Gary Chandler first visited Mexico as an exchange student from UC Berkeley in 1995, spending a semester in Mexico City and then four months teaching English in a tiny indigenous village in the mountains of Oaxaca. That trip was the first of many he would take to Latin America, Europe and Asia, while based in San Francisco. Gary has written for guidebooks on Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and Brazil. Between guidebook assignments, Gary has taught poetry and worked as a freelance reporter.

Liza Prado spent almost every summer of her life in Mexico, from preschool to high school, visiting her grandparents and extended family in Monterrey and Mazatlán. After two and a half years of fascinating and intense work as a lawyer, Liza left the Bay Area and moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, where she and Gary were married. Over the next two years, they traveled to the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Brazil. Liza plans to continue working as a travel writer, but (just in case) remains an active member of the State Bar of California.