TravelWorld International Magazine Focuses on Puerto Vallarta Dennis A. Britton - TravelWorld International Magazine
go to original April 7, 2016

Letter from the Editor of TravelWorld International:

Bienvenidos, Amigos!

From the moment we stepped into the fabulous Velas Vallarta it was the same everywhere we went. It just wasn't a phrase of welcome it was a sincere way of life in Puerto Vallarta.

It's been 11 months since our 13th annual conference was held on the shores of Banderas Bay but the memories remain sharp and warm. And as Tim Leffel describes in an essay in this edition of TravelWorld, it was a visit of a lifetime.

The experience was so enriching that everyone of us held our breath in October when Hurricane Patricia roared across the Pacific with sustained winds of 165 miles per hour and seemed headed directly at our home away from home. At nearly the last minute, Patricia veered away and made landfall 180 miles south of Puerto Vallarta, which only experienced light rain and no wind. A huge sigh of relief was heard across the city and in the homes of our members.

In this special issue of TravelWorld International for April 2016 we try to capture what it meant for members of the North American Travel Journalists Association to visit one of Mexico's finest resorts. You will see just a handful of the tens of thousands of remarkable photographs our members took from the tiny kitchen at El Arrayan to the zipline zooming through the jungle at Canopy River.

Perhaps the single most photographed image was of the model portraying Frida Kahlo, sitting serenely in the lovely gardens of Casa Velas. Her makeup was so well done that many of us looked around to see if Diego Rivera was nearby. It was there that our gracious hosts Eduardo and Juan Vela spared no effort to offer a luxurious and spendid evening for us.

Your memories will come alive with the stories and photographs that we have gathered here from the remarkable dinner at La Leche to the street tacos in Pitillal; from the carnival games and mariachis at Canopy River to the sight of our very own Leffrey Lehmann showing us how to spell YMCA as he stood on the bow of the ship taking us from the magical Rhythms of the Night show across the somewhat choppy Banderas Bay.

I think the main thing you'll see in this special issue is the high quality of work done by our members. There is no other group of writers, photographers and videographers which can match the professionalism or enthusiasm of the members of the North American Travel Journalists Association.

Bienvenidos! We hope you enjoy this special issue as much as Joy Bushmeyer and I had putting it together... Dennis A. Britton, Editor, TravelWorld International Magazine.

Read the April issue about Puerto Vallarta at TravelWorld International Magazine.