Lonely Planet Brazil [ペーパーバック]

After a mixed experience with LP's new edition for Morocco earlier this year, I hesitantly agreed to purchase another LP for my trip this summer to Brazil's northeast, specifically Salvador, Recife, and Sao Luiz. I was not disappointed.

LP continues to give budget travelers a good feel for the communities they enter, and in this case, has relatively accurate lodging and restaurant descriptions. While at times I wished for a fuller description of places other than their simply being another "quaint" and "small" fishing village, I never found myself cursing the book for leading me to a place I did not want to be in.

I would definitely recommend this guide, although its prices are already out of date due to currency fluctuations. A better option for future editions, I believe, would be for prices to be listed in the local currency, reals, rather than in dollars.

My husband and I spent 3 weeks traveling around Brazil. Maceió, Salvador, Rio, Blumeneau, and Foz de Iguau (Iguazu Falls). We used a travel agent who was from Brazil to book our hotels and flights in advance, but as far as local travel (and in one case, arriving in an airport an hour from our destination city, Blumeneau), we found this book indispensable. For example, it clearly explains how the bus systems work and why you should take them. It also have info in Rio about an airport bus that saved us at least $25, if I remember correctly, in not taking a cab. Recapped the cost of the book right there. Most often, and in spite of my being able to converse in Portuguese, the book was more helpful even than the hotel staff of the hotels where we stayed.

As an earlier reviewer mentioned, prices are completely out of date, due to currency fluctuations, and I agree that listing them in the local currency would have been helpful. Still, since the exchange rate the prices are based on was also posted in the book, it is possible to recreate that information.

As is inevitable with any travel book, some smaller restaurants have closed since publication, and we often relied on locals to give us recommendations (sometimes those recommendations were also in the book, though!). Ditto on a laundry place in Rio. ;) Overall, though, the recommendations in the book allow a tourist to navigate the city without feeling lost and out of place. At least, it did that for us. We used it so extensively that the cover is going in our scrapbook, having been such an integral part of our journey.

I have been doing Brazil vacations for decades (literally) and have seen every guidebook in the English language. For some reason - perhaps because Brazil is such a big country with a limited English-language guidebook market - publishers have never found it worthwhile to invest money and time into producing a truly first rate guidebook. This latest edition of Lonely Planet is no exception. I cannot endorse ANY of the English language guidebooks out there today as a one stop guidebook(although each has a few redeeming qualities).

So what is a would-be Brazil traveller to do? Do what I have been doing for the last ten years: supplement your English language guidebook with a first rate, up-to-date guidebook from the Quatro Rodas series published in Brazil by Abril publishing. In other words, get an English language guidebook for background information (I prefer the footprint book, but LP is adequate for a broad overview of the country). Then, with a limited reading knowledge of portuguese (how much do you really need to know to be able to look up hotel names, street addresses, and phone numbers, right?) your trip will be made a lot simpler if you get the Quatro Rodas guides. The Quatro Rodas series is constantly being updated, and in my experience provides the widest, most complete, accurate, and thorough coverage of hotels, restaurants, tourist sites, directions, and logistics of any guidebook. And best of all, the Quatro Rodas guides are specialized: on a budget, get "Viajar bem e barato" (requires a bit of portuguese reading ability); visiting specific states, get the state guides for your destinations; doing driving, get their road atlas; and best of all, going to the beach, the get the Brazil beachcomber's bible, the "Guia Praias" (truly one of the most amazing guides in the world!).

So where do you get these books? In any airport book store / news stand. Trust me, your life as a Brazil tourist will be made a lot easier if you learn to use the Quatro Rodas books.