Foz do Iguaçu Good value
Brazilian churrascaria by the kilo is the value meal here. The Arab community in nearby Ciudad del Este means good Middle Eastern food too, which surprises people.
Budget travel in Brazil
What a visitor's money does in Brazil: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Mid-range average across 6 guides · 5 is very cheap
Money
Brazilian Real (BRL) · 1 USD = 5.1 BRL · 1 EUR = 5.9 BRL
Exchange at casas de câmbio in Centro or Copacabana. Airport rates are poor. Cards are widely accepted, even at beach vendors (Pix is universal in Brazil).
ATMs
Avoid: standalone machines, any withdrawal after dark
Use: Banco do Brasil, Bradesco, Itaú, Santander
Use machines inside bank branches, malls or the airport. Many Brazilian ATMs stop dispensing to foreign cards in the evening as an anti-fraud measure.
Getting around
A short ride in Rio de Janeiro: R$12–30 across town — cheap
From the airport: Guarulhos to central São Paulo R$80–130
Cheaper than a taxi and, in the big cities, the default for everybody.
City by city, cheapest first
Salvador Good value
Bahian food is its own cuisine: acarajé from a baiana in white lace at a street stall, moqueca cooked in dendê palm oil, vatapá, and cocada for afterwards. The stalls are safe and are where the food is best — go where the queue is. Ask for it "sem pimenta" if you cannot take heat.
Manaus Good value
Amazonian food is unlike the rest of Brazil: tambaqui and pirarucu grilled whole, tucupi broth, jambu leaves that make your mouth tingle, and fruit — cupuaçu, açaí as the locals actually eat it, graviola — you will not have tasted. Eat at the Mercado Adolpho Lisboa in the morning and along Ponta Negra in the evening.
Fortaleza Good value
Ceará eats crab and it eats it on Thursdays: the Praia do Futuro barracas run a caranguejada that is half meal and half institution. Otherwise peixe na telha, tapioca crepes from a street cart for breakfast, and cashew fruit juice, which is the local flavour nobody expects.
Florianópolis Mid-range
Azorean island cooking, which means oysters — Santo Antônio de Lisboa farms them and serves them by the dozen — plus sequência de camarão, a shrimp parade that arrives in six courses and defeats most people. Eat sunset oysters on the west coast and seafood on the east.
Rio de Janeiro Mid-range
Try açaí bowls (the real thing, not tourist smoothies), feijoada on Saturdays, and churrasco at a rodizio restaurant.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
The guides in Brazil
Rio de JaneiroBrazilBeaches, samba, and Christ the Redeemer
Foz do IguaçuBrazilThe panorama side of the falls, and the biggest dam ever built
SalvadorBrazilBrazil’s first capital, and the most African city outside Africa
FlorianópolisBrazilAn island with forty-two beaches, and a different one for every mood
ManausBrazilAn opera house in the rainforest, and two rivers that refuse to mix
FortalezaBrazilTwenty-five kilometres of city beach, and the windiest coast in Brazil