Part 1: Antoine, Part 1: He Knocked on My Door and Had a Whole Damn Story

This conversation was not planned.

Antoine and I had known each other for about 72 hours when we sat down in my apartment in Salvador, Bahia, to record this. We met because he heard American voices while waiting for the elevator in my building and decided to knock on the door. That pretty much tells you what kind of conversation follows.

Antoine, also known as Tomahawk, is an American who has been living in Colombia and traveling internationally for years. His path into solo travel started with the military, continued with a birthday trip to the Dominican Republic, and eventually became a lifestyle built around working hard in the United States, saving aggressively, and spending extended periods abroad.

We talk about the difference between visiting another country and actually engaging with the culture, what returning to the United States feels like after living in Colombia, race versus class in Latin America, the assumptions people make about who can afford to travel, and the financial decisions behind a life that can look effortless from the outside.

And because this is Brasil: Behind Closed Doors, the conversation wanders exactly where it wants to wander.

A couple of Antoine moments:

• “I’m about to start celebrating myself. I don’t even need anybody else.”

And after I interrupted the interview to compliment him:

• “Who wants to have their best feature be their eyelashes?”

In Part One, we talk about:

• How a random knock on my door in Salvador turned into this interview
• Antoine’s first solo international trip and why he stopped waiting for other people to travel
• Living in Colombia and the emotional shock of returning to the United States
• His observations about race, class, Black identity, and traveling through Latin America
• How he works, saves, downsizes, and structures his U.S. life to make extended travel possible

This is not the polished relocation fantasy. It is a conversation about how one person actually built a life that gives him access to more of the world, including the tradeoffs, contradictions, and questionable decisions along the way.

-- Listen to Part 2 at https://rss.com/podcasts/brasil-behind-closed-doors/3087745 --

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