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When I signed on to Talk Baja, I mentioned that I had written a book about Mexico. Baja Gringo sent a message: "Welcome to the forum - would love to know more about your book. Why don't you tell us about it? --Ron"

My Reply:

Well, it’s considered a little tacky for an author to pitch a book on a bulletin board. So don't consider this an advertisement.

Suffice to say, the idea for my first book started in Baja in 1983, when my future wife and I started on a six-month tour of Mexico. That was back in the time of the great devaluation. Prices were incredibly cheap . . . diesel fuel for my pickup: about 18 cents a gallon, a bottle of Modelo beer: 30 cents. A mansion in San Miguel de Allende could be had for $35k, etc. We crossed from Cabo to Puerto Vallarta and continued on down to Guatemala before returning to the states.

The possibility of retiring on $400 a month in Mexico changed our lives when we turned the idea into a book. Instead of a casual freelance writer, I became an author. The Mexico book, the first of many, sold 50,000 copies the first year. At that time, it was just about the only book on the market about retirement in Mexico. Today, there are probably a hundred publications in bookstores. (Just in case people haven’t noticed, today it takes a little bit more than $400 a month to retire in Mexico!) But living in Mexico is worth every peso it takes, in my opinion. By the way, over the years, I've also written a few articles for Mexico Connect.

I wasn’t exactly new to Mexico – my family moved to Mexico City when I was a teenager. I lived and visited the family off and on over the years, while working for a newspaper in California. Also, I used to consider myself an old Baja hand, having spent months of my free time there, via Intl Scout, Jeepster, Baja Bug, even a motor home. TJ to Cabo several times. However, over the past few years, I’ve been involved in other projects, and haven’t had any opportunities for Baja, other than a couple of visits to Cabo (which really doesn’t count.) The more I look at this forum, the stronger my resolve to relive my adventures someday soon.

So, where did we retire? No, not Mexico. We have a house in Costa Rica, which we built after our book on retirement in that country made even more money. It was a toss-up, actually. I wanted to live in Acapulco, but my wife decided the beach was too hot for her, and preferred the temperate highlands of Costa Rica. (She makes the decisions, and my responsibility is to agree.)

I want to congratulate you all for a great Internet forum. Very informative, and with members who seem to be polite, considerate, and eager to help newbies. For 11 years, I operated the Costa Rica Bulletin Board -- using the same system as my friend David McLaughlin began with years ago – and I recently shut the forum down after 11 years of dealing with trolls, spammers, Viagra salesmen, and gawd only knows who else next! Had my visitors been as well-mannered as this forum, it might have been different.

Oh yes . . . why the handle "don John"? Turns out that when I was building our first Costa Rica house, there were about 20 workmen involved. (Everything was done manually, even mixing concrete.) I made sure everyone had a couple of cold beers during their lunch break, and that made a huge impression. So today, all of the Costa Ricans in the village know me as "don John." I won't mention what the gringos call me.

Great Story John and I can relate to the "Don" portion. When living in Argentina years ago I had a management position in a factory there. It was quite common for the workers there to call me "Don Ron". I kept telling them to just call me Ron but they saw it as proper respect and I eventually got used to it - but it always did make me silently chuckle.

Welcome to the forum and hope to see you "up" here in Baja soon...

I think I missed your original intro, so here's my WELCOME!

BajaNuts

Hi John, Is your book still in print? Where could I find a copy or read a few excerpts? Thank you. Ron

Welcome don.john.40 to

Yes . . . if not in local bookstores, on Amazon. Choose Mexico.

Try this...

Well, that's a sixth edition (1999). The last edition, the tenth was copyrighted 2009.

I also did a book on RV travel in Mexico (cleverly titled "RV Travel in Mexico") which came out in 1989. It happened that everywhere we went for research, we were told that someone else had also been around doing research on the subject. It turns out that Carl Franz (and Lorena) had been working on a book that they also intended to title "RV Travel in Mexico" -- it came out almost the same month as my book. Carl later told me that only at the last minute did he insert two words in the title and it came out "RV Travel and Camping in Mexico." Narrowly avoided lots of embarrassment. Neither book did very well as I remember. Turns out that people who love to RV in Mexico, already know more about the subject than some like me, someone who buys an RV and sets out to learn what aficionados already know. People who don't already know about RVing in Mexico wouldn't be interested because of all the "bandidos" that infest the roads and highways of Mexico.

See an article I wrote for Mexico Connect on the subject of Bandidos on Mexican Highways:

Not being familiar with the way this bulletin board works, I am wondering what happened to a reply I made to this post, of the picture of one of my book covers. Did I post it in the wrong place? Did I inadvertently use some banned words? Did I send it off to outer space?

Like . . . wha' happen dude?

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Try this...

I had that book!!! Hadn't used it for a while, but it was well used when bought it! Passed it on to a newbie.

Originally Posted by don.john.40

Not being familiar with the way this bulletin board works, I am wondering what happened to a reply I made to this post, of the picture of one of my book covers. Did I post it in the wrong place? Did I inadvertently use some banned words? Did I send it off to outer space?

Like . . . wha' happen dude?

I see your reply above; searched all 4 of your posts and they all appear in this thread to me...

Gremlins.

CORRECTION: I found that post in with some automatically "Moderated" to "Ignore" status by our software; must have had some similarities to some automated spam we get from time to time. I "validated" it and should be visible to all now.

Well of course I could see it logged it; I'm a Moderator. Not too sure about the "super" part.

Sorry 'bout that, John.