After three waterfalls, five mountains, one world wonder and many caipirinhas later, we are finally back in New York.

This year we decided that we wanted to make our New Years a special one, so we booked a trip to Rio de Janeiro. Before we left, we have to admit, we were a bit apprehensive. We heard many horror stories about theft, gang activity and overly polluted water. However, we decided to discover Rio on our own terms and went anyway.

And we are so glad that we did.

Rio can be dangerous. It is a city that has a lot of gang activity and is known for petty theft. However, as two girls that work in New York City, we can understand this. If you are constantly aware of your surroundings, you will be fine in Rio. The people are warm and are known to love gringos (what they call non-Brazillians). Luckily for us, we were constantly regarded as Cariocas (natives of Rio), so we were often spoken to in Portuguese and ignored by sellers trying to sell merchandise.

The water is polluted and the natives will tell you that on their own. However, it’s certain bodies of water that are visibly polluted like the rivers by the airport that we landed in. Copacabana beach was completely fine and clean, even surprisingly the day after the New Years Eve celebration that was held at Copacabana. Ipanema beach which was a twenty minute walk from Copacabana beach was so beautiful and reminded us of blue Caribbean waters.

We saw the Cristo Redentor (otherwise known as Christ the Redeemer) and hiked all the way up the Sugarloaf Mountain (not gonna lie, we took the cable cars down). We chased after monkeys in the Tijuca forest and celebrated Reveillon (New Years Eve) on Copacabana beach with approximately 3 million other people under a bevy of fireworks like we’ve never seen before.

And that’s not even all of it.

We were so overwhelmed with Rio because we ignorantly let other people lower our expectations. When you go to Rio, set your expectations high. They will be met. Trust us.

Now to the clothes. 

We found this dope alley by our hotel that was so bohemian and eclectic. It ended up being the backdrop for most of our shoots because it is really hard to find an area in Rio that isn’t overpopulated.

I’m wearing a Twenty5A off-white off the shoulder shift dress with 3/4 sleeves and navy stitching. I wore my comfy brown sandals from Old Navy and my new denim rope-band hat from Vince Camuto. The hat has this really nice rope detail that’s perfect for vacation wear.

xx Samantha 

I’m wearing my new off the shoulder floral romper from Twenty5A. This romper is so comfortable and I wore it multiple times during the vacation because it’s so light and airy. I paired my romper with my black lace up sandals from Vince Camuto and left my hair down and undone. I added a pop of red from Urban decay in the shade F-Bomb. 

xx Janet