Hi Carmen! What kind of rock do you like to play? What are some of your favorite bands? Do you like classic rock like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, or more modern rock like the Foo Fighters or even metal?

Generally, Stratocaster type guitars are cheaper than Les Paul type guitars. The big brands are Fender and Gibson, but they are probably more expensive than what you're looking for.

Fender has another brand, Squier, which is a brand that is supposed to be affordable. Many of the Squier guitars are actually made in Korea. Some Squiers I've tried have been quite good, others not so good... so it's hard to say.

The cheap version of Gibson is the Epiphone brand. I believe many of those guitars are also manufactured in Korea. As with the Squiers, I've tried both very good and less good ones :).

There are many Korean brands too, like Cort, which is one of the major brands in the world. Cort makes a lot of good guitars, and they sell both expensive and cheap ones.

I think the best thing to do is to decide how much you are willing to pay, and then try a couple of guitars within that price range.

Generally, you get what you pay for. The more expensive guitars are almost always very good, because they have good quality control. Cheaper guitars can be very good too, but the same brand and model can vary a lot in quality, since they don't spend as much time and money on quality control.