Colombia, unfortunately, has long been a country beset by violence. The most notorious era of Colombia’s past, most recently brought into the spotlight by Netflix’s Narcos, was Pablo Escobar’s reign of drug trafficking, kidnapping, ransom, and murder. Rising to power in the 1970’s, Escobar built a network that eventually provided over 80% of the United States’ cocaine […]
One of the most intimidating expenses of travel to far-flung lands tends to be the overhead cost of just getting there. A round-trip intercontinental flight can easily cost over $1,000 for an economy ticket, and sometimes even get close to $2,000 depending on the destination. If first-class is more your style, the cost can be mind-bogglingly […]
With Bridgette laid up with an unfortunate pool-related foot injury in Santa Marta, I was flying solo on our planned trip to Tayrona National Park, located 45 minutes or so outside of the city. Still a bit leery of the public transportation options, I took the direct shuttle from our hostel for 12,000 pesos, which […]
Envision paradise. White sand, palm trees, thatched roof huts, and hammocks. Nothing to do but sit back with a book, sip a beer, and occasionally hop in the water when the beating sun becomes too much. You’re picturing Playa Blanca, a beach tucked away 20 miles from Cartagena, the paradise that other paradises are based […]
A little over five years ago, a 16 year old boy by the name of Diego Felipe was shot and killed in Bogota for the crime of spray painting a cat on a wall. Since then, street artists both local and foreign have started a street art movement across Colombia as a form of protest […]
The Trip has officially started. That’s still weird for me to say. We’re in Cartagena, Colombia, our first stop on the South American continent, and already the sights, sounds, colors, and culture offer striking differences in the best kind of way. We landed at the Cartagena airport at around 1pm local time. The airport is […]
Deciding what to pack for a long-term trip is no easy task. You essentially have to distill your belongings down to bare basics and pick and choose even further from there. We’ve gone back and forth a number of times, packed, repacked, and cut things out to make sure everything fits. Bridgette will likely be […]
We made it home! Eleven days ago we set out from Los Angeles. 4,000 miles later and I’m sitting on the couch in my childhood home in Ohio, sipping a beer and playing with the dog. In between was a vast array of sights, sounds, and smells; diverse yet connected. We stood on cliffs perched above ocean […]
We’ve done a lot of driving over the last five days. About 1500 miles over a total of approximately 34 hours spent in the car. For those of you doing the math, you might notice that it averages out to less than 45 miles per hour. The reason for the lazy pace is the fact that […]
I’m writing this from a hostel in San Luis Obispo, CA. Our apartment is bare, our car is packed to the gills, and our previous life is about 200 miles of road behind us. It was a bit sad, saying goodbye to the life we built up for ourselves in Los Angeles over the past […]