Tourist Information

Before traveling to Brazil, it’s helpful to check out some of the books and Internet resources (which include the Embratur website operated by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism) listed in the Internet Resources section. Once you’re in Brazil, you will find municipal, regional, and state tourist information offices and kiosks throughout Brazil. In general, you can get free maps and some brochures as well as help with accommodations, renting cars, acquiring guides, or organizing excursions or sporting activities. Often, they will have transportation schedules for local buses and boats. In smaller towns, you can often get information about renting a room in a private home.

Apart from major cities, it is rare to find tourist offices where people speak anything other than Portuguese. Sometimes you’ll encounter staff that are not actually that knowledgeable, a fact compensated for by general friendliness and a willingness to help. In smaller towns, tourist office opening and closing hours are often not strictly adhered to, particularly in the off-season.

Maps

The maps in this travel guide are for the most part limited to central areas of major Brazilian cities and important regional destinations such as coastlines and national parks. For more detailed city and local maps, you can almost always get your hands on something at the local tourist office in the city or town you’re visiting. Sometimes, better maps will cost you around R$5. In major cities, bancas de revista (newsstands) and bookstores usually sell city and state maps. Otherwise, the best maps are produced by Quatro Rodas, which sells regional maps for all of Brazil as well as a detailed fold-out map of Brazil that comes for free with its annually published Guia Quatro Rodas (a Brazilian equivalent of France’s Michelin).

The Guia Quatro Rodas is a guide that is biblical in size and content. Updated yearly, this 1,000-page tome (a bargain at only R$40) has listings (in Portuguese) for basically every tourist destination in Brazil, along with lots of maps (its strengths are big cities and close-ups on specific regions). Quatro Rodas also puts out a similar guide that deals exclusively with Brazilian beaches. For highway maps, purchase the Guia Quatro Rodas Estrada map for around R$20. You can also purchase a CD-ROM version with a digitized version of all maps. All you need to do is type in your destination, where you want to stop, how much you want to spend on gas, and Quatro Rodas will calculate the best route, how much time you’ll spend, and how much gas you’ll need. It will indicate hotels, restaurants, and monuments as well as gas stations, car mechanic shops, and banks. You can purchase all Quatro Rodas maps and guides, including the CD-ROM version, in major bancas de revista and bookstores throughout the country.

The Quatro Rodas website (www.viajeaqui.abril.com.br/g4r)—which is only in Portuguese, but quite easy to navigate—has an option by which you type in a street name and number and you can pinpoint an exact address on a map that also permits zooming in and out. For long-distance travel, there is an option that allows you to type in the city of origin and the destination city, and you’ll be shown a map indicating possible routes.

Easier for English speakers is Google Maps (www.maps.google.com). Type in your city destination (such as Rio de Janeiro) and then keep clicking on the area you’re interested in to zoom in for more detail. If you’re looking for a specific address, click on the “Get Directions” option and then type in the street name, followed by the number, and the neighborhood (for example: Rua Barão da Torre, 116, Ipanema).

© Michael Sommers from Moon Brazil, 2nd Edition