This page is not complete because Carolyn is suppose to pick the pictures, compose the text and send it to me, she hasn't. If you would like to encourage her to get to work, you can contact her here.
While waiting for Carolyn to do her job, you can check out some of the reading material we used to prepare for this trip. Two books by John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan and Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, are must reading whether you ever make it to the Yucatan or not. Stephens and Catherwood were the first citizens of the United States to make a detailed exploration of the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan and Central America, circa 1840. Catherwood made engravings of many of the ruins, and they are exquisite even today. This is an exciting first person narrative of two young men exploring these sites before anyone took them seriously. It is wonderful to read their accounts and then visit the sites themselves.
Another classic book on travel in Mexico, although published in this century, is The People's Guide to Mexico by Carl Franzs. First published in 1972, this happens to be the year before I made my first trip to Mexico. It has been updated and republished almost every year since. This is not a "which hotel to stay at" type of travel book. It recounts a variety of road trips in many different areas of Mexico. The book tries to teach the attitude the North American traveler should have, as opposed to the attitude the nervous first time adventurer might have. The book is well constructed (my 1988 edition is still holding together) and made to be taken back to Mexico more than once. The drawings and engravings are also excellent.
La Ruta Maya by Tom Brosnahan is published by Lonely Planet. Lonely Planet publishes a variety of travel books, the publishing house is headquarted in Australia and was started by two adventure travelers who wanted better travel book resources. This book covers the Yucatan, Guatemala and Belize, and is designed to give the traveler who wants explore all the major Mayan ruins a single comprehensive guide. It does a good job. There are even a few color pictures, but the book concentrates on text, giving as much information to the reader as possible. Solid book, lots of "where to look" and "what not to miss" also has some good city maps.
Another very good travel book to use for preparation or as a companion is Yucatan Peninsular Handbook by Chicki Mallan (how can you refuse a book written by someone called Chicki). This book is published by Moon Publications, which has always seemed to be a direct competitor to Loney Planet. In this case, they both have good books for the Yucatan. This book covers similar ground as La Ruta Maya, but is concentrated on the Yucatan, including Chiapas. The Handbook may have a few more color pictures, excellent quality, and more engravings, the maps are common and detailed. The book is well made and can make more than one trip, I noticed the newest edition has over one-hundred additional pages than my 1990 edition.
Two additional items you will want to bring on a trip like this are a road map and a Spanish dictionary. The road map we used is no longer available (and it's worn out). Por Las Carreteras de Mexico (Mexico Road Atlas) 1998 seems to be an excellent map resource. You can end up spending more time looking at one of these than all your other books combined. I also highly recommend a Spanish language dictionary that is English/Spanish and Espanol/Ingles. This dictionary is very packable. The more Spanish you know, the more fun you'll have, but you can even have some fun if you don't know Spanish, ask Shelly.