About Brazil Safe Travel

Brazil Safe Travel publishes city-level safety guides for international travelers, built on official crime statistics from Brazilian state public-security agencies rather than recycled travel-blog advice.

Why this exists

In 2025 a news report described two British tourists who were drugged and robbed in Brazil, losing close to 3,000 euros to a scam most Brazilians can name on sight: Boa Noite Cinderela. Cases like it repeat constantly, and they are largely avoidable. Those travelers were caught out because nobody had told them the scam existed.

Arriving in an unfamiliar country with no local context leaves you exposed in ways that have nothing to do with courage or common sense. Brazil Safe Travel exists so travelers can recognize those risks in advance, and spend the rest of the trip enjoying the country.

— Maikel Galvao, founder

How we source our data

Every safety claim in a city guide traces back to a primary source. We do not cite other travel blogs. The recurring sources are:

  • State public-security secretariats — SSP-SP (São Paulo), ISP-RJ (Rio de Janeiro), and their equivalents in other states, which publish homicide, robbery and theft counts on a fixed schedule.
  • Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública — the annual national compilation used for cross-state comparison.
  • Government travel advisories — the U.S. State Department and equivalent UK, Canadian and Australian guidance.
  • Health authorities — CDC Travelers' Health and Brazil's Ministério da Saúde for vaccine and outbreak guidance.
  • Municipal transport operators — for metro, bus and airport-transfer specifics.

How guides are reviewed

Crime statistics in Brazil are published on a lag, and a guide quoting five-year-old numbers is worse than no guide at all. Our practice:

  • Each guide names the year of the data it cites, in the body text rather than only in the title.
  • When a source agency publishes a new period, the affected guides are re-checked and the dateModified field is updated. We do not refresh that date without re-checking the underlying facts.
  • Guides state risk honestly, including when a destination is genuinely dangerous. Reassurance that does not survive contact with the data is not useful to anyone.

The app

Brazil Safe Travel also publishes a mobile app that uses geolocation to flag higher-risk areas nearby and explain the scams common to that area. It covers the same ground as the guides, at the moment you actually need it — on the street rather than at the planning stage.

How we make money

Brazil Safe Travel earns in two ways, and you should know both before you trust a recommendation.

  • The app. Our own product, linked throughout the site.
  • Affiliate commissions. Some outbound links to travel insurance, eSIM providers and booking services pay us a commission if you buy through them. The price you pay is the same either way.

Two rules we hold ourselves to. First, commissions never decide editorial content — no city moves up a safety ranking, and no risk gets softened, because a partner sells there. Salvador is described as Brazil's most dangerous capital by homicide rate because that is what the data says, regardless of what that does to bookings. Second, a source citation is never an affiliate link. When we cite a page to support a factual claim, that link is a reference and earns us nothing.

Affiliate links are marked where they appear and carry the rel="sponsored" attribute. If you would rather not use them, every recommendation names the provider so you can go direct.

Corrections and contact

If you find an error, a stale statistic, or a source we have misread, tell us and we will correct it. Reach us at support@brazilsafetravel.com, or on Instagram and TikTok.