere.
The energy.
The passion of Brazilian Formula 1 fans is unlike anything I’d experienced before.
You could feel Ayrton Senna’s legacy everywhere.
For one weekend, the entire city seemed connected by Formula 1.
It was unforgettable.
But what surprised me most wasn’t what happened inside the circuit.
It was everything outside of it.
The City That Changed My Perspective
Like many Americans, I didn’t know much about São Paulo before arriving.
I expected traffic and crime.
Skyscrapers.
A huge city.
But my experience during my São Paulo Travel Story.
I found was one of the most exciting culinary destinations I’d ever experienced.
Restaurants operating at an astonishing level.
Cocktail bars that could compete with any city in the world.
Neighborhoods that each felt completely different.
Every day became another excuse to explore.
One reservation turned into another recommendation.
One cocktail bar led to another neighborhood.
One conversation led to another unforgettable meal.
The itinerary I’d spent months creating suddenly became secondary.
The city was creating its own itinerary for me.
The People Changed Everything
The restaurants were incredible.
The cocktails were unforgettable.
But the people are what made me fall in love with Brazil.
Brazilians welcomed me in a way I hadn’t experienced anywhere else.
Everyone seemed genuinely proud of their city and excited to share it.
Hotel staff.
Drivers.
Servers.
Bartenders.
Chefs.
Complete strangers.
There was an openness that immediately made me feel comfortable.
The culinary world surprised me even more.
In cities like New York, it’s easy for celebrated chefs and mixologists to feel almost untouchable.
People line up for months to eat their food.
Social media turns them into celebrities.
Sometimes there’s an invisible wall between the guest and the person creating the experience.
São Paulo felt different.
The chefs I met wanted to talk.
The bartenders were genuinely curious.
The mixologists explained why they built a cocktail a certain way.
Nobody acted like they were above the people sitting at their tables.
They were world-class professionals who still felt approachable.
That made every meal feel personal.
And honestly?
Some of the talent I experienced in São Paulo was every bit as impressive as anything I’ve found in New York.
In some cases, even better.
Not because they were trying harder.
Because there was no ego attached to it.
Just pride.
Passion.
Hospitality.
That combination completely changed the way I look at restaurants today.
Luxury Isn’t What I Thought It Was
Brazil also changed my definition of luxury.
Luxury isn’t simply paying the highest price.
Luxury is attention to detail.
It’s thoughtful hospitality.
It’s a bartender remembering what you ordered yesterday.
It’s a chef explaining why a dish matters.
It’s a hotel that makes every interaction feel effortless.
The most expensive experience isn’t always the best one.
The most memorable usually comes down to the people.
That lesson has stayed with me ever since.
The Research Never Stopped My São Paulo Travel Story
When I came home, something had changed.
I wasn’t looking at travel the same way anymore.
Now every destination became a puzzle.
Where should I stay?
Which restaurants actually deserve the hype?
Which cocktail bars are worth crossing a city for?
Which neighborhoods should I spend an afternoon wandering?
The research itself became part of the excitement.
The trip no longer started at the airport.
It started months earlier.
Why This Website Exists
Friends started asking for recommendations.
Where should we stay?
Which hotel is actually worth the money?
Where should we eat?
What shouldn’t we waste time on?
I realized I’d already spent hundreds—eventually thousands—of hours researching destinations before every trip.
Why not share it?
That’s how this website was born.
Not because I wanted to become a travel blogger.
Because I wanted to help people experience cities the way I had learned to.
Not through checklists.
Not through influencers.
Through curiosity.
Through incredible meals.
Through conversations.
Through neighborhoods.
Through the people who make every destination unique.
Looking Back
When I booked a ticket to the 2024 São Paulo Grand Prix, I thought I was buying admission to a Formula 1 race.
Instead, I discovered a city that completely changed how I travel.
I arrived hoping to impress someone who already knew São Paulo.
I left realizing I had only scratched the surface.
I learned that great restaurants are about more than food.
Great cocktail bars are about more than drinks.
Luxury is about people.
Hospitality is about connection.
And travel isn’t about how many places you visit.
It’s about how deeply you experience them.
Formula 1 got me on the plane.
São Paulo made me fall in love with travel.
Everything I’ve built since—from the restaurants I visit to the hotels I book, the cocktail bars I seek out, and even this website—can be traced back to that one trip.
The race lasted one weekend.
The impact is still shaping every journey I take today.
This is my São Paulo Travel Story
