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By PilotAdventures
Located in Arizona's high desert under the towering southwestern rim of the vast Colorado Plateau, the city of Sedona is blessed with four mild seasons marked by abundant sunshine and clean air. Ideally, the annual average high and low temperatures are 74.7 and 45.7 degrees, respectively. Almost the entire world knows that Sedona, strategically situated at the mouth of spectacular Oak Creek Canyon, is a unique place. Characterized by massive red-rock formations, as well as the contrasting riparian areas of Oak Creek Canyon, the area surrounding this beloved community is considered at least as beautiful as many national parks. The story about how Sedona was named is well known; nonetheless, a brief telling is appropriate. As the story goes, after Theodore Carl Schnebly and his wife, Sedona, moved to Sedona from Gorin, Missouri, the few families living here convinced T.C. to establish a post office in his large home, which already had become the community's hotel. Various interpretations of this story suggest that he asked the government to name the post office Schnebly Station or Red Rock Crossing. Subsequently, he was told the names were too long, and following a suggestion by his brother, Dorsey Ellsworth Schnebly, he submitted his wife's name, Sedona. And so it was. 
The city of Sedona, one of Arizona's premier tourism, recreation, resort, retirement and art centers, was incorporated in 1988. Historically, it was a rural ranching community located far off the beaten path, but its unsurpassed natural beauty became nationally known through the motion picture industry. Today, commercials and television shows still are filmed in the unsettled areas surrounding this city, which annually attracts more than 4 million tourists from around the world. Curiously, this 19-square-mile city is split between Coconino and Yavapai counties, and only 51 percent of its area is privately owned - the rest is part of the Coconino National Forest. The average age of Sedona's population, which totals approximately 10,000 within its incorporated limits, is 50 and the elevation generally is considered to be 4,500 feet, though well-known red-rock formations extend to more than a mile-high elevation. Even this city's airport, high on a mesa, is situated at an elevation of more than 4,800 feet, and when airplanes zoom off the end of the runway, the term airborne takes on new meaning. 
Often called “Red Rock Country” Sedona is a four seasons playground for everyone – whether you’re into history and archaeology; arts and culture; power shopping; outdoor sports; or the spiritual and metaphysical, imagine doing all this in a backdrop of some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. Indeed, this picturesque city is surrounded by red-rock monoliths named Coffeepot, Cathedral and Thunder Mountain. Natural endowments aside, you’ll also find world-class hotels, resorts, bed and breakfasts and a very good variety of dining to keep you satisfied. Escape the chaos of life, kick back, relax……and just be….in Sedona.
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By Jeff Berlin
It’s around six in the morning. The sky is tangerine, the lush and verdant grounds of the lodge are still dripping with dew. The tropical quiet is deafening to ears more accustomed to honking horns and police sirens. Photographer Sye Williams and I are much more accustomed to the late day sun, if you get my drift, but the idea of snorkeling in tropical waters and eating lunch on an island barely larger than a football field nine miles out to sea was motivation enough for our daybreak departure. Pico Bonito is rimmed by plantations of coffee and cacao trees, which are further surrounded by miles of Dole pineapple fields. As Sye and I bounce past these fields in a small white Toyota van to our boat docked at Sambo Creek, our guide tells us a bit about life in La Ceiba. Rumbling past ramshackle houses with earthen floors, corrugated roofs, and chickens running around the yard, trying to psych myself up for the roughly one hour ride to the islands in a tailbone-crunching fiberglass skiff pushed by a couple of high-strung Evinrude 40s, we learn that the thousands of workers toiling in the fields for Dole generally earn around two hundred dollars per month.
Talk about a buzz-kill. Just yesterday, after parking my Cirrus SR22 Turbo at La Ceiba airport under the tail of an old Boeing 737 with painted over Delta markings, I was hit with a you’re-on-our-turf-now-and-we-got-you fuel price of about $6.50 per gallon. Of course, the fuel guys also preferred I pay cash, so I forked over a couple chai lattes short of two months salary for a pineapple field worker in La Ceiba for one tank of gas. It was quite a reality check. These are the kinds of lessons it’s hard to put a price on, and it’s one of the reasons a journey like this is so worthwhile. I had just flown in from Tikal, Guatemala, where I met up with the pilots, spouses and friends flying five other planes. We were participating in an Air Journey-escorted tour called Journey to the Yucatan. I figured it would be fun and adventurous, and the way things were going already, it certainly was an adventure…just not the one I expected when I signed on the dotted line.
I’ve always preferred to travel on my own - not in a group or on a guided tour. I rather like to think of travel as more of a journey, for a journey expands horizons. A journey fosters personal growth, sometimes taking you out of your comfort zone. I love journeys, but I hate tours, so I was initially skeptical of Air Journey, thinking this was just a glorified bus tour of some foreign land. I was wrong. When I signed on for the Yucatan trip and began to correspond with Thierry Pouille, the friendly founder and Grand Pooh Bah of Air Journey, I learned what a first-class operation Air Journey really is, both in the air and on the ground. Not only do they assist pilots in getting all the proper paperwork in order for international flight, including distributing a binder with pre-completed ICAO flight plans and graphical printouts of routes from Jeppesen’s FLiteStar, they also furnish pilots with a handy checklist that takes the mystery out of what to expect when flying across international borders. Like, do I need an FCC radio license? 
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