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Oh what can I say about my samba 4 month journey led by our community leader Thiago.
I did july-oct Latin America program (CDMX, Colombia, Peru and Brazil). The highlight of the program was Thiago who was the best person to lead the program. He was genuine and took utmost care of us. The program would not have been same without him and we ended up as a life long friend (I hope he feels same😅).
I would definitely join another program in a heartbeat led by Thiago.
My month in Floripa, Brazil absolutely exceeded my expectations! The accommodations and workspace were modern and well-maintained. And everyone - from the City Manager, to the vendors, to the coworking members - was so welcoming and ensured you were having a positive experience.
As a solo female traveler, ensuring safety ranks high on my list of priorities, and Remote Year provided complete peace of mind in that regard. If you're lucky enough to have the chance to live in Floripa, DO IT!
I want to start by saying that Florianopolis is an amazing destination to go to and I strongly recommend anyone to visit the island. I mainly chose Florianopolis for its nature and beautiful beaches. For a first experience with a community program, I was very disappointed by what Remote Year offered:
Housing: the establishment is located in Centro (downtown) of Florianopolis and is a very recent building with great amenities (except for the gym which is extremely basic) including the co-working spaces (there are two) and the restaurants. However due to its location, if you are expecting to finish work at 5PM and be able to go the beach right after to enjoy the sun, you will need a minimum of 25-30 minutes (by car/Uber) before getting to one of the closest beach. It would sometime even take up to 50 minutes to get to a beach after work due to traffic on the island. Sunset was around 7PM in Florianopolis when I visited in January, so you could understand that I barely had any time to enjoy the beaches during the week (at lunch time) or after work. This was a great disappointment to me as I had chosen Florianopolis for its beaches and nature : I could only really enjoy them on weekends unfortunately. Conclusion: great establishment but not the best location if you were thinking of going to beaches during the week.
Built-in community :
1) One of the purposes of my trip with Remote Year was to be able to meet with people from all over the world, or at least from different countries to learn from different cultures. This is not the case at all : my group was consisted of 90% from the United-States, 5% from Canada (including myself) and the remaining 5% from different countries. I have nothing against Americans and I did meet great people in my group, however if you are expecting to meet people from different countries this will not be the case.
2) The majority of the activities amongst the group are not included in the price you pay : be ready to budget yourself a great amount of money in order to participate in the excursions with the group. The day excursions are all over $150 USD, which after talking to a few locals are way OVERpriced. For the activities below $100 USD, do not expect too much from them. I had paid $72 USD for ''snacks'' on the beach, a very short guided tour of Santo Antonio de Lisboa where you will visit a church, and go to a Samba bar at the end of the night. All things you could do for free on your own! I did ask from a reimbursement for this activity, which was a really hard process as they were trying to find excuses not to do so. They were blaming me for the following (which I quote from one of their responses by email) : ''you were late to the experience as you opted to not ride with the group and missed a good portion of it which would make it really hard to get the most of the experience''. Which was totally not the case ... After a few exchanges of emails, they did end up reimbursing me.
The base cost of the trip does not really include access to the community and activities within the group, but rather an opportunity for Remote Year to $ell you extra activities once you get there. Most of the activities I enjoyed with the group were outside of Remote Year's scope.
I still enjoyed my trip to Florianopolis as this is an amazing destination that you should definitely visit ! Brazilians are very welcoming people :) I wish I had read more of the negative reviews before booking this with Remote Year.
Feedback is essential to us, and we request it from every customer each month to continuously enhance our services. Over the past year, our operations in Florianopolis have thrived, largely due to incorporating customer feedback into our offerings, making it one of our most popular destinations.
Accommodation Location:
Our housing is strategically located in the city center, chosen based on extensive feedback indicating it as the ideal base for experiencing Florianopolis and its surroundings. While seemingly attractive, the beach area lacks amenities like quality restaurants, for a month stay. Staying here can result in an isolated area without good amenities. That said, we do organise weekly a ‘work-from-the-beach’ day, which allows customers to work from a designated workspace just across one of the most beautiful beaches on the island. This way, besides spending time on the beach on the weekends, we provide a structure where people can work from the beach at least once a week.
Diversity:
When it comes to diversity on our trips we are proud to be the most diverse work and travel community in the world. While we cannot guarantee that every trip captures each diverse segment of society (such as citizenship), but we believe diversity expands far beyond just where a participant holds citizenship. The group in reference was represented by several other diverse segments despite being a large majority from the United States. On average more than 40% of people who are part of Remote Year, are non-US, and that percentage is steadily increasing.
Included Experiences:
Our base trip cost does cover numerous community events and experiences, fostering connections among like-minded travelers. These include Sunday Socials, Welcome Events, Local Tours, Language & Culture Classes, and more. Engaging in these experiences enhances the overall month-long journey.
Additional Experiences:
To have a great month in any of the destinations we offer, is not dependent on spending money on additional experiences. These are provided for those who want to tailor their time to best suit them. We make this clear from our website and throughout our trip onboarding. Our City Teams put together curated local experiences based on surveying the landscape of offerings in their home city/country and finding the best and most ethical partners for us to work with for those experiences.
Florianopolis has higher prices than other parts of Brazil, and additionally prices are inflated during high season. We keep our prices low all year round, and range from $30 - $167. Those experiences over $150 are because we hire a private boat for the tours. A typical visitor, outside of RY, could expect to pay 30% more for a private boat tour, and still not have the same level of thought & detail provided by our City Managers.
In particular, the one experience detailed in this review was ‘Sunset, Samba and Good Vibes’. This is actually voted one of the top 5 favorite experiences across the Remote Year platform based on customer feedback, out of 150 experiences worldwide. It’s understandable that if someone were to miss the private historical walking tour, and half of the tasting menu, and then leave before the samba experience has finished, that you may not perceive this as good value for money.
Customer Satisfaction:
Contrary to the specific review mentioned, feedback from January in Florianopolis reflects overwhelmingly positive experiences. Overall satisfaction scores averaged 95% for experiences, 96% for community, 98% for accommodation, and 100% for the workspace, consistent with other months and destinations.
We appreciate all feedback as it aids us in continuously refining and enhancing our offerings to ensure every customer has a memorable and rewarding experience with us.
Great organization and infrastructure! Did the Florianopolis 1 month program.
The residential and working space were modern and highly functional,staff on site were really nice.
The Community Manager was great,extremely resourceful and available .
The whole thing from purchasing the program to checkout was seamless
This is my second Remote Year month long journey and it lived up the extremely high expectations that the first one set. This time I spent a month in Floripa, Brazil which was led by Thiago. Every experience was extremely well thought out and executed to perfection. The other people who were a part of the journey made it that much more special.
I would highly recommend Floripa and Remote Year to anyone who is considering it.
Had an amazing time in Florianópolis, Thiago and Cata really mad the experience memorable and created a really great community feel even while competing with a little more rain than expected. Thanks both!
Florianopolis with Remote Year
The accommodations and workspace were extremely comfortable and convenient. The City manager, Thiago and the group leader, Cata, added great value to the experience with their suggestions for activities, their enthusiasm and with handling any issues that came up as well as becoming friends. The other participants were an interesting and friendly group of people and provided significant camaraderie.
I have had an a great month in Florianopolis! Being able to work remote is a privilege but can be isolating. Remote Year has created such a wonderful opportunity to have the resources to work hard in a great co-working space while also playing hard in a new country with an incredible community. It was been so nice to see how warm and inclusive everyone is. Thiago went above and beyond to make our experience here in Floripa wonderful, and to introduce us to his cities (including Rio!). And Cata brings so much warm energy to the group!
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