And thrilled as we are to be gathering the staff together to jointly write this 'letter from the editors', we must no doubt start by saying first, the process of taking the magazine from a concept to where we are today is in and of itself a mind boggling testament to the Internet age of which we are all apart, like it or not. It is not always so easy to dream big and simply dare to fail.

Indeed, it was through the Internet that we reached out and met the Prime Minister of Belize, the Honourable Said Musa who accepted the invitation to be our guest in the January 2004 "Twenty Questions" interview. We feel that we are fortunate that the Prime Minister took such time and thought to answer us back.

That's also the way we met Peter Eltringham and invited him to contribute to this premier edition, famed author of The Rough Guide to Belize, currently the most popular traveller's guidebook to Belize. Peter and the Rough Guide series have provided us all with a sense of adventure balanced with in-country information that is crucial for travellers in this age. We also reached out via the Internet to Lisa Carne, Dr. Bruce Minkin and Katrine Nesbit.

But you can't learn it all from cyber space, so annually for the last seven years Jomamas Outside Worldwide, Inc, the owners of BELIZEmagazine.com, have funded cultural and photographic expeditions around the world to include no less than 72 countries. We have sponsored nine such expeditions specifically to Belize.

Up close and personal old fashion journalism from on the surface is our approach. So along the way we have met some extraordinary Belizeans and we plan to follow edition after edition making sure that you get to meet them all too. We do not intend to be political or controversial, we all have more than we need of that. We also do not plan to give any answers, only to attempt to enlighten ourselves and our readers as we promote and publicize the country of Belize.

Jomamas Outside Worldwide, Inc, will continue to educate through research by again funding expeditions to Belize. A portion of all advertisement revenues from BELIZEmagazine.com go directly towards the financial support of these expeditions. The primary focus this time out will be the funding of BelizeRivers.org, an environmental initiative for the promotion & protection of the rivers of Belize.

We would like to thank each of our advertisers for assisting us in promoting Belize as well as all of our contributing writers and photographers and in-house staff for the hours upon hours of hard work in bringing you this premier edition of BELIZEmagazine.com - The Internet Magazine of Belize.

Please enjoy BELIZEmagazine.com by using the arrows at the top and bottom of each page, just like turning the pages of a print magazine.