Rio de Janeiro

Of all the cities this work has taken me to, Rio is the one I’d go back to first, no debate required. I was there for the American School of Rio de Janeiro, and the visit gave me the excuse to actually live in the city for a few days rather than pass through it — which is the only way Rio makes sense. It’s not a place you sightsee. It’s a place you move through, and the moving through is the point.

Leblon and the lake

I stayed in Leblon, and if I’m honest, that decision did more to shape how I feel about Rio than anything else on the trip. It’s the neighborhood where the city’s energy calms down just enough to be livable without losing any of what makes Rio Rio — beachfront on one side, the hills rising green and steep on the other. My mornings became a loop around Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, the lake that Leblon and Ipanema wrap around, with Christ the Redeemer visible on the ridgeline the entire way. Runners, cyclists, families, vendors setting up for the day — it’s the most honest cross-section of the city you’ll find, and doing it daily turned into the part of the trip I actually miss.

The two views everyone comes for

Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain earn their fame precisely because no photograph prepares you for them. Corcovado gives you the whole city laid out at once — the curve of the coastline, the favelas climbing the hillsides, the lake, the stadium, all of it visible in a single turn. Sugarloaf, reached by cable car, gives you the version of that view at golden hour, with Guanabara Bay turning gold and the city lights starting to come on below. Both are tourist stops in the literal sense. Neither feels like one once you’re standing there.

What actually makes it unique

Rio’s real character isn’t in the postcard views, though — it’s in the texture underneath them. The casual meals eaten standing up at a juice bar or a boteco, the samba spilling out of a bar on a Tuesday night like it’s nothing unusual, a culture that treats joy as a daily obligation rather than an occasion. And running through all of it, impossible to look away from, is the visible reality of the favelas built into the hillsides — communities of real people living alongside extraordinary wealth and equally extraordinary natural beauty, close enough that you can’t process one without the other. That juxtaposition is uncomfortable, and it should be. It’s also, honestly, part of what makes Rio feel more alive than almost anywhere else I’ve worked. The city doesn’t hide its contradictions. It just keeps dancing through them.

The school in that context

The American School of Rio operates inside all of this — a school community built for expatriate and Brazilian families navigating a city that is simultaneously one of the most beautiful and one of the most unequal places on earth. That context isn’t background noise for a school like this. It’s part of what the education has to reckon with, and it shapes a student body that grows up with a more honest view of the world than most.