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Josh Knox

Just Joshin' #194 (Mexico)

Published about 2 months ago • 4 min read

Family Photo:
Playa del Carmen, México

Over Christmas, we visited my brother and his fiancée in Playa del Carmen. They're nomads, but Mexico is their current port of call, so it seemed like a good idea to travel down and visit them for the holidays.

Paul Graham has a line in an essay about how "What surprised you?" is the best sort of question you can ask someone coming back from a trip. Travel is a form of information gathering, and "What surprised you?" gets at "What new information have you learned that contradicts something you'd strongly believed before your trip?"

What Surprised Me:

Surprise itself. Embarrassing to admit, but I didn't expect to encounter much surprise on this trip. I thought we would have fun times with family, but I thought I already understood Mexico through osmosis by living in California: Tacos here; tacos there. Beaches here; beaches there. Spanish here; Spanish there.
​
That was a silly, small-minded view. There are things to learn and surprises to be had walking around my neighborhood. Of course there would be surprise on an international trip.

Scale. The scale of tourism on the Yucatán Peninsula is immense. Playa del Carmen is a small town relative to Cancún, but still has miles of walkable beachfront commerce, with shopping mall developments that rival Orange County. You could drive a hours in either direction and still not run out of massive, all-inclusive beachfront resorts. Not to mention the islands. Not to mention the 20-story cruise ships parked off the coast. It seems a lot of the development has taken place in the last 10 years, with substantial international investment.

Safety. Federal police were highly visible, and very professional. Nobody harassed us during our trip, and my mom walking around on her own didn't seem like an undue risk. It was explained to me that this wasn't always the case: fighting local/state corruption had led to putting federal police in charge of the region. Yucatan tourism is Mexico's cash cow, and Mexico intends to defend it.

Spanish. In Playa, everyone speaks Spanish. This shouldn't have been surprising, but with the scale of global tourism in the region, I had assumed market forces would have drawn more English proficiency to the region. I used every ounce of my 3 years in high school Spanish, which you can see on full display in this newsletter's headers, but we got along well enough using a combination of Portuguesey Spanish and Luana's incredible social graces. (and graciases?)

Immigration. Playa del Carmen has multiple types of immigrants. Alongside the tourists, many expats call Playa del Carmen home. Foreigners can't own property in Mexico, but certain legal workarounds accommodate effectively the same purpose. The prosperity from tourism draws job-seekers from across Mexico, as well as Central America, South America, and beyond. We met hardworking Venezuelans and Argentinians while exploring restaurants and shops and food carts.

Argentinians tended to speak the best English.

Prices. All prices surprise me these days, which might be a sign of getting old. However, it surprised me that Walmart prices in Playa del Carmen were mostly the same as Walmart prices in Southern California.

Dad Joke:
¿Cómo Te Llamas?

Source: Twonks​

Highlights:
¿Dónde Está el Baño?

​Principles by Nabeel Qureshi​

Being able to travel is one of the key ways the modern world is better than the old world. Learn to travel well.

​How to tell a good story by Dylan​

Now, life experience obviously helps with storytelling. Like if you have lived an interesting life then you should have more material to weave into good stories. But you’d be surprised at how many exceptions there are to this. There are people who have traveled the world and can’t make it interesting at all and there are also people who have never left their hometown and can have everyone on the edge of their seats as they describe their walk home from the grocery store.

​The Age of the Essay by Paul Graham​

When friends came back from faraway places, it wasn't just out of politeness that I asked what they saw. I really wanted to know. And I found the best way to get information out of them was to ask what surprised them. How was the place different from what they expected? This is an extremely useful question. You can ask it of the most unobservant people, and it will extract information they didn't even know they were recording.
​
Surprises are things that you not only didn't know, but that contradict things you thought you knew. And so they're the most valuable sort of fact you can get. They're like a food that's not merely healthy, but counteracts the unhealthy effects of things you've already eaten.

​The Future of Travel Is Less Exotic by Tyler Cowen​

The world is entering a new era in which exotic journeys are for more of a travel elite than a moneyed elite.
...
International travel is rebounding in comfortable “core” locations (for Americans, at least) such as Mexico, London or Dublin. But people are less keen on going farther afield.
...
“Comfort travel” — by which I mean not just nice hotels but familiar surroundings — will be OK. “Challenge travel” — involving not only faraway places but also unaccustomed experiences — faces a more uncertain future.
...
What many Americans and Westerners have learned is that they enjoy “comfort travel” as much if not more than “challenge travel.” A lot of the new habits are going to stick. Especially with group travel, the preferences of comfort travelers will tend to win out in choosing a destination.

iamJoshKnox Highlights:

Math Adventure Hub

I vibe-coded this while we were in Mexico using Claude Code. Try it out and let me know your thoughts - or better yet, pass it along to any early math learners in your lives.

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Or book some time on my calendar if there's anything else you'd like to chat about:
​https://calendly.com/iamjoshknox​

Until next week,
​iamJoshKnox​​

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Josh Knox

Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇

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