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|hitch = <rating country='br' />
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'''Brazil''' is a country in [[South America]]. It has a border with every country on the continent except [[Chile]] and [[Ecuador]]. Brazil is a huge country and [[hitchhiking]] depends a lot on the area as to how receptive people will be and your chances in getting rides. Some Brazilians consider their country violent and dangerous part due to the media's love to seize on the of seizing stories and exaggerate them.
== Regions ==
Brazil needs to be taken with caution but hitchhiking is doable in every area except within greater [[São Paulo]], as you are over shadowed due to overshadowed by the volumes of traffic. On roadsides, care must be taken because of the erratic ways of Brazilian Motoristsmotorists. Many use the slip lanes to overtake traffic or swerve to allow others past.
Areas like the Amazon and Pantanal backlands are much easier when asking on road sides and at [[petrol station hitchhiking|petrol stations]]. Areas where there is purely the with just one national highway make life are much easier for reaching intended your destination. Put your mind to it and its it's very possible to cover a little over 300 kilometer daily or more depending on area. North East may be trickier as there are less cars and peoples fear of Bandidos but when you get someone they will be talkative and friendly.
Hitchhiking on the interstate highway is much more even easier. Interstates highway have different names, depending on the state you are in. For example, if you are in the state of Santa Catarina, the interstate highways are read as SC. They are called in portuguese as the Rodovia do Estado. There is less traffic on these highways, so hitchhiking is easier. And you get more rides on private vehicles, rather then trucks.
The national highways are shown as BR. Hitchhiking here is pretty hard. The best way to get rides, is to talk to truck drivers at the Petrol Station or the Posto BR as locals would call them.
It starts with the State abbreviation and followed with numbers. This way you can also somehow figure out where the vehicle is going to.
For example:
*PR is Paraná/*SC is Santa Catarina/*RJ is Rio do Janeiro/*SP is Sao Paolo/*RS is Rio Grande Do Sul
== Maps ==
[[File:Brazil highways.jpg|thumb|300px]]
[http://www.br.map24.com/ map24] is was a useful online route planner for Brazil and the rest of South America. [http://www.guiamais.com.br/ruas GuiaMais] is another great website with maps and route planning for Brazil only. As of 2012 Google maps is pretty decent for Brazil.
Guia Quatro Rodas publishes a great road map of Brazil. Available at most gas stations for R$13.
== Sleep ==
If you look like a foreigner you might consider go to a hostel or CouchSurf[http://www.bewelcome.org/ couchsurf]. There are lots of homeless crackheads in major cities these days. In rural areas, if you say you have nowhere to stay they will often offer you a spot in their house and good hearty Brazilian food (which is often rice, beans and corn porridge in some areas, or roasted cassava flour to eat with the beans, very energetic and delicious, and sometimes chicken or meat - if you are a vegetarian say you don't like meat, if you just say you don't want they will think you're shy and put on your plate anyways, and if you don't want the food say you are very full and they will stop insisting). Small villages are great for camping and rarely police will bug you, unless it is a touristic city. Avoid setting up a tent in big cities, if you got no dime and no concealed spot sleep in bus stations or open air.
== Cities ==
