About Real Acapulco

Real Acapulco...

Real Acapulco is more than a tourism or travel portal. It’s really a journal of my experiences since moving to Acapulco in the first months of 2003 and a celebration of my new home and my personal quest to discover real Acapulco - the good and bad of life in this tropical tourist havean.

After finishing my master’s degrees program in Public Affairs and Latin American studies at the University of Texas at Austin, rather than jumping into a carrier as a government analyst like the rest, I did the responsible thing - I moved to Acapulco. So far, I have not regretted a moment of it. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine what life would be like now without Acapulco.

My first experience with Mexico was actually back in 1998. Truth be told, I was a pretty experienced traveler before that. Well, if by experienced one can mean having traveled a lot and always unsuccessfully - that is, managed to run out of money or find that someone had helped themselves to my belongings half a world away. By this time I’d had good long trips to East Africa and Western Europe, but in 1998 I had to cram 4 semesters worth of Spanish classes into a term and a summer if I was to graduate and Tech de Monterrey was the only place on earth that would accommodate my irregular study plans. I was planning on Spain but they wanted no part of someone that didn’t know a word of Spanish like me, which was fine because I had had enough of Spain.

I remember the day I set out for Mexico. While most people plan for months for something like this, I really had no expectations and made no plans. Mexico? I wasn’t too interested. I was, you see, too sophisticated for all of that. In fact three days before I arrived, I was in Barcelona, Spain breaking up with my then girlfriend who I still refer to not so affectionately as “the creature.” Anyway, the creature and I had our differences from Paris to Madrid then on to Barcelona and the trip was a disaster. When I got back to the states, Austin, Texas to be exact, I was more concerned about getting my CD collection back from the creature’s mother’s place than getting ready for Mexico. I saw Mexico as a burden and something to endure before I could get moving onward and upward back home in the US.

It was hard to leave Austin at that time. Austin was in its prime and was enjoying the waning days of its growing national reputation as America’s first retirement community for the young. It was hard to get anything done in Austin then. Less was more. That is the less money you had, and the less responsibility you had, it seemed like the more you were rewarded by pretty girls and great parties and Mexico was standing in my way.

That was then.

By 2003, you couldn’t hold me back - I couldn’t wait to leave Austin and get back to Mexico any way I could. So much has happened between then and now… not least of which was learning how to develop websites (I didn't really even know how to use a computer as late as 1999) and, of course, creating Real Acapulco (which I actually started planning vaguely back toward the end of 2002 before making my move to Acapulco).

I'll try to relate all interesting experiences in the Mexico stories section or in the forum so that things stay both interesting and fresh.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Real Acapulco. It's the new kid onthe block, but I’m determined to make it not only the best travel website about Acapulco, or Mexico, but the best travel website that is (well, if you don't count off for spelling and grammar).

¡Viva Acapulco!