The Renaissance Traveler. Oct 2026.

I have always preferred to stay behind the scenes, the one drafting the story. I enjoy observing the world with the quiet detachment of a chronicler. I love watching parades, the buoyant brass fanfare, the delirium of fluttering confetti, the unscripted collisions of municipal pride and folk mythology but I had never harbored any desire to be inside one. I cannot dance with spontaneous rhythm; I cannot juggle; and my attempts at waving to thousands of strangers inevitably resemble a stiff, apologetic gesture to a neighbor whose lawnmower I have borrowed and never returned.

Yet when I received an invitation to attend Día de los Muertos in San Antonio, I replied, “I don’t want to simply watch as a spectator, but be a part of the parade.” I felt it was time for me to see the story through another lens.

San Antonio, Texas, hosts the largest and most vibrant Día de los Muertos celebration outside Mexico. For weeks spanning late October and early November, the city transforms itself into an immense, living canvas of commemoration. It is an ancestral homecoming rooted in Indigenous and Spanish traditions, an exuberant dialogue between the living and the departed. Remembrance is at the heart of the holiday. Families and communities make ofrendas with photographs, flowers, food, and belongings to honor people who have died.

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