Central America

After spending fourteen days in El Salvador, we have listed 14 things, in no particular order, which we found out we love about the country, one for each day…

The small beach town of Samara is one of our favorite beaches in Costa Rica! We put together a quick overview of Samara Beach with places to stay & restaurants we enjoyed.

A town called Copan Ruinas is going to be most famous for the nearby Mayan ruins, but after spending a week in the small Honduran town just 12 miles from the Guatemalan border, we found there to be much more to Copan than first meets the eye, including several lesser known Mayan ruins scattered throughout the hills beyond town.

Escape the heat of Panama City for a day and visit Taboga Island where there are no cars, no rush and no noise, just the sound of the waves and a beautiful beach.

Panama City, the largest city and capital of Panama, is a vibrant city that combines modern architecture with colonial history, and offers beach getaways as well as a rainforest, not to forget the famous Canal.

When you travel long term, your budget becomes your Bible. This is why we wanted to share a break down on how much it cost for us to travel through Central America – including all the splurges and island vacations.

Along with Antigua and Lake Atitlan, most visitors to Guatemala will include the famous Chichicastenango market to their itinerary, and with good reason. The Go Beyond series looks beyond this bustling market to reveal one of Guatemala’s most charming towns. Read on for what you might miss if you only visit the market.

Two shiny new Ford transporter vans stop along the side of a white cement road and nearly 30 passengers pile out and reformulate into the small groups everyone came with. Dani and I stand off to the side and observe with some shock the other tourists in the group. A group of Brazilians (both female and male) in tank-tops, short-shorts and movie-star sunglasses and several girls in short-ish skirts. Before you start thinking Dani and I to be very prude (standing there in our long pants, closed toe shoes and jackets), we should explain that our tour was taking place in traditional Mayan villages outside of San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico. The agency had mentioned that we should wear appropriate clothes out of respect to the villagers – advice apparently very few of us chose to heed.

Please don’t go to Todos Santos, Guatemala. Life in this authentic village in the mountains is much as it has been for centuries, no hordes of tourists here. A trip to Todos Santos is about absorbing authentic village life. That’s why we ask you, please don’t go to Todos Santos (which you really should) – and if you do go, please do so quietly and keep it to yourself…

Seeing a turtle arribada, the mass nesting phenomenon of the olive ridley sea turtles, in Ostional, a small beach in Costa Rica, was an unforgettable experience!