Who Is Orlando Mergal

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Photo of Orlando Mergal with camera and photographer's vest

Orlan­do Mergal

Hi, my name is Orlan­do Mer­gal. I am a Land­scape Pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Author, New Media Pro­duc­er, Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er and Busi­ness Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Expert. Dur­ing 25+ years of my life I served the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, bank­ing, insur­ance and ser­vice indus­tries in Puer­to Rico. I am total­ly bilin­gual and flu­ent in Eng­lish and Spanish.

Dur­ing my career I worked with many of Puer­to Rico’s top exec­u­tives deliv­er­ing tai­lor-made com­mu­ni­ca­tions tools for human resources, mar­ket­ing and pub­lic rela­tions. Today I like to explore my native Puer­to Rico and tell the world about it.  I’m also on a quest to vis­it the Unit­ed States’ Nation­al Parks.  All of them!  So far I’ve been to twenty-two.

A QUESTION OF LANGUAGE

Many peo­ple —espe­cial­ly local Puer­to Ricans— ask me why Puer­to Rico By GPS is in Eng­lish.  After all the native tongue on the Island is Span­ish and only around 20% of Puer­to Ricans can tru­ly call them­selves bilin­gual.  The answer is twofold.  First, the web­site was not cre­at­ed for local Puer­to Ricans.  There are plen­ty of tourist sites in Span­ish.  To make mine in Span­ish would have made it just one more.  Puer­to Rico By GPS was cre­at­ed for Eng­lish-speak­ing tourists. Those sites are few­er and, quite hon­est­ly, only a hand­ful are any good.

Sec­ond, there’s a ques­tion of eco­nom­ics.  Many years ago I learned that the only mon­ey that mat­ters in an econ­o­my is the mon­ey com­ing in.  Lur­ing tourists from one town to anoth­er has very lit­tle effect on the Island’s econ­o­my. It’s like tak­ing mon­ey out of one pock­et and mov­ing it to the oth­er.  It’s still the same mon­ey.  Bring­ing tourists from abroad adds fresh mon­ey to the local econ­o­my and that’s always good.

WHAT QUALIFIES ME TO BUILD THIS SITE?

Web­sites are about words, sound, images and tech­nol­o­gy.  I’ve been around all of these for most of my life.  I was intro­duced to the world of sound sys­tems when I was 5 years old.  From that point on I became a musi­cian, com­plet­ed a Master’s Degree in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and worked in the indus­try for over 35 years.  I start­ed in pho­tog­ra­phy back in 1984. A year lat­er I start­ed my Master’s Degree and was intro­duced to the world of writ­ing.  A cou­ple of years lat­er I start­ed work­ing with video as well.  So my com­bined expe­ri­ence in all of these fields is quite broad.  Oh, and did I men­tion that I worked for a decade at our local phone com­pa­ny?  So I under­stand the worlds of tele­pho­ny and data trans­mis­sion as well.

They say that tourist blogs are a thank­less endeav­or.  Espe­cial­ly the kind that don’t receive any kind of gov­ern­ment sup­port, like this one.  And that’s prob­a­bly true.  But they also have a pos­i­tive side.  I have no com­mit­ment or slant in what I say.  I tell it like it is!!!  And that’s espe­cial­ly impor­tant for you: “the vis­i­tor” because you can rest assured that I’m not going to paint you pret­ty pic­tures.  I’ll always tell you the real sto­ry.

Final­ly, I write like I speak.  Read­ing my con­tent, watch­ing my videos or even lis­ten­ing to my pod­cast (which is in Span­ish, and about tech­nol­o­gy) is all a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence.  It’s like speak­ing with me direct­ly.  I don’t use fan­cy words just to sound smarter.  I like to believe that I’m pret­ty smart, if only because I’ve been at these things for a long time. But I don’t ever boast about it. I give my audi­ence what I look for when I trav­el: good, hon­est infor­ma­tion in sim­ple and easy to under­stand terms.

AN OPEN INVITATION

Take some time to explore Puer­to Rico By GPS. It’s writ­ten for tourists like me, who like to explore places on their own and at their own pace.  And if you have any ques­tions at all drop me a line.  I’ll answer them if I can, and if I can’t I’ll point you in the right direction.

Once again, wel­come to Puer­to Rico By GPS.