Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, from the approach to Panajachel. Guatemala is a good "other place" to visit in person.

[Photo by Diana Ricci]

Please Note: In order for this site to approach comprehensive, we need YOUR input. Please feel free to suggest other sites to us, by emailing us. Webmasters, please include a very small logo.

Friends of Ours with Something to Offer:

The Dream Machine, our first web host, a leader in internet services, features many fine writers, with links to a variety of sites. Bookmark it.

Planeta, a content-rich Internet pioneer site, put together by Ron Mader. Whether you are looking for hot springs, or a hot internet site about hot springs, this is the place to start.

Oaxaca Options is a regular series of roundtable meetings about responsible tourism in Mexico, hosted by Planeta founder Ron Mader.

Legal Services in Oaxaca. Germán Osorio Girón, local Mr. Fixit for the expatriate community, can help you with all your legal needs. Graduate of the local Law School, he has an excellent track record.

Blu's Poetry Page. Poems by a long-time Oaxaca transplant with pictures by Dan McWethy.

Walking Tours of Colonial Churches of Oaxaca: A tour for the devout, the lapsed, and the never-were. These two hour tours are guided by a U.S. artist who lives in Oaxaca and discusses art, architecture and history. The tour group meets in front of the Cathedral near the Zocalo at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays and Saturdays. A donation of 95 pesos per person is suggested which goes to the Estancia Fraternidád, a sort of Ronald MacDonald house for families and individuals from out of town who are undergoing outpatient treatment at the local charity hospital.. To schedule the tour at OTHER times, contact Linda at ridgecliff@hotmail.com

Eric Mindling's Tours: Small-group, meticulously crafted, cultural tours and workshops among the ancestral potters, weavers, and rural folk artists and artisans of indigenous Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, and Michoacan, Mexico.

Sites Specific To Oaxaca (alphabetically):

Casa Colonial, one of Oaxaca's premier b&b's and tour planners.

CORAL: helps deaf children to hear and to speak. So far, over a thousand kids have received effective hearing aids and/or speech and hearing training. We can't emphasize strongly enough our support for the marvelous job they are doing. CORAL is non-religious and non-political, and focuses its' efforts on the children of the poor, who might otherwise never have the opportunity to join mainstream society. The CORAL website also furnishes many links to other organizations and foundations engaged in community building and medical and children's issues: a must-see for those thinking about becoming volunteers while they are here.

Discover Oaxaca: Looking for a guide? Benito and Suzanne may be the ones for you.

EDUCA, a self-help organization working with communities in the southern mountains of Oaxaca since 1994.

Go-Oaxaca: A quick overview of what's available for tourists, from Oscar Carrizoso, the editor and publisher ot the trilingual "Oaxaca" give-away newspaper.

IOHIO: A non-profit organization dedicated to the identification, preservation, and restoration of Oaxaca's many historical organs. Founder and director Cicely Winter is an accomplished organist and a tireless organizer whose efforts have been instrumental (pun intended). Their website is not only informative, but well done.

Language learning units: Spanish for travelers, with Oaxacan culture and history thrown in.

Libros Para Pueblos negotiates, buys, stocks, maintains and replaces books placed in small communities throughout the Oaxaca area. From its beginning as a children's library, placed in individual schools - as a result of consultations with parents, teachers, students and citizens - Libros has now evolved into a resource - usually the only resource - for books in these communities. Nobody gets paid for the work, and volunteers usually pay their own expenses. "Sponsored" by the Lending Library, Libros is non-political, non-denominational, and free of the internal conflicts and interpersonal rancor that has so often plagued most of the expatriate-generated organizations in Oaxaca and Mexico. They get the job done, and deserve support.

Oaxaca City a well-moderated Yahoo news group for exchanging information with each other and so much more. Great pictures. Check it out.

Oaxaca Mio has lots of interesting and useful factoids about weather, travel times and distances, and much more.

Oaxaca Live, contains a lot of good practical information about being in and getting to Oaxaca, including "Ask Maria".

Oaxaca on a C.D., a tour of Paradise with lots of practical info.

Oaxaca Tourism And Travel Guide and Forum, an excellent one-stop shop for Oaxaca information and conversation.

Pictures of Oaxaca, from Curt Rosengren, travel photographer.

Piña Palmera provides a home and a school for differently-abled children on the beach in Zipolite.

The Pottery of Southern Oaxaca: Eric Mindling's excellent site includes his tales of hunting for traditional pottery in the back country.

Seasons Of My Heart Cooking School features the best of traditional Oaxacan cuisine.

Solstice, a yoga and vacation retreat in Zipolite.

South Oaxaca Coast, specializing in Oaxaca's beaches and southern mountains.

State of Oaxaca , including the SEDETUR pages, the "official" travel site.

Surf-Mexico page on the state of Oaxaca contains a lot of good information and maps.

Viva Oaxaca (The Book): Not to be confused with Phil Saviano's web site of the same name (below). This Viva Oaxaca is an extension of an inexpensive, concise, easy-to-carry pocket-size guide for tourists, updated at least once a year, sold in several locations in Oaxaca. The authors are net-savvy, and show that they understand how to take advantage of the flexibility and interactive potential of virtual tourism. Diana particularly likes the "12 things you must do" list.

Viva Oaxaca: A mixture of personal adventures, resource information, and commercials worth mining for the nuggets it contains.

"Zócalo" Magazine is a locally produced quarterly featuring contributions from writers, photographers and artists who are in one way or another part of the "scene".

Zihuatanejo Ixtapa Mexico Directory. Complete guide and directory for the Zihuatanejo beach resort in Guerrero, Mexico. Visitors guide includes hotels, rentals, maps, services, shops, beaches.

Café Cancún is Jules Seigel's main web presence, and worth looking at even if you don't give a darn about Cancún. Jules is a maverick, irreverent, well-published gadfly and an authentic journalist. He's lived in Cancún for many years, and spends a lot of time introducing us to the "real" Cancún, the one that few tourists ever see and even fewer write about.

A Guide To Acapulco is written by a very computer savvy and energetic young fellow living in Acapulco and experiencing the expatriate life.

The Yucatan Today is the product of some very savvy web designers, so it's slick and fun to navigate. As a bonus, it has a lot of valuable info, covering the entire state.

Yucatan Living: The website describes itself succinctly and accurately: "For on the ground, up to the minute, up close and personal, hot and humid information about Merida and the Yucatan". Worth a visit.

Merida Insider is a comprehensive and informative site for anyone planning to visit the Yucatecan capital. While in my opinion excessively protected with passwords and registration requirements, it is worth the bother for all but the casually curious.

Isla Mujeres Net is a good beginning page to start your search for information on this beautiful beach destination.

Discovery Cancun, a weekly newsletter about the happenings in the Carribean area.

Pottery of Mata Ortiz, a website devoted to a unique and significant northern Mexico town and its traditional potters and pottery.

The English Library of Merida, simply the best Library we've seen in Mexico.

Sites relating to Mexico, Generally:

Narconews.com, Al Giordano speaks truth to power, and reveals much about the connection between the drug trade and the Mexican establishment.

The People's Guide To Mexico, Carl Franz and Lorena Havens' definitive text on Mexican travel, and more. They're my gurus, they should be yours.

Maps of Mexico provides an interactive map of the country, broken down into sixteen plates. Best we've seen so far.

Mexico Mike has been writing about Mexico since the 60's. Since 1998, his 100+ page encyclopedic site has covered living, retiring in Mexico, real estate, financing, AA, offbeat travel, driving, spas & hot springs, classifieds.

Texas Escapes is mostly for people who want to visit Texas, but there is a natural affinity between Texans and their southern neighbors, and so the editors have expanded to include articles and information about the other side of TexMex.

Our Mexico, Doreen and Al Stevens' comfortable down-home investigation into various modes and localities of Mexican expatriate life, is in early growth stage, but well planned and layed out. They solicit aritcles, commentary, and information from travelers and experts alike. And, they even have a "Letter From Mexico" posted, so you know their taste is good.

Mexican Wave is based in Great Britain. A very clean, and quite commercial site with good information on a limited number of major must-sees. This site is young, but growing.

EarthFoot, a site for the follower of the road less traveled.

Espadana Press features in-depth visits to various historical sites. Name that mission and win a prize.

Escape Artist gives tools and encouragement to the would-be expatritate.

Worldwide Listing of Newsletters, for all those who don't get enough news.

Premier Travel is a travel agency that provides a lot of information about how to, where, and when.

Si-Mexico Hotel and Resort Travel Guide, featuring four and five star hotels and resorts. This site proves that there is something for everyone. A must-use for those of us (like my uncle Al) who want exotic, but have some fears about travel in exotic places -- and can afford to pay for the extra protection.

Virtual Mexico Mall, full of things to buy, to see, to read and to think about.

Open Air Markets Of The World, a nostalgic and up-to-date site promoting and featuring the traditional market.

Move to Mexico, full of snippets of good information, this site offers the services of Mexico File writer and real estate savvy David Simmonds.

Guide2Mexico has a lot of information and links to information, as well as being a commercial (rentals, etc.) site.

The Rec-Travel Library, a general site of Mexican information.

Mexonline.com, a supersite with articles, business listings, and the Amigo Interactive Bulletin Board.

Mexico Index®, a compendium of resources for those who do, or may want to do, business in Mexico.

Mexican Vacation Rentals, the title says it all...

Guillermo Gomez-Pena, performance artist, internationalist, and architect of the New World Border.

Resource Center of the Americas, a scholarly clearinghouse of articles about the rest of "America".

Hotwired Rough Guide, with sections on Mexico travel.

Universal Currency Converter, available as a "push" email, delivers the latest peso rate to your computer while you sleep.

Pacific News Service,a worldwide news service that includes Latin America.

The Hidden Mexico, takes you to the less known places, and discusses some issues that the tourism folks would rather not be brought up. A warning: the pesky page doesn't want to go away once you get there; but clicking <control>w will get you out.