Beautiful "Small Towns" in Mexico Book Review

“One Hundred and One Beautiful Small Towns in Mexico,” written by Mexican historian Guillermo Garcia Oropeza, is a coffee table book that provides a journey in words and gorgeous pictures of Mexico’s “hidden” and not so hidden “off-the-beaten-track”and not so off-the-beaten-track “treasures.” Although the majority of the destinations covered in the book are actually “small towns,” quite a few are not so the title is somewhat of a misnomer. For example, the cities of Puerto Vallarta, Playa del Carmen, Tlaquepaque (a “suburb” of Guadalajara with a population of upwards of 560,000 inhabitants), Guanajuato, San Cristobal de las Casas, and Cuernavaca can hardly be described as towns. Nor can, among others, the monastery Guadalupe which is outside of the city of Zacatecas, or the volcano Paracutin, or the archaeological sites Xochicalco, Monte Alban, and, Chichen Itza, or the Ruta Conventos, the Ruta Haciendas, and the Ruta Puuc.

However, small towns or not, all of the places covered in the book depending on ones interests are worthy of either day trips or longer stays. I particularly liked that the author included twenty-three out of the thirty-eight towns that make up Mexico’s Pueblos Magicos/Magic Town program; I have been to quite a few of those highlighted in this book such as Bernal, Comala, Jerez, Tequila, Mazamitla, Tapalpa, and Jalpan, and could recommended a visit to all of them.

The book has many other strong points. There is a “regional contents” that lists the “towns” by region, state, and page number. Given the limitations of being a coffee table book, it does a more than adequate job in giving the historical and cultural significance of each of the destinations. It includes worthwhile places to visit that are either briefly glanced over or not mentioned at all in most Mexican travel guides; most illustrative of this, now having read about and seen a picture of the “mythic place” Mexcaltitan, Nayarit, a circular small village in the middle of a lagoon, it is on the top of my “must must must see” places to visit. Yet, what makes this book an especially “good buy” even if it were not relatively inexpensive (and it is!), is the exemplary photography by Cristobal Garcia Sanchez; the pictures of such places as Real de Catorce, Guanajuato, Tlacotalpan, Creel, Tulum, and Taxco provide the reader with an authentic “feel” of the “town” and stimulates a desire to witness them in person.

Yet, it has some weak points as well, mostly of the “little” variety. Like for some reason, the text utilizes two font sizes- one quite adequate to read while the other is so little that even a person with very good eyesight has to strain to do so. In the aforementioned “regional contents,” once again due to the smallness of the font (and that they are not bolded), I found it difficult to distinguish the regions from the states as the font size are identical. The same font and boldness issue occurs in the “Addresses” in the back of the book. Moreover, the text provides “little” information above and beyond the cultural and scenic as to what the “towns” have to offer in terms of attractions yet to be fair that is not the stated intent of the book. The black and white map in the front of the book is not easy to see or figure out or follow. I think that it would have been better to have instead included detailed regional maps at the beginning of each section and a more comprehensible and comprehensive one placed before the table of contents.

Overall, I am more than happy that I purchased this book. As the editor for BellaOnline’s Mexico site, this book, despite its limitations, has provided me with quite a few ideas that I would not have had otherwise both as to places to journey to and/or to write about. In this day and age of “information” both of the low and high tech varieties, what was beyond the scope of this book information-wise one can easily access elsewhere. Yes, I like this book even though all of the “beautiful small towns” are not really small at all or even “towns” and despite the fact that it did not include two of my favorite legitimately small towns, Tequisquapan, Queretaro and San Blas, Nayarit.


Disclaimer- I purchased this book with my own funds and was not compensated in any manner for the writing of this review.