Well I don’t have many, I’ve only really spent a few days looking round so far but here are some you probably won’t have thought of.

Remember those days (not so long ago, really, but they seem way off) where you had to struggle to get by because people didn’t speak English. I actually miss them when I’m travelling. I loved having to get a phrase book out and trying the language, or getting through with gesticulating and mime. I think it must be about 10 years since I had to do that while travelling round Europe. Well in Brazil they don’t speak English on the whole, so dust off your Portuguese phrase book and pop it in your luggage.

Bring your staff card with you. Professors (by which they mean anyone who teaches, not just the title) get in musea and galleries half price. I didn’t bring mine, but they believe me because I’m travelling with academics and my bank card has Dr on it. This is possibly the first time having a PhD has paid off.

Try the Brazilian tea. Everyone goes on about the coffee, so you expect that (and so far the ratio of bad to good coffee in cafes I’ve tried is about 2:1, better than the UK but not brilliant). The tea gets overlooked. It’s very good.

PS: Firefox – yes musea is a word, so is travelling. Stop redlining proper words or I’m going to turn off the spellcheck.