Tony Burton is an award-winning writer whose books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: Decades of Change in a Mexican Village” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), “Mexican Kaleidoscope: myths, mysteries and mystique” (2016), “Western Mexico, A Traveler’s Treasury” (4th edition, 2013) and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages; an anthology of travelers’ tales” (2008). He co-authored, with Dr. Richard Rhoda, the groundbreaking “Geo-Mexico, the geography and dynamics of modern Mexico” (2010).
Burton edited the worldwide subscription newsletter “Lloyd Mexican Economic Report” for many years and has translated works on Paricutin Volcano, Tonalá ceramics, Juan Rulfo and Lake Chapala. He has also authored hundreds of original travel and ecotourist articles and several academic articles on fieldwork methodology, published in both English and Spanish.
Born in the UK, Burton has an M.A. in geography from the University of Cambridge and a teaching qualification from the University of London. After teaching for three years in the West Indies, he moved to Mexico in 1979, subsequently being granted Mexican citizenship. For more than a decade, Burton directed Odisea México, a non-profit that organized academic fieldwork, principally in the earth sciences (geography, ecology, biology), for high-school and college groups, and specialist ecotourist excursions for adults. Burton, who served as chief examiner for geography for the International Baccalaureate Organization from 2003 to 2009, now spends most of his time writing.
For many years Burton lived in Jocotepec, a small town on the shores of Lake Chapala, with his wife, Gwen, who ran a hearing-aid program for hearing impaired students. They currently reside on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and return to Mexico as often as possible.