Dani

This weekly series focuses on budget hotel gems we discover while on the road. This week: Posada Ziga in Mazunte, Mexico.

This week’s Polaroid features the medieval mountain town of Barga in northern Italy.

30 April marked our 1 year travel anniversary, and we took a look at our expenses so far – how much we have spent, where the money went, and what our average per day spend has been in each country.

We have come across quite a few market oddities during our travels in Central America – a basket of live iguanas tied-up and ready to be cooked in Leon; fried grasshoppers and the last squeal of a pig’s life in Oaxaca – but never anything like what we saw in the Tuscan town of Lucca this week.

We’ve spotted ‘exotic’ wildlife throughout Central America, but nothing like what we saw once we got to Costa Rica – check out our Wild Costa Rica photos!

We are having a love affair with Bavarian pretzels…you can get XXL pretzels, pretzel balls, even entire baguettes made of pretzel. They make ’em with salt, no salt, sesame seeds, even pumpkin seeds and fill them with chocolate, cover them in cheese or cut them in half with an inch-thick layer of butter in the middle.

If you go to the Corn Islands off Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, make sure you know the difference between the two. It can make or break your holiday experience.

Seville is easily our favorite city in Spain. The vibe is a great combination of typical Spanish tapas bars, wine and flamenco dance but also a vibrant young art scene. Check out this street art!

Meet our favorite little donkey in the Alps! Every day, he and his wife greet us when we head down to the village. How’s that for a welcome?

Nicaragua’s Ometepe Island is the largest fresh-water island in the world, formed by two volcanoes which jut out of Lake Nicaragua. Major changes are happening here as a result of tourism, but beyond the newly paved road, the traditional village life on Ometepe remains…for now.