Central America

Costa Rica’s currency got a facelift last year! Check out the new colorful banknotes featuring some of the country’s most popular animals and ecosystems!

Our Hotel Tip of the Week series offers accommodation tips from around the world. All are places where we have stayed in and personally recommend. This week: The Fenix Hotel in Samara, Costa Rica.

Antigua’s Central Park is home to a quite unusual fountain – four mermaids on each side of the fountain are spraying streams of water out of their breasts. The fountain, ‘Fuente de las Sirenas’ in Spanish, was built by Diego de Porres in 1738, who took his inspiration for the fountain from the Neptune Fountain in Bologna, Italy.

Semuc Champey is a series of natural ponds 300m (985ft) above the Cahabon river in the region of Verapaz in Guatemala. The natural limestone bridge above the rushing rapids below houses cascading pools connected by several mini-waterfalls.

Antigua, the former capital of Guatemala, has frequently been hit by earthquakes, but especially the earthquake in 1773 left severe damages, and up to today, dozens of ruins of churches and convents can be seen throughout the city.

Costa Rica has over 26 national parks. Two of them combine lush, green jungle, wild animals and sandy beaches: Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast and and Cahuita on the Caribbean. Most travelers don’t have time to hop from coast to coast, so read on for a closer look at both to find which might be the right fit for you.

It was just us, two men we had just met and a machete as we headed out to hike the volcano crater around the Laguna de Alegria, El Salvador. What started off simply ended up being one of our biggest challenges to date.

The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave has been featured on Discovery Channel, History Channel, twice on National Geographic TV and in the New York Times.

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.

Nicaragua rocks, literally. Yes, we did love Nicaragua that much, but actually we are talking about the fact that each evening, Nicaraguans around the country, gather together with friends and family, either in their front room or even outside, and rock the evening away in their rocking chairs.