Mayaguez Travel Guide, Puerto Rico

Mayaguez Travel Guide – Location and Transportation Alternatives

Mayaguez is a city in Puerto Rico and it is considered to be the eighth largest municipality in the country. The Mayaguez travel guide you are about to read will focus on all the relevant information you need if travelling in the area and will give you some tips concerning the local culture. Taking pride in such names as “The City of Pure Waters” or “The City of God”, Mayaguez dominates the centre of the western coast of Puerto Rico and it lays just a two hours’ drive away from San Juan. There is a network of freeways linking the city to the rest of the country, but it currently tries to request more flights from the nearby airport in Aguadilla. Still, the city’s own airport, Eugenio Maria de Hostos (known simply as El Mani), has a thirty years’ tradition in serving Mayaguez and it still is very important to this day. Inside the city, public transportation is done through trolleybuses and through a considerable number of private taxi companies.

Mayaguez Travel Guide – Economical and Demographical Issues

Mayaguez has approximately 95.000 inhabitants, but the population has been decreasing in the last few years. The students tend to balance this phenomenon, as there are approximately 10.000 people who come to university in Mayaguez, increasing the number of inhabitants each year. The most important demographic phenomenon that affected the city in recent years is the closure of its textile and tuna factories that had been the main employers during the 20th century, so 11.000 people remained without a job and the city consequently became the jurisdiction of the United States. Following these events, the economy started taking a positive turn as some investors decided to move their businesses in the area and help the local job market.

Mayaguez Travel Guide – The Delicious City

Culturally, Mayaguez can take pride in more than its colleges and universities: the local food is known throughout the whole of Puerto Rico and outside the country as well. Besides being home to the largest concentration of mango trees in the country, there are a few local specialties that have charmed the nation: the brazo gitano (a delicious jelly roll that has been around for over a century) and the sangria de Fido (a kind of sangria made with fruit juices and rum) are the most important ones. There are also small enterprises that have remained in business for half a century and still produce the best flan, ice cream or beer in town.

Any Mayaguez travel guide will consequently mention what a pleasure it is to eat out in the city and have one of their special local beverages, or chose between the apparently never-ending lists of homemade rums.