This is not just another guide book..."

The purpose of the Mexico West Book is to help you break the pattern of visiting Mexico by asking a travel agent to book you into one resort or another for a long weekend or a couple of weeks. The authors also aren't telling you to lug a backpack from a $3.00 hotel next to the bus depot to another $3.00 hotel a half-hour's walk from another bus depot.

Rather the authors want to help you drive on an independent itinerary to meet the people and see the country as it really is. They will tell you how to locate reasonably-priced accommodations and meals wherever you go. They also want to introduce you to Playa Ventura and the beach beyond El Pabelón; to Braulia at her roadside restaurant where you can buy only one of a kind beer and only by the liter; a comfortable little 300 year-old inn on a side street in a colonial town high in the Sierra Madres. Along the way the authors'll point out fishing and camping possibilities, deserted beaches and awe-inspiring visitas, craft centers and fiestas, historic cities and burgeoning new resort centers.

The authors hope to show you that it's OK to go beyond the lobby of the resort hotel, to step out of that tour bus, and never look back.