All in a Day’s Work: As the art director of Endless Vacation magazine, I joined photographer Shelly Strazis on the shoot for the feature “Beyond the Beach in Puerto Vallarta.” Wherever we went, we attracted the attention of amateur shooters shadowing Shelly and snapping their own shots; curious bystanders asking, “What are you doing?” and “How can we get a copy of the magazine?” After two overcast days, we still didn’t have our cover shot. Then, in the late morning, the sun came out at just the right moment and Shelly captured the photograph of the tile roofs and the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe that appeared on the cover of the May/June Endless Vacation magazine. 

Get Out of Town: Sometimes you don’t have to go far outside a city to see another world like our one-hour drive from lively Puerto Vallarta to quiet San Sebastián del Oeste, a 17th-century Spanish mining town. (Visitors can also get there in 15 minutes by small plane.) In this rural mountain village of whitewashed houses with red-tile roofs, we got a history lesson about San Sebastián’s mining heyday, which came to an end in 1930. “It took two days on horseback to carry the silver from the town to the train,” explained 90-year-old Dona Conchita, whose small house is also a historical museum of town artifacts and family memorabilia.

Wild Ride: During a tour of the area, we learned that San Sebastián’s current economy is based on cattle ranching and growing agave, corn and coffee. We’d been driving about an hour when a farmer chasing a runaway ox jumped through the open side door of our van to hitch a ride. Who knew a hulking ox could move that fast? Our driver sped up, passed the beast and let the man out just close enough for an easy capture.

NOTE: Information may have changed since publication. Please confirm key details before planning your trip.