Mexican Days: Journey Into the Heart of Mexico by Tony Cohan: Travel Writer's Pick of a Dozen Mexican Destinations

If you’re ripe for traveling in Mexico as shown through the eyes of a hip, literate writer with a flair for sensuous detail, Tony Cohan’s second book about Mexico may lead you to start planning your trip to that country—or even a first visit.

But be forewarned, the novice traveler will not find Mexican Days: Journeys into the Heart of Mexico (Broadway Books, 2006)a how-to book. It is a where-to, why and what book, to the Mexico seen through Cohan’s take on a dozen destinations, some of which he visited as a travel writer for Conde Nast Traveler and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Tony speaks Spanish well and has lived in Mexico for twenty years.

Cohan takes us to places I also have visited in my two early trips and seven years living in Central Mexico—San Miguel de Allende, Mexico City, Xilitla in the Sierra Gorda, Oaxaca, Guanajuato—and a few places I’ve never been like Tlacotalpan, a photographer’s dream town on a river in Veracruz state and the site of a famous music (son) festival. Even when my own take has differed, the details brought each place back into focus. Of course comparing experiences is part of the fun of even armchair travel, part of what this book is all about.

I think seasoned Mexico hands will appreciate Cohan’s compact reflections on what he has seen. For example, after brief comments on Cuernavaca, Tepotzlan and Valle de Bravo, all within comfortable weekend driving distance for Mexico City residents, Cohan writes: ”The pressures of the swelling capital had tainted its old getaways, it seemed. 

After resonant Oaxaca, they seemed tinny.” Or near the the gritty yet historic center of Mexico City by the Zocalo, Cohan gives readers more historical perspective “It hadn’t always been this bad. Fifty years ago Mexico appeared to be on its way to first world prosperity,” followed by a pile of historical details.