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You'll find tourist
information fairly easy to come across once in Brazil, and there are
some sources to be tapped before you leave home. The Brazilian
National Tourist Board (EMBRATUR) has representatives in Brazil's
embassies or larger consulates, where you can pick up brochure
information and advice
In Brazil, facilities vary greatly. Popular destinations like Rio,
Salvador, the Northeast beach resorts and towns throughout the South
have efficient and helpful tourist offices , but anywhere off the
beaten track has nothing at all - only Manaus, Belém and Porto Velho
have offices in the Amazon region for example.
Most state capitals have tourist information offices, which are open
during office hours, announced by signs saying " Informações
Turísticas ". Many of these provide free city maps and booklets, but
they are usually all in Portuguese, although you occasionally see
atrociously mangled English. As a rule, only the airport tourist
offices have hotel booking services, and none of them is very good
on advising about budget accommodation. There are EMBRATUR offices
in a few of the major centres, but the local tourist offices are
usually more helpful; these are run by the different state and
municipal governments, so you have to learn a new acronym every time
you cross a state line. In Rio, for example, you'll find national (EMBRATUR),
state (TurisRio) and city (Riotur) offices.
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More detailed maps are surprisingly hard to get hold
of outside Brazil, and are rarely very good: there are plenty of
maps of South America, but the only widely available one that is
specifically of Brazil is the Bartholomew Brazil & Bolivia
(1:5,000,000) which is not very easy to read. Much better are the
six regional maps in the Mapa Rodoviário Touring series
(1:2,500,000), which clearly mark all the major routes, although
these, even in Brazil, are difficult to find.
In Brazil, a useful compendium of city maps and main road networks
is published by Guias Quatro Rodas, a Brazilian motoring
organization, which also has guides to Rio, São Paulo and other
cities, states and regions. These are easy to find in bookstores,
newsagents and magazine stalls. Very clear maps of individual states
are published by Polimapas, and are usually available on the spot.
At 1:1,000,000 these are the largest scale of all, though they
actually have less detail than some of the above-mentioned.
Topographical and hiking maps are difficult to find, though very
occasionally they are available from municipal tourist offices or
national parks in Brazil, or from local trekking equipment shops or
tour operators.
Google maps
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Brazil
guide
Brazil
Where To Go
Weather
Average temperatures
Getting there
Visas,
consulates
Insurances
Travelers with disabilities
Costs, Money And Banks
Getting Around
Eating And Drinking
Street foods, snacks
Restaurants
Vegetarian/natural
Soft drinks, hot drinks
Traveling with
Kids
Robberies, hold ups, drugs
Women travelers
Gays and
lesbian
Best of Brazil
Health,
vaccinations
Info and
maps
Media
Holidays
-Carnaval
-World
Cup, Festas Juninas
Soccer, football
-Going
to a football match
-Football
teams, clubs, shirts
Nature and
Amazon
Brazilian
music
-Bossa nova
-Bahian
sound
-Contemporary
singers, musicians
-Brazilian
rhythms
-Discography
-Live
and recording |
