Venezuela
CAPITAL CITY: Caracas
POPULATION: 28,868,486
SIZE: 7th largest country in Latin America
DEMOGRAPHICS: 60% Mestizo and/or White, 23% Amerindian, 16% Black
CALLING CODE: +58
GDP PER CAPITA: $12,500 USD
LIFE EXPECTANCY: 74.31 years
DATING PROSPECTS: 6/10
QUALITY OF WOMEN: 8/10
EXPECT TO SPEND: $600-800 USD/Month
MY LATIN LIFE RANKING: #14
What originally drove me to live in Latin America wasn't the sex, sun and salsa. Rather, it was a fascination with the politics, culture and society in this part of the world.
My interest started in university with a socioeconomics course. Insufferable Marxist indoctrination aside, it was an engaging class and responsible for igniting my enthusiasm for Latin America. I probably never would have bothered to take the jump to live in LATAM if I hadn't taken the class.
Credit where credit's due.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen!
Today, I'll be talking about some worthwhile Instagram accounts to follow from Venezuela, more specifically, Caracas.
Why Venezuela?
Well, it's a place...
You may have seen some crazy shit on the Internet recently about Venezuela.
Mass protests, moves by President Maduro to rewrite the constitution and, of course, the perpetual food and medical shortages, crime waves and violence.
So, how did all this happen to a country that was once among the richest in Latin America?
It's July of 2017.
Thousands of Venezuelans have taken to the streets to protest President Maduro's increasingly oppressive rule and general incompetence. Mass inflation, food shortages and violent crime have seen the leader's approval rating plummet to about 20%.
Clearly, most Venezuelans think it's time for a regime change.
But how is it that - in a country that has been suffering so long, with many angry, gun-owning citizens - Maduro is able to hold on to power?
If you spend enough time in Latin America, you're going to meet a lot of Venezuelan girls.
Because the country has basically been a no-go zone for travellers the past 10 years, relatively little has been written about this topic.
Here are my observations.
Here is my in-depth Latin American Cupid review!
Hot off the presses and updated for 2019.
Before Venezuela dissolved into complete chaos, Merida struck me as a city where I'd like to live one day. You might think that it was the beautiful women and vibrant nightlife, but what actually seduced me was that, in a strange way, it reminded me of my hometown.
Although I was raised 6,500 km away, in a country and culture vastly different from that of Venezuela's, arriving in this city cradled by mountains gave me an incredible sense of nostalgia for where I grew up. Only this time, it was the Andes mountain range instead of the Coast and Cascade Mountain Ranges.
But enough about me.
Let's talk about the city.
I've compiled a list of what I believe to be the best cities for a tourist to visit in Latin America. The list is based on the criteria outlined on my cities guides, so you'll want to click on the link to the city to get a thoroughgoing breakdown on the destination to find out why it ranked the way it did.
I rank each city based on the following:
I'm quite a big fan of lists.
For your pleasure, I've gone and made a list, by city, of the best places to hook-up in South America (read: Latin America, but 'South America' gets more hits in Google).
Please don't take this as gospel - everyone's experience will be different. Whereas I might do better in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, you might do better in Brazil and Mexico. Someone else might do better in Chile and Argentina (although, it's difficult to imagine).
In this post, I curate over 100 vintage travel posters of Latin America — organized by country — with prints dating from the early 1900s to the 1990s.
Ladies and gentlemen, you won’t want to miss this one!