Great Places to stay South of San Felipe

briansue wrote:
I may be able to answer a couple questions. The "Church" book that was last published a few years ago MUST be used in conjunction with the updates on the website. The updates make no sense and are almost useless if you do not have the book. BUY THE BOOK.

We met Mike & Terri an couple years ago in San Miguel de Allende and spent some time with them. It cost quite a bit of money to publish a book. Book sales are not what they used to be. People bought first editions - second editions - third editions - fourth editions - but once they bought one edition they figured they had all they needed and did not buy subsequent editions. With previous buyers not buying new editions and fewer people brave enough to go to Mexico (you don't have to be brave - just go) sales went way down and it no longer made sense to do new editions. The updates on the website are a great way to keep up with what is going on - but you MUST have the latest edition to put the updates together with what is in the book. When we spoke with Mike & Terri they had recently returned from Australia so we asked if they would be doing a book on Australia but they said there are already many books covering that part of the world so probably not. Maybe if there is enough demand they will someday do another Mexico book - but last we heard the demand is not there.

Over the years we have kept updating our own files of info about all of Mexico. We have articles that have been written - we have updates from the Church website - we have notes from posts on this forum - and who knows what all info - we continue to update our written updates and road logs as we learn new things so we have a very extensive and comprehensive file folder of almost a Gigabyte of info we can reference. We try to keep it up.

On another topic sort of - we also find Microsoft Streets & Trips with GPS to be a great aid for travel in Mexico and anywhere else. But like the Church book Microsoft will no longer be issuing new versions of this program or even any updates. Like the Church book the problem was/is that people bought one in 2007 and never bought a new one - sales fell off and there was no point to continuing. I created a data base of RV parks in Mexico to put Points of Interest (POIs) on the S&T map. We still use our 2013 version of S&T (the last one) and our Church book with the online updates as our two primary aids to travel in Mexico. Maybe someday someone else will risk investing in newer travel aids for Mexico but at this point the experience of those who have gone before indicates people do not buy new versions of these products so there is no point to investing in producing new version no one is going to buy. We need to support those who provide travel aids to help our travels or they will not produce these aids any more and we will be left to our own devices to find out way. Sorry to say it has become very difficult to keep up with changes because experienced travelers no longer seem to support the aids that helped them in the past. At least some of the people on this forum do contribute to the Church updates so we can get some info. Other than that we can only try to keep up with places such as this forum and our contacts and friends who still travel around Mexico.

Mike & Terri - if you are out there - if you publish another book we promise to buy at least one - maybe more to carry with us to sell to those lost souls we find roaming around Mexico without a clue.

Thanks for the info and I can assure you I know how to find the latest edition of books and would use the updates....The problem is that there are almost NO updates that I could find on their site for this part of the Baja. This makes the update issue moot.

And while I am sure their book is a good one the fact still remains it's information dates from 2011 for the latest edition. That in terms of travel information in Mexico is almost a lifetime out of date. I have found the same issue with many of the web sites many of the posts and reviews are from years ago. And some websites have not been updated in years.

This is why I am asking here for people that have actually stayed in the parks around SF and Puertocitos.