My Newest Book Coming Out This Year

A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel

A Guanajuato Travelogue

By

Doug Bower


INTRODUCTION

A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue and Memoir is for American, English-only Europeans, and Canadian travelers who have grown weary of the typical Mexican vacation. Traditionally, these groups have spent their vacation funds in the resort areas of Mexico—Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, and Acapulco are but three. Vacationing at these resorts can grow tiresome after a visit or two. Though they are beautiful, they will easily suck up every dime of your vacation budget in only a few days. Also, the issue becomes one of wondering just how many times you can sit on the beach, swim with the dolphins, and drink margarita after margarita while watching humpback whales have sex. Many American and Canadian tourists are beginning to ask, “Is there more to Mexico than this?” A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue and Memoir answers that question with a resounding, “Yes!”

About the Book

A Walk Through Mexico's Crown Jewel: A Guanajuato Travelogue and Memoir will be a travelogue-memoir with strong guidebook features about the city of Guanajuato (the capital of the state of Guanajuato). It will also cover the surrounding areas, like San Miguel de Allende, that will appeal to American and Canadian tourists. It will be a travelogue featuring me walking through the city of Guanajuato and describing the areas of interest to tourists. I’ve spent more than a year interviewing tourists who come to my adopted Mexican hometown. I asked them, “What would you want to see in a guidebook about Guanajuato?” Most have told me they want “A book that tells what Guanajuato's sights are and how to get to them. Also, we want a book directed at the tourist who only has a limited amount of vacation time.”

The city of Guanajuato is difficult to navigate because of its topography. Maps are almost useless. I propose to walk the areas I have come to know well after living here since August 2003. I will offer an easy directive travelogue/guide, complete with landmarks, to the sites traditional guidebooks such as Lonely Planet and Fodors tell you exist but do not tell you how to get to. Though popular guidebooks exist on the market that tell about Guanajuato, they only give it a few pages among hundreds of pages about the whole country. I often see tourists fumbling with huge, bulky guidebooks that cover Mexico in its entirety but only have 30 pages (or fewer) on Guanajuato. These guides list everything Guanajuato has to offer. A tourist with a week’s vacation cannot possibly see everything. My book will give my opinion of what to see and what to avoid as a waste of time. Most importantly, I will tell the reader how to find the various sights.

Features

·The author is a permanent resident of the city of Guanajuato. This offers a huge advantage over all the existing guidebooks, even the big players such as Lonely Planet. Since the author lives in Guanajuato, he can offer the readers his expertise about places worth exploring as well as those sights to skip when one is on a trip with a limited budget and a limited amount of time.

·The book will be written from the perspective of an American author who has lived in the city since August 2003.

·The book will be written with an easy, appealing style and will offer personal accounts and opinions about the city and its culture.

·The book will aid a vast audience of potential tourists, many of whom are not fluent in Spanish, to get along in a region of Mexico not yet as Gringo Friendly as are the traditionally visited resort areas.

·The book will offer not only the author’s enthusiasm and love for Mexico and its culture but also a realistic view of how Mexico could change for the better. The culture will be examined critically as well as favorably. The book will major in specifics and not generalities.

Market / Audience

·All those interested in learning more about Central Mexico.

·Both the tourist who is fluent in Spanish as well as the tourist who does not speak Spanish.

·Potential expatriates, study abroad students, and retirees to Central Mexico.

·Businesspeople who have to travel in this area of Mexico.

·Someone who wants a different experience from what one experiences in the traditional resort areas of Mexico.

Benefit to the Customer

The book will provide a way for the tourist to navigate a central Mexican city even Mexicans find difficult to navigate. It will show tourist traps, how to deal with beggars, which hotels to choose or to avoid, which restaurants to frequent or to avoid. It will save the tourist time, money, and frustration.