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Best Places to Visit in El Salvador
For my first trip to El Salvador, I grabbed a friend, rented a car and spent two weeks. Here are the places I recommend to visit on a first trip to El Salvador: “What brought you to El Salvador?” The woman sitting across from my friend and I at the hot spring asked. “We saw a Tiktok of a rainbow slide,” My friend joked. I laughed, but I thought for a moment… What really brought me there? I’d traveled around Central America for years, visiting Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala… but it had taken me longer to make it to El Salvador. Unfortunately, most of what we hear about El Salvador…
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8 Amazing Budget-friendly Travel Destinations For Every Travel Style
Traveling on a teacher’s budget (with student loans, a car note, and a mortgage to pay) can be tough, but I still manage to take a trip just about every month. Budget-friendly travel destinations are my secret to traveling so often. While I will save up and splurge on a pricier trip every once and a while, most of my travel is very budget friendly. I know from my crazy, care-free hostel dorm days almost any trip can be done on a budget, but at this point in my life, I’m older and a little pickier about where I lay my head. While I still love the social atmosphere of hostels, I…
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Why you need to put Nicaragua in your future travel plans now!
So why do you need to put Nicaragua in your future travel plans? While it’s not exactly “undiscovered” (hotspots like San Juan del Sur are pretty popular stops on the infamous “Gringo trail”) Nicaragua is often overlooked compared to its popular neighbor Costa Rica, which is a huge shame! Nicaragua has so much to offer! Nicaragua has remained one of my favorite countries and I keep coming back. Maybe it’s the gorgeous, not-a-high-rise in sight beaches lined with palm trees, the warm welcoming smiles of everyone I’ve met—happy to share the beauty of their country with visitors, or the fact that you can rent a bomb beach house for less than…
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Visiting Tikal, Guatemala Without a Guide
When I was a kid, my life’s goal was to be the girl-version of Indiana Jones. To a girl growing up in the suburbs of the USA, books and movies were my escape into a world of adventure. I can remember summers spent at my grandparents’ house looking through my grandfather’s collection of National Geographic, dreaming of the day when I too could explore these far off places. While the famous archeological site at Tikal, Guatemala is a far cry from discovering a lost city in the jungle whilst fighting off Nazis, it still evoked in me that same sense of wonderment. Walking out from the jungle path, seeing the tops…
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Finding My Happy Place in Tobacco Caye, Belize
Updated: 3/30/23 If you find yourself needing a tropical escape during those cold winter months, Tobacco Caye is the perfect island. I’ve made it my mission to escape winter as much as possible. After rewarding myself upon finishing grad school with a trip to Panama, I’ve created a new winter tradition for myself. Leaving the dreary, cold winter weather and landing in warm, tropical Belize brought me back to life. After spending a couple days in Caye Caulker scuba diving, I met my family in Tobacco Caye—the highlight of my Belize trip and a place I will return to the next time I need to unplug and unwind. We spent four…
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How to Budget One Week in Panamá: San Blas, el Valle de Anton and Panama City
My graduation present to myself after completing my master’s degree was a week long trip to Panamá. This trip was by no means a total “backpacker” trip but I also stayed within a reasonable budget. We stayed in hostels with a private room, splurged a little on food in Panama City, and visited the remote San Blas Islands. My husband and my sister tagged along to help me celebrate, but I’ve broken down our 3-person trip costs to what it cost per person. Accommodations: While we shared basic private rooms for most of the trip, if you divide up the room cost per person, it amounts to about the same…
