The greenback has fallen and is falling as we speak. One quick look at the price of lodging in Brazil, any accommodation, not just top hotels or resorts, and you quickly realize the costs are near if not higher that cost of travel in the United States. That means that to tour Brazil you best be prepared with quality guidebook to find where and how you could save a buck or two.

Last Lonely Planet Brazil guidebook was published in 2008; new edition is not to come out until 2011. Quick look inside you’ll note the maps are great, the coverage of where to go and what to see always in depth, but the lodging recommendations are nowhere being current.

The last edition of the Rough Guide to Brazil just came out in October of 2009. The series from the publisher are probably the closest LP’s rival but the last edition seems a rather fast update of the November 2006 version and not quite up to part of what one would expect.

Footprint, another of the top British guidebook series, is certainly in depth but too difficult to read, bulky and heavy. In that regard Lonely Planet learned from similar criticism in the past and now offers one can buy it by the chapter as most travelers will not travel entire Brazil on a single trip anyway so why log along the extra weight.

Fodor and Frommer’s guidebooks are rather poor, hardly in depth, their maps are even worse and the coverage is overwhelmingly focused on the mainstream American package tour traveler, hardly a reference guidebook for an independent traveler in search of places out of the beaten path.

One guidebook that stands out is concise though in depth, well written, nicely laid out, with good maps and easy to carry is Brazil Moon Publication. It seems also most up to date, published only in May 2009. The only problem I can see is it focuses mostly on the more affluent traveler, although it attempts to list samples of lodging appealing to the budget travel. Of course the last impression may well be relative as Brazil is definitely an expensive country to visit.

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More guidebooks on Brazil.