The People Behind
GDL Airport Guide

Elena Ramos is the founder and lead travel editor of GDL Airport Guide. A Jalisco native who has spent the last decade living between Guadalajara and Toronto, Elena created this guide out of a genuine frustration: every time she flew home through GDL, she found herself wishing there was a single, reliable English-language resource that actually explained how the airport worked — not just the basics, but the real insider knowledge that locals take for granted.

With over 12 years of personal experience navigating Guadalajara International Airport and more than 300 flights through GDL, Elena brings an unmatched depth of firsthand knowledge to every article she writes. She knows which security lanes move fastest on Sunday mornings, which parking lot fills up during Semana Santa, and exactly how long it takes to clear customs on a busy international arrival day.

Elena holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Management from the Universidad de Guadalajara and a postgraduate certificate in Digital Content Strategy from Ryerson University in Toronto. Before founding GDL Airport Guide, she spent four years as a contributing writer for Viajes México magazine and two years as a regional correspondent for a major North American travel aggregator, covering western Mexico destinations.

Her editorial philosophy is simple: write for the traveler who is standing in the airport right now, phone in hand, trying to figure out what to do next. Every guide she publishes is tested against that standard — if it doesn't answer the real question a real traveler would ask, it goes back for revision.

Elena is fluent in Spanish and English, conversational in French, and is currently learning Mandarin to better serve GDL's growing number of Asia-Pacific visitors. When she's not writing about airports, she volunteers with a Guadalajara-based organization that provides travel literacy workshops for first-generation international students.

Marco Torres is a Mexico City-based travel writer and transportation specialist with more than eight years of experience covering Mexican destinations for English-speaking audiences. He joined GDL Airport Guide in 2019 to lead coverage of ground transportation, city guides, and layover planning — areas where he brings both professional expertise and an obsessive level of personal research.

Marco has flown through Guadalajara International Airport more than 200 times, a figure that reflects not just his travel frequency but his deliberate approach to understanding every aspect of the airport experience. He has personally tested every ground transportation option from GDL — every taxi zone, every bus route, every rideshare pickup point — and documented the results with the kind of granular detail that only comes from actually doing it, not just reading about it.

Before becoming a full-time travel writer, Marco spent six years as a logistics coordinator for a multinational company with operations across Mexico, which gave him an unusually practical understanding of how transportation networks actually function versus how they're supposed to function. That background informs everything he writes: he's always thinking about what happens when things go wrong, and how travelers can adapt.

Marco's work has appeared in Travel + Leisure México, Lonely Planet's Mexico guide (2022 and 2024 editions), and several major travel blogs with combined readerships in the millions. He is a regular contributor to a Mexico City-based podcast about sustainable travel in Latin America.

He holds a degree in International Business from the Universidad Iberoamericana and a professional certification in Travel Journalism from the International Federation of Journalists. Marco is a native Spanish speaker, fluent in English, and has working knowledge of Portuguese. He is based in Colonia Roma, Mexico City, and travels to Guadalajara at least once a month.

Sofia Mendez is a Guadalajara-based food and travel writer who covers airport dining, local cuisine, and accessibility in travel. She joined GDL Airport Guide in 2020 and has since become the definitive voice on what to eat — and how to navigate — Guadalajara International Airport.

Sofia's approach to airport dining coverage is unusually rigorous. She has personally visited and reviewed every food and beverage outlet inside GDL Airport, returning multiple times to different outlets across different times of day and different days of the week. Her dining guides don't just tell you what's available — they tell you what's actually worth ordering, what the wait times look like at 6 AM versus 2 PM, and which spots have the best seating for families traveling with young children.

Equally important to Sofia is her work on accessibility. As a disability rights advocate and the sister of a wheelchair user who travels frequently, she brings both personal investment and professional rigor to GDL's accessibility coverage. She has worked directly with airport staff to verify the accuracy of accessibility information, tested every accessible route through both terminals, and maintains ongoing relationships with the airport's passenger assistance team to ensure her guides reflect current conditions.

Sofia holds a degree in Gastronomy and Food Culture from the Centro Universitario de Arte, Arquitectura y Diseño (CUAAD) at the Universidad de Guadalajara, and a postgraduate diploma in Disability Studies and Inclusive Design from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. Her food writing has appeared in Chilango magazine, Time Out México, and several regional Jalisco publications.

She is a founding member of Viajeros Accesibles, a Guadalajara-based nonprofit that advocates for accessible travel infrastructure across Mexico. In 2024, she was recognized by the Mexican Association of Travel Journalists for her contributions to accessibility reporting in travel media. Sofia is a native Spanish speaker and writes fluently in English.