How to Work Remotely and Kiteboard in Brazil's Top Spots

You may have seen some trick tips from North and MACkite Ambassador David Fischer and wondered how he gets to spend so much time at these exotic locations. Perhaps you've even thought about visiting these spots yourself and wondered where to start. MACkite's own Ambassador of Stoke, Aaron, was able to sit down with David to answer these questions and more.

How Did You Become a Brand Ambassador?

Aaron: Good morning! Joining us from Brazil is Brand Ambassador David Fischer. Welcome, my dude! Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved as a brand ambassador.

David: Thanks so much for having me on. I'm super stoked to be here. I've been in Brazil for three months now. I got involved with North and MAC by reaching out and being super excited about the kite community and wanting to get more involved with it. Since MAC brought me on I've been shooting some videos for trick breakdowns and gear reviews while riding for North. These kites behind me are my Orbit Pros from 2024 and it's been a blast. The kiting down here is super sick and it's been really fun to be here for a while.

Aaron: Dude, I'm looking at the background there and it's probably nice and warm. Up here right now it's around 45 or 50 degrees Fahrenheit, though the heat's not on in the building just yet. We came off a nice summer.

David: I grew up in Minnesota, so I'm also Midwest-born and raised. I went to school in Fargo so I'm from the cold, but I have been out of it for a few years, living full-time remote and traveling for about four years now. I started kiting while living in a van in New Zealand, and I've been chasing it ever since. Every day I've been kiting in a 2002 or 2001 MACkite King of the Great Lakes oversized t-shirt. No big, fancy attire, and I love it.

Aaron: I remember when we first got affiliated. It's fun to have a personality, a character, like yourself not only representing MAC, but North, as somebody who shares the stoke for kiteboarding to everyone that you meet. You connected with Blake at some point and he said what a good person you were to have as a representative for kiteboarding, and that character shines through on the trick tip videos you've been doing for us. The passion for what you're doing is genuine and that shines through 100%, so thank you for sharing and the stoke that you bring to this.

David: Absolutely! It's a blast for me. One of the things I really love about kiting is the community and the sense of adventure and fun with it. I had been chasing big air because I felt like I was supposed to, and it felt very serious. I was working on different stuff like Boogie Loops and Boogie Contras, and I started getting injured from trying to push it. Then I was in one of the big air spots here in Brazil for a little bit of training with some of the guys and we went to a different area that was doing more freeride, and my massive stoke for the sport shot back up. I was creating new tricks and trying new random, weird, dumb things that don't count in scoring, and that's the stuff that I love, and I love sharing it with people. I love pushing other people to that kind of stuff too. One of my videos for MAC was the "Back Roll Hat Drag" instead of the Hand Drag. I'm just being silly and stupid, but it's one that people reach out to me about all the time. They're like, "Dude, that's so funny- I love it!" I love seeing the fun and playfulness in the sport rather than being super rigid where we need to do this trick and this trick and this trick and we have to progress. The sport's also about going out in nature and having fun and playing around and loving it.

Aaron: Yes, the lifestyle! We hesitate to call it a "sport". When people are getting involved through lesson programs, we tell them to be aware that they are now adopting a new lifestyle. This isn't something that you go and do at random since it's wind-driven. When my wife asks me what we've got going on this weekend, I'm going to check the iKitesurf app to see what the forecast looks like, and that determines our weekend.

David: I've only been kiting for about two-and-a-half years, and before that I was traveling for very different reasons. I was in New Zealand to go hiking, and I'd go to different countries to do different outdoor things, but beach spots really weren't my thing. Kiting has completely changed that and has brought me to different places than I ever planned to go. I lived in Egypt for five months last year and I'm jumping to spots that seemed cool but were never on my list. So when you get into kiting or any of the windsports, all of a sudden it really changes your have-to-go vacation spots or trip spots.

How Did You Get to Brazil?

Aaron: Tell us about where you're at in Brazil currently. What's the resort that you're at, and how did you find it? Actually, you're not at that resort right now, correct?

David: Yeah, I actually fly out tomorrow. You mainly would fly into Fortaleza. It's like the main spot, especially if you're coming from the States. You can route through Florida and you're usually going to find your best flight. A lot of our friends that are here are from the Bay Area, and they would buy separate flights from San Francisco to Miami, then Miami down to Brazil because direct to Fortaleza is a lot more expensive. So that's a good trick as far as getting here. You might be able to piece together an easier and cheaper way to get here.

You'll start in Fortaleza for the most part. The nearest kite hub town is Cumbuco, and that's where I'm at right now. I'm actually at one of the beach clubs here. There's a lagoon downwind of this a little bit. There's ocean kiting, and then there's a lagoon called Cauipe that is one of the ones that you'll see in a lot of Instagram posts and stuff. It's a smaller lagoon, but it's flat water. This spot and Taiba are the two lagoons close by Fortaleza, and the winds are a little bit lighter on this side. As you go up the coast, they progressively get stronger, so that's where you see a lot of freestyle, though you will get big wind days. I've been here on an 8m looping and stuff, but I would say that average will be a little bit lower.

This is where you can see more of the heritage of Brazil, so it's a great jumping off point, and it's a great spot to hang if that's your vibe. Cumbuco is a little bit bigger, but you get a lot of people coming from Fortaleza and other spots too, so you'll get a bigger mix of partying with locals and clubs compared to further up where it's more rural. I recommend swinging through here for at least a couple days because when you get off the plane in Fortaleza you want to get somewhere right away, and Cumbuco is a great spot to start off.

North Eastern Brazil

Aaron: You're in the northeastern portion of Brazil, correct?

David: Yeah, the state of Ceara.

Aaron: It's a beautiful time of year to travel to Brazil, especially if you're traveling from the States, but what's the go-to season for Brazil where you can be down for a couple of months if you're looking for good, steady wind conditions?

David: I got here in July, and it was already windy then. It was a little bit lighter here in the Cumbuco area, and I was on a 12m, maybe a 10m. It'll progressively pick up, so I would say the windy months are mid-August through the end of November. But I've met friends here that are staying until sometime in January. Right now you don't need to check the forecast because it's just on without question. In the later months, many people decide it's time to go somewhere else because we've only got wind five or six days out of the week, but depending on where you're coming from, that might be great, and then it's going to be way less busy. Honestly, I think the season here stretches and you can come as early as late June and stay as late as January.

Aaron: That sounds rad.

David: The thing that I think is cool is that it's very much a like a pick your own adventure kind of place. Two days ago I was six hours away up the coast, and it's a very different kind of spot. I've gone up and down the coast, so there's not just one kite spot where you're at forever. You can run around and completely change up the conditions you want.

Aaron: That's cool. For the untrained traveler, it's good to have at least a spot or two in mind to start at and make that your place to land, but then it's great to hear that you've had some time to travel out and around and realize that you're free to roam about and explore. It sounds like you've got a lot of coastline to hit, and then there are a lot of different lagoons up the coast as well, right? It's just incredible that you have the ability to hit lagoons and ocean-side, so you can surf, slick, and downwind to your heart's content over there.

Multi-Day Downwinders

David: It's really interesting because you will get every type of kiter or winger or windsurfer here for completely different reasons, and I think that's one of the cool things about it. I was with all the pro big air kiters that are here training, and we were kiting up in the main big air lagoon. Everyone was there to train and to push it, which is cool, but then I know people that would never even go into the lagoons because they come here to do these multi-day strapless wave riding downwinders along the coast. There are some that are massive. There's one called the Iron Macho, and they do a month-long downwind. They go all the way from Fortaleza to Atins. They're downwinding every single day just to hit waves in all these places, and I had no idea that part existed too. It's such an interesting aspect, and you meet different kiters and wingers, and they're here for such different reasons but all equally as stoked about it.

Aaron: The ability to run a downwinder for a month... that sounds rad! What are the logistics of something like that? How many miles a day do you do, and what are the stopping points?

David: There are a ton of companies here that organize different length downwinders. Kitesurfing World is one of them, but there are a bunch of different ones that'll do it. They will highlight where it's best to start based on what you're looking for, and they always go with a support truck or support buggy with your gear. They stop at pasadas, which are like a soul hotel with your own room and usually a bathroom, or there are shared ones that are a little more hostel-vibed with a shared kitchen area and shared public space where there's a continental-type breakfast. I have friends that do the support stuff and I think that's pretty cool.

There are also short downwinders. I've done ones from Cumbuco to Taiba, for example. We were staying in Taiba at the downwind point because the wind goes northwest. That morning we grabbed just the stuff we needed and then we took a buggy up to Cumbuco and launched from one of these beach clubs and then went downwind back to where we were staying since we were staying close to the beach. So you can also do just single day downwinders that are super easy and don't require planning. You can also just start downwinding and then stop somewhere and get a taxi and have them bring you back.

Aaron: That aspect of it alone sounds rad. To have the ability to short trip it or long trip it sounds incredible. What a Mecca for kiting in general, regardless of whether you're a kiteboarder or a kitesurfer or a kite foiler. It sounds like you're running into a lot of wingers and sailboards too, so what a gem of a spot. I know of some of those spots in Brazil, but I'm very ignorant to what's going on down there, so it's really cool to get your firsthand account and to help people understand what's possible with travel to Brazil and why you would want to do it in the first place.

David: It is a lot different than I expected too, and that's been a blast. I also had a certain notion of what it was going to be and it's so much more and so different in so many ways than I thought, so it's been fun exploring, for sure.

Aaron: Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I've had friends who traveled to Brazil and checked it out, but for me personally it's always been a little bit at arm's length. It sounds rad and I'm thinking about logistically putting that together and traveling, but I've got a lot of things on my plate and may not be able to throw that together. But if you just stop for a minute and do a little homework on some flights to get down there, it sounds like a life-changing experience for anybody who's willing to give that a shot.

David: I would say so. It definitely does take some organizing. Luckily for me, I've been traveling full-time chasing wind and running around to different spots, so for me, showing up in a new place with no plans is fairly normal. I'm always happy to help answer questions on what it has been like here and how stuff works. Part of the whole reason to do this is to connect with community and get more involved and interact with people. I've run into people that knew me from the MAC videos, and then we're stoked to go kite together.

Aaron: That's very genuine of you, dude, and that's one of the things that we sincerely appreciate about this affiliation because you are just an amazing ambassador. You're an awesome rider, but you can have an awesome rider that's got the personality of a door, and that doesn't make them a good ambassador. You have to be receptive to those questions. What is your Instagram to let people know how to reach out?

David: It's DavidFischerXX.

Aaron: You had spent some time at a resort called Cometa. Tell us a little bit about that.

David: That was really cool. It's not a resort; it's sort of a co-living/co-working kind of spot specifically for adventure-type people, and I thought that was really cool. They had reached out to me about getting involved and staying there to be on the kiting side and it was a blast because there were other adventure people that were working online. Sometimes when you are staying in these spots you might stay in a hostel to try to get that community vibe, and then you realize it's all 18-year-olds drinking their faces off every single day, and if you're working it's pretty hard to get anything done. Sometimes you end up at the ones where it's a little bit more put together, but then it's just families that are on their own holiday in their own little groups.

So Cometa was cool because they're creating it to be this combination of adventure and renting houses in different locations. They're starting with kiting, but the plan is to do ones that might be scuba trips or surf trips too. They rented a nice house that's got great spots for working with solid internet, and we can just walk out the front door and start kiting. There are other people that are in the same kind of situation, so people know not to bother each other, but we also sit around over breakfast and talk shop about work, and about life. For me being the kite ambassador person, I had a lot of people talk about yesterday's kiting and I would give advice or some coaching, and that was really fun for me. It's such a fun combination of community and the professional side, and not just vacation mode.

Aaron: It seems like Cometa is a bit high-end, right? It sounds like this is something that's very clean and professional.

David: Yeah, I would call it mid-end. It's not hyper luxury where you get a very different kind of crowd which is not always everyone's speed. The house is really nice and they did a good job of finding places that are well done, but then it's still a community fun vibe, not this super over the high-end kind.

Aaron: We've all gone on vacation and rented a beach house someplace and you blow it out for the week and you're partying and riding and stuff. This sounds a bit more catered toward people who are remote workers who happen to love chasing wind.

David: Yeah, you hit it on the head. It's really geared at those digital nomad remote workers, people who are either full-time remote or they have a certain number of remote work days. There are people coming in and out too, so it's not quite the same as when you go rent a house to people for a certain number of days. Some people were staying for two weeks and some people for three days. A lot of people had four or five weeks of remote work per year and were using two of them to come down here. That way they can still be working and not use vacation days, but can just step right outside and be kiting here in Brazil or even sneak in a quick lunch session because you can go out for 30 minutes, come in, have a shower, and be right back on. I think it's a really cool situation.

Aaron: That is very different from a vacation trip. This is a different mindset. You're taking that remote time that you have allocated and just relocating to Brazil for whatever duration, but you're still continuing on with your daily life and the things that you do for work, and you're catered to with good accommodations and amazing riding right out the back door. That sounds rad as well, especially for anybody who fits that ticket. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of the kite spots, tides, transferring, renting cars, or any other travel tips or information you want to share?

Tidal Lagoons

David: The thing that took me by the most surprise as far as kiting in Brazil was the differences in places and the different setups. When you see Instagram, you see some shots of some fakely empty lagoon, and it seems like it's lagoon after lagoon after lagoon. There are lagoons around, but it is not quite to the same level of what Instagram's going to make it look like. The whole purpose of some of the social media is to show the cream of the crop, but the thing that I didn't realize was how many of these spots are tidal. They're like lagoons, but they are open to the ocean, so some of them might only exist during high tide. And then Guajiru is one where the flat water in this lagoon only exists during low tide because when its sand bars are underwater, all the wave and chop comes through. So there is a little bit more to think about and a little bit more complexity to the spots here.

If there's someone who wants to really chase flat water and lagoons, I think it can be helpful to look into renting a car. At the beginning of my trip I did not have a car since I'd stay at a place a little bit longer and then would take transfers up to the next spot, but to try both sides of it for the second half, I got a car for everything. They're very easy to rent from the airport, and then it gives you a little bit more freedom to chase the tides if you're someone who's willing to move around that much. Otherwise, you can just post up somewhere. Some people are only here for a couple weeks and aren't going to move around a bunch, or they want to be oceanside and don't care as much about lagoons. When you're in a lot of the towns, getting around is super easy because most of them are very walkable.

Communication Challenges

Aaron: How about something like communication challenges? If you are coming from an English-speaking environment, what's it like traveling to Brazil?

David: Brazil is interesting, and it kind of caught me by surprise because I've been traveling for a long time, not just for kiting, and I would put Brazil up there as far as one of the least English-speaking places I've ever been, which is fine. Obviously, you're coming to to their country and you should never expect someone to speak your language. Sometimes I think we all assume that since we're going to a tourist location and English tends to be the tourism language, I'll probably be able to find English pretty easily. You need to realize how big Brazil is because the majority of the tourists are Brazilians on vacation from completely different areas. There's this whole different aspect to it which I love because it gets you much more immersed in the culture. I'm not a big fan of going to spots where it's like a weird mini home because it's gotten so touristy. So be prepared; that language barrier is going to be hard, but everyone here is super nice and they're all very open to helping you muddle through it. Honestly, just talking into Google Translate and showing it to them, then having them talk works really well, so I would never let that put you off from a place. Just be prepared for it.

Aaron: I'm sure it wouldn't be a bad idea to brush up on some conversational terminology along with the use of a translation app. It sounds like that's worked in a lot of cases for you.

David: Yeah, and people are really friendly with helping you learn, too. People want you to be able to speak some Portuguese. When I first came to Brazil, I was living in an apartment right across the street from a beach club, and some of the guys working there had really good English. I would go there in the mornings and have a coffee and work online before it would get busy, and I would chat with them and they would give me advice on Portuguese. We joked about it being my morning lessons. People are super nice about it, so don't let that ever slow you down. We should encourage each other to jump into other cultures.

Aaron: Amen! As with most aspects of life, you tend to get back what you put into it if you come with an open attitude. For those of us coming from the US, sometimes there's a little travel arrogance, so I think that when you go to a place like Brazil and you realize it would benefit you to learn a bit about the culture and go in with a humble, open attitude, that is probably going to serve you very well for chasing wind.

David: Oh, 100 percent! The key is to come into different places to go experience something different and experience their culture. The people that end up unhappy on trips are the ones who feel that whatever is back home is right. Come in with that open mind and be okay with how things work there, and you'll find so much beauty and interesting things within it. It's so much more fun to "be curious, not judgmental", to quote Ted Lasso. That's one of my favorite lines, and I think it's so true. Ask questions and want to learn about things, and it's going to open your eyes and you'll get brought along to so many more things when you show you're curious and you have interest. All a sudden, you're on some downwinder with strangers because they know about some secret lagoon spot that you can only get to via the downwinder, and it's fun.

Gear Prep

Aaron: The magic truly does happen outside of your comfort zone, right? Your willingness to jump into the deep end and throw caution to the wind definitely will benefit you, and clearly it has benefited you personally as you've been traveling. David, is there anything else that you wanted to comment on about your travels in Brazil? What might people want to prepare for, bring with them, don't bring with them, or any other tips in closing?

David: Due to VAT taxes and other things like that, gear can be quite expensive here, depending on where you're at, like rural spots. I have a lot of friends that come for an extended time and brought two bars, an extra bladder and extra repair stuff. I think things like that are important to think about. Sometimes footpads can come off because the screws come loose, so I always travel with Loctite to put on my screws. So think about how long you're going to stay and how remote of an area you're going to be in, and let that dictate whether you should bring some spares and an extra set of lines. If you are going to be in Prea or Cumbuco or other major spots, you can get things repaired quickly. But in other areas, you're a few hours away from the closest thing that might even resemble a kite shop. So think about how remote an area you going to go to and how much you should prepare for anything to go wrong.

Aaron: That sounds awesome. Now you've got me thinking about it and quietly making notes to myself about what I want to do for a future trip. You've given us a great overview of what it's like to travel to Brazil and some places to ride and stay and what to expect. I appreciate all of your insight, and I can't wait to hear how things are going at your next stop.

David: I'm toying with the idea of Cape Town or Chile or even the Philippines, so we'll have to figure out which one it is, and then we can jump on another one of these. I'd love to to do this again. It was a blast.

Aaron: David, thank you so much for joining us and giving us some insight on kite and wing travel to Brazil. I look forward to hearing back from you. Good to talk to you my dude, as always!

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