June 2020, Rio de Janeiro: Troubling times.
Well, it’s with mixed feelings that I announce that Eat Rio is an active blog again. Mixed feelings because having time to blog means a big hole has just opened up in my schedule. But more on that a little later. First, for those of you who haven’t been following along from the start (where’ve you been for the last 9 years?), here’s an Eat Rio recap:
- I left the UK in 2009 and spent the next year travelling around South and Central America.
2010, Guatemala. At this point I had no idea I’d soon be moving to Brazil permanently.
- At the end of my travels I made a quick stop in Rio, thinking I’d stay for a week or two. A few months after my arrival I decided to stay permanently.
- In May 2011 I made a blog and called it Eat Rio. I wrote about the challenges and discoveries that came with my new life in Brazil, the things I found most interesting about Brazilian culture (especially food, drinks, music and language), plus a bunch of random photos of birds, plants and street art.
- I realised that to build readership you need to be prolific. I was publishing 4-5 posts per week at one point and it seemed to be doing the trick (even though I’ll admit that the quality of the posts was at times somewhat, ahem, variable…).
2012. One of the first Eat Rio logos, put together by my super talented sister.
- Back in those early years I was still working in fairly heavy IT jobs, but as the years passed I would occasionally be asked to write short articles for travel publications and in-flight magazines. A radical idea started to form in my mind: what if there was a way out of IT and into the world of food and travel writing?
- Events conspired: My 4 hour daily commute on overcrowded buses started to wear me down; I was introduced to the concept of food tours by a new friend (thanks Diana!); the FIFA world cup (along with a huge influx of tourists) was just 6 months away. I did that thing they tell you not to do: I quit my day job.
- Eat Rio Food Tours was born. Things started going really well: the food tours took off; I was commissioned to write a big city guide for a travel site; the World Cup was just around the corner (Brazil would probably win…).
- The next few years were a blur – I wrote a real life guide book to Rio, the demand for food tours got so big I had to take on a team of guides (we got incredible reviews), I took a side job covering Rio for Lonely Planet and even wrote an article for National Geographic.
- With all this activity, the blog section of Eat Rio was moved to one side and I shifted the focus of the website towards the food tours.
2016. My first book (also my last book… so far).
- The start of a new year. 2020 had a good ring to it. This was going to be a great year!
- There were reports of some virus in China. It probably wouldn’t affect us all the way over here in Brazil though…
OK, so there it is. You’re up to speed. In my next post I’m going to answer the question that I’m asked about 3 times a day at the moment: How are things going in Brazil?
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