Customer Reviews

The People's Guide to Mexico: Wherever You Go...There You Are!! (People's Guide to Mexico, 11th ed)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Where to begin? Well, I can say I've never read a travel book quite like this one. Even if you don't plan to go to Mexico, it's a great read because of the way it's written: Clear, eyes-wide-open style with some absolutely hilarious stories. If it were only a book of anecdotes, I'd put it up there with Steinbeck's "Travels With Charlie" or William Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways." IT'S THAT GOOD! Fortunately, for the traveler, it's also an outstanding compendium of what life in Mexico is like down to the last detail. My wife and I have only been to Mexico once (to Tijuana for a day), but after reading this book, we're planning to go back further south into the "real" Mexico (and are even considering retirement there in a few years...AFTER we learn to speak Spanish). I can't begin to recommend "The People's Guide to Mexico" highly enough. If you REALLY want to get to know the country, toss out your Frommer's and Birnbaum's guides and GET THIS BOOK.

I don't know why I love this books so much, but I've gone through several editions. It tells everything about living in Mexico, it is at once down-to-earth yet exotic, about simple living and joy (also planning, packing, camping, cooking, how to buy a hammock...) a host of fascinating details and anecdotes. As a bibliophile, this is one book I would take to a desert island. I've read and re-read it dozens of times over the years (in its different incarnations). You'll love it!

We just returned from our first trip to Mexico where we spent our time in remote Pacific Coast villages and this book made our visit wonderful.

It is culturally enlightening and helps with the everyday aspects of getting along in Mexico. Everything on how to shop for a hammack to how to buy food and gasoline. Or whether you should take your wife into that little cantina outside of town. This book went in our backpack everyday. There wasn't anything it could'nt answer.

The guide books tell you how to get there, the People's Guide tell you what to do once you are there.

We highly recommend this book for anyone who travels to Mexico and wants to enhance their experience.

"The People's Guide to Mexico" is not your typical travel guide, full of recommended sights to see, hotels, itineraries, restaraunts, etc.

This is a treasure chest overflowing with infotainment: outrageous travel stories, Mexican slang, advice about everyday problems, e.g., from dealing with corrupt officials to building a thatched roof beach hut to bargaining in the market.

This book includes an incredible amount of general and detailed information about Mexico, but encourages readers to explore the country on their own. It gives the reader an inkling of what to expect and what not to expect of Mexico and Mexicans.

Although aimed primarily at low-to-mid-budget travelers, it's a must-read for anyone trying to understand Mexico and its culture. Dispelling myths about Mexico, it presents the everyday, bizarre reality of the place.

There's no need to start at the beginning and read each chapter sequentially to the last. Just open the book anywhere and become engrossed in some insanely funny adventure or a recipe for grilled Red Snapper.

I read an early edition cover-to-cover about a week before my first dive deep into Mexico's interior in the mid-1970s. I've never had more fun reading a guidebook, and just about every word still rings true whenever I return. Reading this book is an adventure in itself.

If someone is planning a trip to the real Mexico, not just the hotel zone of Cancun or Puerto Vallarta, this is the book to read. The travel tips and information are very useful and the stories of their experiences are not only hilarious and entertaining but very helpful in understanding the differences in Mexican culture and traditions. I loved the story about the the fiesta for John the Baptist they accidently encountered, where everyone in town runs around throwing buckets of water on each other. This is a fun book to read even if you are not planning a trip to Mexico!

I read this book when I was a teenager, and it was one of the most entertaining and informative books I have ever read. Even if you're not planning a trip to Mexico, I recommend this book for its Mexican travel stories and cultural insights. My brother also read this book as a kid, and even now (twenty years later!) we refer to it in our conversations. It's that good!

If you're going to Mexico, especially if you have even the slightest interest in Mexicans as human beings and not just a backdrop to your vacation - a rare virtue in some North American circles - and you're planning on getting out of the usual gringo mainline, you simply must read this book. There is no better book on Mexico available. It's funny, it's informative, and best of all, it's simpatico.

It won't tell you about specific places in Mexico to visit, but it will tell you what you will need to know in order to function on the ground anywhere in Mexico - eating, drinking, camping, hotelling, what to look for when you buy things, dealing with the police, insuring your car - in general, how to be a minimally offensive gringo. You'll thank yourself for reading it, and you'll thank Mr. Franz for writing it, after you get there.

When the list of the top 100 books of the 20th century is compiled, I would hope to find on it the People's Guide - in any of its editions or incarnations.

No other book matches its wit, cross-border sensitivity or radical sense of fun. Kudos to the authors for inspiring so many of their predominantly Gringo readers in learning to understand and love Mexico and, in fact, all of Latin America.

First, Carl Franz has for decades been trying to fill a void in the Mexican guidebook market. Most English-language guidebooks to Mexico operate under the assumption that English-speaking tourists will be going to Mexico under circumstances similar to the circumstances in which English speakers travel to India or Japan: they will be arriving by plane, using buses, taxis, and maybe a rent-a-car to travel, and will be leaving be plane. As a result of this orientation, these books ignore large parts of the country and assume you wont ever need to know how to get your car fixed in a small town. Such an orientation might be justified for an Australian guide publisher like Lonely Planet. Even though many Americans fly to Mexico and would never think of driving in the country, enough of us drive across the border every day (and keep driving south from there) to justify the need for a more detailed, culturally astute guidebook taking you through the practicalities of "surviving" in rural and urban Mexico. This book tries to fill that void. Carl Franz has been driving to Mexico for decades and has a lot of practical wisdom to share with would-be road warriors.

With that said, there are several criticisms to make about the book:
1) over 50% of the pages in the book are filled with stories, not all of them very good or amusing. In his defense, a few of the stories Carl Franz writes are quite amusing, but I would have liked them better if I did not feel like he was using his guidebook as a vehicle for pushing his amateur travelogue narratives onto readers...
2) The stories over all set a tone which borders on the culturally condescending at times. The sub-theme of many of the stories is "Oh those silly little Mexicans do things so backwards and silly me for assuming they should do things the way I would do them; the culturally sensitive attitude I should have is to revel in their backwardness (and tell my friends about it when I get home)." This sort of attitude is tedious at best, offensive at its worst. Mexican society has faults (some very big) and there is nothing wrong with citing them as faults. But some American travelogues identify as faults of Mexican society quirky differences which are neither faults nor virtues (the cliche favorite seems to be complaints about Mexican traffic cops... even Carl Franz can't resist a few dull predictable stories about paying traffic cops in the street for fines real or invented)
3) the "Wherever you go, there you are" attitude, though congenial to some, rubs me the wrong way. While wandering haphazardly from town to town with no point or purpose other than the experience itself might sound adventurous, it really doesn't make for very rewarding vacations in Mexico. Even if you want to avoid the high rise beach hotels, there is value in planning a visit to a certain town on a specific day to experience the town fiesta or turning off the highway at a certain spot to visit the ruins of a historically significant ex-hacienda. The Franz travel philosophy seems to border on the Kerouac-ish it its celebration of aimless wandering. For the traveler with an interest in history and culture, Franz's style will not work well.

This book is worth reading, just skip the stories when they get dull, and be sure to complement it with more destination-oriented guidebook unless wandering aimlessly from town to town until you find something you like is your idea of good travelling.

I was living in Mexico for 6 months and feeling absolutely miserable when someone finally gave me this book. It was utterly indispensible in explaining the people and culture and helping me to adjust. If you plan on spending any time in Mexico, get this book. What was really great was the Spanish slang in the back of the book that helped me understand some of the words I was hearing. Another good book by the same author was Mexico Disconocido, which was about backpacking in Mexico.