Moon Honduras and the Bay Islands (Moon Handbooks)
Chris Humphrey first became smitten by Honduras in 1990 while backpacking through South America. Sitting on a dock in La Ceiba looking to catch a tramp freighter to Nicaragua, he instead hopped a boat out to Utila, in the Bay Islands. Seduced by the mellow Honduran vibe, he wandered on to the soporific beach town of Trujillo and then headed up into the mountains of Olancho, drinking endless cups of wickedly strong coffee and chatting with the local cowboys. Chris began traveling at the tender age of five, when he ventured across town to a friend's grandmother's house. When he took a year off from college to backpack through Africa and the Middle East, his parents saw the writing on the wall and gave up all efforts to worry about him. Chris got started as a writer in 1994, after college, when he threw everything into a VW van and moved to Mexico City to work as a journalist. He first wrote for a couple of English-language newspapers, then for a financial wire service, and later as a freelance reporter for whomever deigned to buy his stories, including the "San Francisco Chronicle, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, " and "Latin Finance, " among many others. In 1997, he wrote the first edition of "Moon Honduras." Chris is also the author of "Moon Mexico City." These days, Chris lives in London, England, working on his PhD and wistfully dreaming about sunny beaches, palm trees, and a cold bottle of Salva Vida. Amy E. Robertson is a Seattle native who has long been obsessed with travel. She studied in Boston and Madrid for her bachelor's degree, and upon graduating took a job with an international consulting firm. This position led Amy to a life of globetrotting -- she traveled to more than 50 countries in less than three years. She then returned to school, earning a master's degree in development studies at the London School of Economics, where she also met her husband, who hails from Italy. After working in international aid for five years in New York City, Amy began life as an expat in Ecuador, brought there by her husband's job with the United Nations. Amy made the career switch from development to travel writing while in Ecuador, a livelihood that was easy to bring along when they made the move to Honduras in 2007. Her writing has been published in "National Geographic Traveler, Christian Science Monitor" and "Travel + Leisure, " among others. Amy currently resides in Tegucigalpa with her husband and two young children, but spends three months a year divided between her family's hometowns: Seattle, Rome, and Messina, Sicily. Together, Amy and her family enjoy exploring the mountain villages, Mayan ruins, white-sand beaches, and lush forests of Central America. Hiking with her kids in Honduras's jungles and cloud forests and spotting birds and crocodiles on the Mosquito Coast were among her favorite experiences while researching this guidebook.