Not Just Bikes: The Only Car-Free Place in Canada (and Why You Can’t Live There)
When my daughter was six months old and still an only child, we took her on vacation with us to Yelapa, Mexico. We flew from New York City to Puerta Vallarta and got on a small water taxi that seemed too full of people. We motored over some big green swells to the little town on the beach inside a national park. We had rented a palapa (wall-less home) in Yelapa from some Canadians on AirBnB and didn’t know exactly what to expect.
Near our palapa in Yelapa. Photo courtesy of the author.
Yelapa was famous among my group of friends in rural Alaska and California as a heavenly vacation spot where there were beautiful starry skies unmarred by electric streetlights, no big hotels or clubs going boom-boom and plenty of peace and quiet. But it was out of the way. My wife glared at me on the boat ride while I gripped the sleeping baby like a precious football, all the while promising her we wouldn’t capsize. It was a glorious vacation and we went to extremes to get there because Yelapa had NO CARS and NO ROADS. Many ex-pats from Canada and the U.S. had lived there for many years, ensconced from car noise, pollution and danger.
You can find a carless retreat in Canada also, as Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes explains in one of his most recent video productions. But there’s a catch: you can’t live there.
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