Press & media

Everything you need to write about the Huasteca Potosina

We are a family of guides based in Xilitla, San Luis Potosí. We have worked this region since 2010. If you are reporting on it — the surrealist garden, the waterfalls, the communities that control access to both — this page is here to save you the research.

Press contact: hola@huasteca-potosina.com · +52 489 125 1458

Three stories we can help you tell

Not press releases. These are the angles we think are genuinely worth a reader's time, and on all three we can arrange access, interviews and photography.

Architecture & design

The English poet who poured a surrealist castle into the Mexican jungle

Edward James — British poet and the patron who bankrolled Salvador Dalí and René Magritte — spent decades building Las Pozas in the mountains above Xilitla: concrete colonnades, staircases that climb into the canopy and stop, stone flowers four meters across. He never lived in the structures. The site was an orchid plantation before it was a sculpture garden. It is open to the public today, and almost nothing has been written about it in English.

Adventure travel

Mexico's waterfall country, four hours past the last tour bus

A 344-foot waterfall, a river the color of glass, caves you swim into. The Huasteca Potosina has been a domestic Mexican destination for generations and is almost unknown to American travelers — the nearest airport, Tampico, is a short flight from Texas and two and a half hours from Xilitla by road.

Responsible tourism

What it looks like when the guides are from the town

Access to the region's best sites runs through ejidos — communal landholdings whose members decide who enters. Our guides were born here and grew up with the families who hold that access. It is a working example of tourism that is negotiated locally rather than imposed, and of the friction that comes with it.

Fast facts

Every number here is one we can document. If you need a source for any of them, ask and we will send it.

Where: Xilitla and Ciudad Valles, San Luis Potosí, Mexico
Nearest airport: Tampico (TAM) — about 2.5 hours by road to Xilitla
From Mexico City: 430 km (267 miles), about 6.5 to 7 hours by road
Tallest waterfall: Tamul — 344 feet (105 m), the tallest in San Luis Potosí
Las Pozas: Open Wednesday–Monday, 09:00–18:00. Closed Tuesdays. Entry $180 MXN
Company founded: Guiding since 2010; incorporated in 2019
Guides: NOM-09 SECTUR certified, born in the region
Group size: 12 people maximum
Catalogue: 10 guided day tours across 41 documented sites
Recognition: Arival Best Tour Operator, North America, 2023
Reviews: 4.9 average across 492 Google reviews · 10,000+ travelers

Photography

Las Pozas is difficult to illustrate: very few images of it circulate with clear usage rights. We hold a library of the garden, the waterfalls and the region, and we will license it to you at no cost for editorial use.

Concrete arches at Las Pozas, Edward James's surrealist garden in Xilitla

Surrealist concrete structures surrounded by jungle at Las Pozas

A staircase at Las Pozas climbing into the tree canopy

The surrealist garden of Las Pozas seen through tropical vegetation

Terms, in plain language

Free for editorial use. Print or online, in any outlet.
Credit “Tours Huasteca Potosina” with a link to huasteca-potosina.com. That is the whole fee.
Not for advertising or resale without written permission.
Higher resolution on request. What is on this page is sized for the web; write to us and we will send originals.
Shooting on site? We can arrange access, a local guide and transport. Tell us your dates.

Working on something? Write to us.

We answer press email the same day. We can put you on the phone with a guide who was born here, arrange access to sites that need community permission, and fact-check a draft before you file it.

Email the press desk About the company