“Puerto Rico For Beach Bums” hits the “virtual bookstands”

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NOTE: THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK CHANGED. IT IS NOW LISTED IN AMAZON UNDER “PUERTO RICO BEACH BY BEACH”

Dur­ing the past sev­er­al months I’ve been a busy beaver.  I’ve been writ­ing my third book for the Ama­zon Kin­dle titled: “Puer­to Rico For Beach Bums”.  And, as you might imag­ine, it has to do with the fact that Puer­to Rico has some of the most beau­ti­ful beach­es in the world.

In a few weeks it will be high sea­son.  That means that thou­sands of tourists, from all over the world, will arrive in Puer­to Rico eager to enjoy our won­der­ful Caribbean climate.

In the main­land they call them snow­birds.  These are the peo­ple that live in the north­ern states and Cana­da and migrate south (like the birds) dur­ing the win­ter months.  Hence the term “snow­birds”.

Many have vaca­tion prop­er­ties in Flori­da, but after a while the amuse­ment parks and gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties tend to get old.  The more adven­tur­ous ones go to the Caribbean where there’s a myr­i­ad of things to do and a great cli­mate all year ’round.  And there’s no bet­ter place to go than sun­ny Puer­to Rico.

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Puer­to Rico has every­thing!  First of all it’s a U.S. ter­ri­to­ry.  That means no pass­ports, no visas, no cur­ren­cy exchange, no lan­guage bar­ri­er and all the pro­tec­tion pro­vid­ed by the U.S. Constitution.

Then there’s the weath­er.  Aver­age tem­per­a­tures in Puer­to Rico are usu­al­ly around 80°F.  That’s sum­mer weath­er all year long.  And where bet­ter to enjoy that great sum­mer cli­mate than at the beach?

I could tell you about Old San Juan with its famous Span­ish forts, the rum dis­tillery, the Rain­for­est, the Areci­bo Radio tele­scope, the Camuy Riv­er Cav­erns, the longest zipline in the world and many, many more places.  But if you’re a “beach bum” you’ll only care about one thing: “the beaches”.

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Accord­ing to the Cam­bridge British Dic­tio­nary a “beach bum” is some­one who spends most of his or her time hav­ing a good time at the beach.  Sounds like fun, right?

The Macmil­lan, Oxford, Collins and Mer­ri­am-Web­ster dic­tio­nar­ies all define this type of per­son in a sim­i­lar fash­ion, basi­cal­ly: “some­one who loves to relax on the beach and enjoy life”.  If that sounds like you, then you’re in for a treat, because “Puer­to Rico For Beach Bums” is just the book for you.

I wrote this book only for the Ama­zon Kin­dle because I want­ed it to be with­in the reach of the largest pos­si­ble group of peo­ple.  At first glance it would seem that a tra­di­tion­al book would have been eas­i­er to dis­trib­ute.  But that’s not true.  It would have been more expen­sive and hard­er to place in all the right stores.

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By putting it in the Kin­dle store it became instant­ly avail­able to any­one tot­ing a smart­phone (Apple, Android or any oth­er brand), a tablet or a gen­uine Kin­dle.  Plus you can even read it on Win­dows and Mac­in­tosh com­put­ers.  Why?  Because Ama­zon makes appli­ca­tions for all those plat­forms.  And believe me, that’s a lot of devices.

Then there’s the price.  There’s no way I could have print­ed a book with 22 col­or pho­tos and sold it for $2.99 a copy.  Believe me.  I know.  I’ve been doing this for 20+ years.  That’s the beau­ty of elec­tron­ic publishing.

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“Puer­to Rico For Beach Bums” starts in San Juan and goes on an imag­i­nary jour­ney around the Island in a clock­wise fash­ion.  Why?  Because San Juan is where most tourists arrive and stay.  If you’re stay­ing some­where else feel free to start at the clos­est point to where you’ll be staying.

There are 22 col­or pho­tos in the book; one for every beach and one of “mua”.  And here’s some­thing you’ll prob­a­bly like.  Each beach has its own GPS coor­di­nates right below its photo.

Did you know that the same smart­phone that you’re prob­a­bly car­ry­ing in your pock­et can also dou­ble as a portable GPS unit?  That’s right!  Just copy the GPS coor­di­nates from “Puer­to Rico For Beach Bums”, punch them into your favorite map appli­ca­tion and you’ll arrive at each beach on a dime!

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And then there’s the descrip­tions.  I actu­al­ly took a dip in each beach.  That way I could write about them with the author­i­ty that only expe­ri­ence can provide.

And which beach­es did I cov­er?  Well, I went to the same beach­es that most Puer­to Ricans love and rec­om­mend.  And believe me, they’re here all year round and they know their beaches.

Here’s the list:

1. Bal­n­eario El Escambrón
2. La Playi­ta Del Condado
3. Con­da­do Beach
4. Bal­n­eario de Carolina
5. Bal­n­eario La Monserrate
6. Sev­en Seas
7. Playa del Tamarindo
8. Playa Sucia
9. Com­bate Beach
10. Boquerón Beach
11. Buyé Beach
12. Domes Beach
13. Bal­n­eario Pico de Piedra
14. Crash Boat
15. Playa Jobos
16. Mar Chiq­ui­ta
17. Los Tubos
18. Puer­to Nuevo
19. Cer­ro Gordo
20. Sar­dinera Beach
21. Pun­ta Salinas

You’ll notice that the beach­es in Cule­bras, Vieques and Caja de Muer­to (the small­er islands to our east and south) were not includ­ed in the book.  That was not an omis­sion.  In fact, they are men­tioned at the end but they weren’t cov­ered.  Why?  Because reach­ing these islands can be quite chal­leng­ing.  The fer­ry ser­vice is pathet­ic, vehi­cle rental prices are oner­ous and the aver­age tourist just does­n’t have the time or incli­na­tion to put up with mediocrity.

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That being said, the beach­es at Cule­bra, Vieques and Caja De Muer­to are among the best in the world!  There’s no doubt about that.  It’s just the get­ting there that’s a pain.  Maybe I’ll add them in a future edi­tion if con­di­tions improve.

If you own any of the devices men­tioned above, and you’re com­ing to the Island in a near future, you can order your copy of “Puer­to Rico For Beach Bums” by click­ing on the book title any­where in this article.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2014,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590