From the editor

Writer Jim Cornfield has been to gladiator school in Rome during an Italian summer, immersed himself in India’s rich history during Delhi’s monsoon season, and gone in search of the giant whale shark off the waters of Honduras — all in the interest of a good story. After all that, I thought he needed a break; so I sent him to the Yucatán to relax. But there was a catch: he needed to learn yoga.

That may sound like an easy assignment, but there are a couple of things you need to know about Jim: He’s a connoisseur of history with an almost encyclopedic knowledge that gives him the ability to talk intelligently about pretty much any topic under the sun. He also has those two critical traits for a writer: an innate curiosity about the world and an underlying skepticism for prepackaged, overhyped, artificially created trends. And as I learned when he came back, he’s not the most limber guy in the world.

Perhaps that’s why, when I told him that I wanted him to go to Cancún and get introduced to yoga, he greeted the assignment with at least a modicum of wariness, thinking yoga the province of new age charlatans.

Yoga, of course, has deep historical and religious roots. It dates back to around the second century BC and is seen by many as a means to spiritual enlightenment. And as relaxing as yoga seems, it can also be a very physical discipline, particularly, as Jim discovered, under the heat of the Mexican sun. In the easternmost area of Mexico, from Cancún to Playa del Carmen, the many aspects of yoga come together harmoniously with the beautiful backdrop of the Yucatán Peninsula to create a unique setting for learning the ancient discipline. Jim’s story is in the Been There section.

Happy travels and good reading.

Contributors

When it came time to assign our story about great cities for car and drive lovers (The List), we knew there was no better person for the job than Greg Lalas. A regular contributor who wrote about great cities to see from the saddle of a motorcycle in our April 2004 issue, Lalas says it was growing up in Detroit that gave him an affinity for automobiles. “There’s something transcendent about the American road,” Lalas says. “I’ve driven across the country five times, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

The pictorial map is an art form that has been around for centuries, and we are proud to have Eve Steccati creating one for the Fit to Travel section of this magazine each month. “I love the fact that beautiful maps can both inform and entertain the viewer, offering a unique sense of discovery and excitement about a particular location,” she says. Steccati, who is based in Oakland, Calif., has created maps for Norwegian Cruise Line; Seabourn Cruise Line; Holt, Rinehart & Winston; and Club Med.

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Photograph by Brain Urkevic (Buller)