A Glow in the Dark Sea? Bio-luminescence in Puerto Rico

I am sitting in a tiny airport in Puerto Rico, called Ceiba, ...

Cooking up Deliciousness

I’m a big fan of some of the cooking shows, especially the ...

A Non-hippie Rain Forest Supervisor

In between my three weeks in Nicaragua last month, and my upcoming ...

The Indie Travel Manifesto

Are you an Indie Traveler?  Independent travel is a departure from routine – an opportunity to learn, have fun and embrace life in novel environments and cultures. We better understand ourselves and others when we leave home to experience the world firsthand. Tourists leave home to escape the world — Travelers leave home to discover [...]

¿Habla Español? How Language Enhances Travel

As travelers, we’ve all been there: you’re in a foreign country, you don’t speak the language, and you’re trying desperately to make yourself understood—and comprehend what someone else is telling you. It might be as simple as ordering a meal, buying a ticket or negotiating the price of that souvenir you simply must have. Or, [...]

10 Feet of Bliss: Adventures on a Rustic Island

I don’t remember whose bright idea it was to motorcycle around the entire Maderas Volcano that makes up the southern half of La Isla Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua. Actually, yes I do – it was my boyfriend Keith’s idea. But I can’t really blame him for the three hours of ass-smashing bouncing that [...]

Finca San Juan: A little bit of paradise on La Isla Ometepe

Just where is La Isla Ometepe, you might ask? I myself had never heard of it until I began planning a trip to Nicaragua in mid 2011, with my boyfriend Keith. After setting up a home exchange in Granada, our exchange host there, Peta, strongly suggested we consider a visit to Ometepe. La Isla Ometepe [...]

Peta and Ben: Building Sustainable Bamboo Housing

Nicaragua is not a wealthy country; according to the Moon Handbook to Nicaragua, it is the poorest of all Central American countries (and second-poorest in the Western Hemisphere). Having suffered numerous colonial take-overs, civil war, rebellious political overthrows and the infamous Sandinista/Contra period in the 1980s in which the U.S. was so heavily involved, this [...]

Farm Peace & Love – Little Corn Island, Nicaragua

You have to really want to get to Little Corn Island, off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. First, you take a flight to Big Corn Island from Managua, via La Costeña airlines. Yes, there is a Big Corn and Little Corn island. The Little Corn locals refer to Big Corn as the “big island,” although it’s [...]

Under Water in Little Corn Island, Nicaragua

You have to really want to get to Little Corn Island, off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. It can’t be called easy to get to, by any stretch of the imagination. Starting from Leon, we took a mini-bus to capital city Managua, from where we flew to Big Corn Island via La Costeña airlines. Yes, there [...]

60 Minutes Up, 60 Seconds Down: Adventures in Volcano Boarding

Cerro Negro is a very young volcano. At a mere 161 years old, it’s a newborn baby in fact. “The Black Hill” is one of 25 volcanoes in Nicaragua, of which 9 are active (or at least erupted in the last two thousand years). Cerro Negro is very definitely one of the active ones; in [...]

Heading to Nicaragua!

Tomorrow I leave for three weeks in Nicaragua, and the real beginning of this Trading Places blog. The stories I have shared so far are experiences I’ve had in the past couple of years, real stand-out people and places that are some of my top travels of late. Nicaragua is the first stop on my [...]

Chile: Life in the Atacama Desert

It is still dark when the Colque family makes its way up the volcano, climbing steadily in the early morning hours. The air is cool and arid here in the Atacama, the world’s highest and driest desert in the far northern reaches of Chile, along the Andes mountain range at the borders of Bolivia and [...]