Welcome to Puerto Rico by GPS

Orlando Mergal | Round Frame | Puerto Rico By GPS

Orlan­do Mergal

I cre­at­ed Puer­to Rico By GPS for peo­ple like you and I, who like to trav­el on our own, with­out a sched­ule or pre­de­ter­mined route. There are hun­dreds of posts and pages here for your enjoyment.

The site is called Puer­to Rico By GPS because every place cov­ered here includes the GPS coor­di­nates. That way you’ll be able to copy them, place them in your GPS unit or smart­phone, and go straight to every des­ti­na­tion. Or you can fol­low the maps already on our site if you prefer.

The Old San Juan Walking Tour Book Cover Small With Buy Button | Puerto Rico By GPSAnd what if you’re only going to be on the Island for a cou­ple of days? Then you’ll prob­a­bly stay near San Juan and your best bet is to order “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour”.

The “Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour  is a self-guid­ed tour that has dozens of pho­tos, detailed infor­ma­tion about all the key attrac­tions in the City, two hours of exclu­sive online video and GPS coor­di­nates for every­thing men­tioned in the book.

So it doesn’t mat­ter if you’ll be stay­ing for a day, for a week or even for a month. We’ve got you covered.

Order the “Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour  today!


Only For Adventurers

8 Places You Absolutely, Positively, Unmistakably Can't Miss When Visiting Puerto Rico and How To Get There | Puerto Rico By GPS | Orlando Mergal

So you’re like me, you like to trav­el with­out a sched­ule or exact des­ti­na­tion? When you like a place you stay, and when you don’t, you leave? Well, this 12-page book­let was made espe­cial­ly for you.

It includes detailed infor­ma­tion about my favorite 8 places to vis­it in Puer­to Rico, includ­ing the GPS coor­di­nates so you’ll go straight to each one. It’s also loaded with dozens of photos.

And best of all, I actu­al­ly wrote the whole thing.  It’s Chat­G­PT Free!!!. I’ve actu­al­ly been to all these places (repeat­ed­ly). I’m a pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tor and visu­al artist. I’ve also been a res­i­dent of Puer­to Rico for 60 years. The pho­tos are all mine. The dozens of videos on the Puer­to Rico By GPS web­site were also pro­duced by me. And they’re all avail­able absolute­ly free!

And guess what? If you have any ques­tions you can write me, and I’ll actu­al­ly answer! Imag­ine that!

Puer­to Rico is a great place to spend a cou­ple of days, a cou­ple of weeks or even a cou­ple of months.

Enjoy your book­let and I hope to hear from you soon.

Orlan­do Mergal

Yes. I want to Explore Puerto Rico | Puerto Rico By GPS | Orlando Mergal

 

 


Become An Honorary Puerto Rican!

This quiz is hard! Most peo­ple don’t pass it. But that’s what makes it so alluring.

Those who do pass receive a per­son­al­ized, high-res­o­lu­tion PDF cer­tifi­cate, suit­able for fram­ing, bestow­ing them with the title of “Hon­orary Puer­to Rican”.

Honorary Puerto Rican CertificateIt’s a fun piece that you can frame and hang in your office or over your man­tle. It’s also a great con­ver­sa­tion starter and a way to rem­i­nisce about your won­der­ful Puer­to Rico adventure.

Take the quiz now. Let’s see how much you real­ly know about Puer­to Rico.

Yes. I want to take the quiz. | Puerto Rico By GPS

 

 


Watch The Next Three Videos

If you’re plan­ning to vis­it Puer­to Rico, Puer­to Rico by GPS is the best place on the web to learn about our best land­marks and attrac­tions, with­out ask­ing any­one for direc­tions, and —most impor­tant­ly— with­out get­ting lost!

Puer­to Rico is the small­est of the Greater Antilles, also known as the West Indies.  Our cap­i­tal —Old San Juan— was estab­lished in 1521.  Old San Juan is the third old­est city in the west­ern hemi­sphere and the old­est con­tin­u­ous­ly inhab­it­ed city in the Unit­ed States. San­to Domin­go de Guzmán, the cap­i­tal of the neigh­bor­ing Domini­can Repub­lic to our west, is the old­est in Amer­i­ca by 12 years (1496) and Havana, Cuba comes in as a close sec­ond by 2 (1519).  But hey, I like Old San Juan better.

What can I say?  I’m biased. I live here!

I was born in New York City.  But my par­ents, who were both born in Puer­to Rico, returned to the Island when I was nine.  So I’ve lived all of my adult life on the Island of Enchant­ment, and of course, I know it inside out.

My for­mal train­ing is in busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tions.  But I’m also a pro­fes­sion­al land­scape pho­tog­ra­ph­er by pas­sion and train­ing.  When I’m not work­ing on one my many com­mu­ni­ca­tions projects you’ll find me with a cam­era strap around my neck explor­ing my beau­ti­ful Puer­to Rico. Many of those shots —includ­ing the one’s you’ll see on this site— are avail­able for sale on our sis­ter site Puer­to Rico Pho­tog­ra­phy.

So What Makes Puerto Rico By GPS  Different?

First, Puer­to Rico By GPS is not gov­ern­ment spon­sored.  Every­thing you see on Puer­to Rico by GPS has been cre­at­ed by me: the pho­tos, the copy, the gath­er­ing of infor­ma­tion, the audio, the video, the maps… every­thing.  Sec­ond, I don’t —and I won’t— sug­ar-coat real­i­ty.  If some­thing is beau­ti­ful and well main­tained, I’ll tell you.  But if it’s dan­ger­ous or run down, I’ll tell you too.

Third, it’s in Eng­lish.  Let’s face it.  Most of the tourists that vis­it Puer­to Rico come form the Unit­ed States and Cana­da..  But that’s just the begin­ning.  There’s an even more impor­tant rea­son.  Watch the fol­low­ing video and you’ll under­stand why.

FourthPuer­to Rico by GPS is an ongo­ing con­cern. So I con­stant­ly add new infor­ma­tion and update any­thing that changes, for the bet­ter or for the worse.  I vis­it inter­est­ing loca­tions, inter­view the peo­ple in charge and add those inter­views —in video or audio form— to the blog section.

But most impor­tant­ly, the infor­ma­tion on Puer­to Rico by GPS is not of the high­ly struc­tured, dena­tured and “san­i­tized” vari­ety found on many trav­el sites.  Here you’ll find the real thing: unadul­ter­at­ed, raw and real. That is my per­son­al promise to you!

So What Can You Do?

All you need to do is get here, spend some time and ENJOY.  Of course, to do it right you’ll need at least plane tick­ets, hotel reser­va­tions and a rental car.  All that and more is avail­able in the upper right area of this page.  And yes, they’re all affil­i­ate links.  That means that if you buy your plane tick­ets, hotel reser­va­tions and rent a car I’ll get a small com­mis­sion.  From your end it will be exact­ly the same as buy­ing every­thing else­where.  The only dif­fer­ence is that you’ll be help­ing us “keep the lights on”.

So go ahead.  Make your reservations.

Then put on a com­fort­able pair of walk­ing shoes, rub on some sun­block, grab your wide brim hat, a water bot­tle, pop a fresh mem­o­ry card in your cam­era, and let’s go. And if you’re even more adven­tur­ous, jump on a rental car, hit the road and let’s explore sun­ny Puer­to Rico together!

orlando

7 thoughts on “Welcome to Puerto Rico by GPS

  1. Orlan­do, only 2 weeks till we head your way. Have cer­tain­ly appre­ci­at­ed all the resources and advice you have pro­vid­ed. All set w/ wifi access, reser­va­tions, and pos­si­ble restau­rants. Being as pho­tog­ra­phy is your area of exper­tise, could you tell me if my Sony DSC-H20 will auto­mat­i­cal­ly cap­ture the auro­ra of the biobay, or will I have to manip­u­late it man­u­al­ly?? I have for­got­ten what lit­tle I once knew about speed and aper­ture set­tings. Any sug­ges­tions would be great­ly appre­ci­at­ed. Thanks, Jim

    1. Hi Jim:

      I’m glad to hear that you’re almost set to vis­it Puer­to Rico. I hope you enjoy your stay.

      First of all, let me pref­ace my answer with the fol­low­ing blank state­ment: “most night­time pho­tog­ra­phy is shot in man­u­al mode”.

      Now, there’s a tech­ni­cal rea­son for that. When your cam­era meters a scene it tries to aver­age it out to 18% gray. That’s more or less what you would get if you shot green grass in mid­day sun­light. But most of a night­time scene isn’t green (or 18% gray for that mat­ter). It’s black. Hence, try­ing to shoot a night­time scene where there might be a mul­ti­col­ored auro­ra will only result in gray pic­tures with an over­ex­posed aurora.

      When you talk about an auro­ra I’m imag­in­ing the after­glow that you get about half an hour after the sun goes down. If that’s the case, your best bet would be to shoot in man­u­al mode and use a tri­pod. I can’t stress this enough. This type of shot will often be 1/4 of a sec­ond long or maybe even longer. So there’s no way you’ll hold your cam­era steady that long.

      Take, for exam­ple, the image of “Fort San Felipe Del Mor­ro” that’s at the begin­ning of one of my lat­est posts “Old San Juan At Dusk”. That image was shot at ISO 160, with an aper­ture of f11.3 and at a shut­ter speed of 6 sec­onds. With­out a tri­pod that shot would have been impossible.

      Oh, and don’t for­get a cable release. At expo­sures that long even the slight­est vibra­tion will ruin your shot.

      You’ll also need to brack­et. What’s that? Shoot a cou­ple of frames above your “cor­rect” expo­sure point (let’s say +1 and +2 stops) and a cou­ple under. That way one of your shots will be perfect.

      Final­ly, I’m not sure if by “auro­ra” you were refer­ring to the glow that you get in the water if you run your hands through it. If that’s what you would like to cap­ture then that’s a total­ly dif­fer­ent story. 

      For starters you’ll need a high ISO because the tiny phy­to­plank­ton that pro­duce that glow don’t put out that much light pow­er . From there I would go with a shut­ter pri­or­i­ty set­ting based on 1/125 or 1/60. And if your images come out a lit­tle over­ex­posed dial in an expo­sure com­pen­sa­tion of ‑1 or ‑2 stops.

      Puer­to Rico is a trea­sure trove of pho­to­graph­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties. So have fun and enjoy your trip!

  2. Hi,

    Look­ing for­ward to see more of your work. Love the fact that you are not “sug­ar-coat­ing real­i­ty”. It is the only way I want it!

  3. hi, i m com­ing from NYC to cel­e­brate my anniver­sary with my bf, can u please share some places that we must go, some restau­rant that you rec­om­mend­ed. We are com­ing over 03/18–03/21

    1. Hi:

      Glad your vis­it­ing the Island for such an impor­tant occa­sion. As far as places to vis­it, that is pre­cise­ly the pur­pose of this site. I invite you to peruse at your leisure. Nor­mal­ly I would urge you to vis­it the two Span­ish forts in Old San Juan and El Yunque Nation­al For­est. But after hur­ri­cane María the lat­er was severe­ly dam­aged so I would advise you skip it for now.

      You should also expe­ri­ence our beach­es. Luquil­lo beach is par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful and rel­a­tive­ly close to San Juan.

      Restau­rants are a mat­ter of taste. How­ev­er, I like Bar­rachi­na in Old San Juan.

  4. I appre­ci­ate the infor­ma­tion, I’m going to Puer­to Rico count­ing on my GPS I have no idea how to get around, is it safe for 2 woman?

    1. Like any oth­er juris­dic­tion of the Unit­ed States Puer­to Rico cer­tain­ly has its share of crime and cor­rup­tion. If you stick to well lit urban areas and don’t go out late at night you should be OK. The Puer­to Rican coun­try­side and beach­es are espe­cial­ly beau­ti­ful. GPS works well in Puer­to Rico, espe­cial­ly if you know the coor­di­nates for the place you wish to vis­it. You can pick up our books “The Old San Juan Walk­ing Tour” and “Puer­to Rico Beach By Beach” on Ama­zon. They are bot avail­able for the Kin­dle and cost a mere $2.99 per book. ANd yes, the have the GPS coor­di­nates for every place mentioned.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *