Lash at thermal Tabacon River – Arenal – Costa Rica

LashWorldTour 2018 Travels in Review

A Milestone Year – 20 Years of Full-time solo nomadic world travels

The biggest news of 2018 for me is this: May, 2018 marked 20 years of full-time nomadic world travels! Hip, hip Hooray!

Yes, in May, 1998 I flew to Hong Kong for one week of explorations then continued on to Bangkok, Thailand, where I began my long love-affair with SE Asia.

After cycling around chaotic Bangkok, visiting dozens of elaborate Thai temples, wandering through intriguing alleys & fresh produce markets, and getting to know Bangkok’s many distinct neighborhoods, I headed out by bicycle to Singapore via the east coasts of Thailand and Malaysia. It took me three months.

It was during those initial weeks of cycling to small quaint towns, gorgeous beaches, stunning national parks and rural countryside that I realized I wanted to continue this amazing life of travel for as long as I possibly could.

And here I am, 20 years later, still exploring the globe and still as enthused as ever. I plan to continue another 10-15 years in order to see the entire world.

In 2018 I had intended to write a series of monthly articles about all I’ve learned and experienced in 20 years of world travels. Alas, I became so busy (mostly from reviewing luxury hotels, ah-hem) that I only managed to write two such articles!

You’re welcome to check out My 20 Best Adventures and My 20 Favorite Cities and Towns during 20 years of international explorations.

dining at Corn Islands

I Kicked off 2018 in Corn Islands, Nicaragua

In mid-2017, after spending half the year exploring Mexico, I began my southerly travels down through the long, narrow Central American isthmus by flying into Guatemala then slowly heading southward through each country in turn.

In December, 2017, I was in Nicaragua. I decided to spend one month over the Xmas holidays out at the remote Creole-inhabited Nicaraguan Corn Islands, situated just off the Caribbean coast. And so I spent New Year’s Eve 2018 on another beautiful tropical island, ringing in the new year with a house full of like-minded travelers and island residents.

New Year’s Day, 2018 found me walking out to the island’s pretty, nearly empty beaches, enjoying a seafood pasta lunch with a new German pal, and later dining on fresh lobster dinner. It was a great way to start the year rolling!

staying at Finca Rosa Blanca Resort in Costa Rica

Luxury Hotel Reviews Galore!

2018 was my second year reviewing luxury and boutique hotels for a living. In January, my editor handed me more than 100 hotels to review, 80 in Costa Rica and 23 in Panama. Whopping assignment!

To a great extent, those assignments determined my travel plans for the first half of the year. Prior to that, I had planned to explore Costa Rica for only two to four weeks. Based on my research, I didn’t expect to like the country much. I’d repeatedly read that it’s very touristy, extremely influenced by Americans and really expensive.

But with 80 hotels and resorts to visit all over the country, as well as exploring areas on my own, I actually needed 4 ½ months in Costa Rica! Luckily, that proved to be a wonderful development, much to my surprise. I discovered that Costa Rica is actually really great.

at ARenal del Mar Resort near Manuel Antonio

The hotel assignments ‘forced’ me to visit dozens of the country’s gorgeous Pacific beaches, the beautiful Volcan Arenal/La Fortuna area, chilly Monteverde and the capital, San Jose, which quickly became my favorite capital city in all of Central America.

As part of my hotel reviews work I was invited to many gourmet meals, received two wonderful massage treatments, indulged in natural hot springs set in landscaped tropical gardens, and stayed overnight – gratis – at several amazing small luxury resorts.

By the time I finally reached Panama at the tail end of May, I was a bit pressed for time to visit the wide-spread 23 resorts on my assignment, since I had to be in Arizona in mid July. That gave me just six weeks to explore the country and complete my hotel visits.

I managed to inspect all of the beautiful hotels & resorts, enjoy more delicious gourmet meals and indulge in a couple overnight stays. However, I did not quite get to explore some areas of Panama that I’d wanted to visit.

And my trip out to the wonderful Bocas del Toro Islands was much shorter than I wanted. I may just have to return one day!

My extensive hotel assignments in 2018 not only helped me earn a living to continue traveling the world, they also allowed me to indulge in spectacular luxury, to get to know an entirely different side of travel, and to expand my explorations of those countries much more than I would have on my own.

2019 promises to be another great year of luxury hotel reviews work for me, with about the same number of hotel assignments but in entirely different regions of the world… Stay tuned for my 2019 travel plans coming up soon.

at the Panama Canal – 2018

Finishing up my Latin American Travels

In mid-July, 2018, I flew out of San Jose, Costa Rica to Phoenix, Arizona in order to help set up a surprise birthday party for my aunt. That departure marked the end of three years of travels around Latin America.

I had started my Latin American sojourn in November, 2015 by flying into Guatemala. From there I headed north into Belize and Mexico for several months. I visited Puerto Rico for two weeks then spent the next 1 ½ years re-visiting family in Florida and exploring more of Mexico.

In February, 2017, I set out to complete my explorations of the region. I flew into Mexico City then headed west across the central Mexican highlands with its gorgeous colonial cities then south along the vast Pacific coast.

In mid-July, 2017, I flew from Mexico City into Guatemala and then, as noted above, began my slow southward travels through all the countries of Central America. That took me exactly one full year, moving slowly through El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

I finished the finally leg of Latin America by exploring the northwest states of Mexico in August and September, then finally visiting exotic Cuba for the month of October.

I’m now thoroughly finished with Latino culture, for the time being at least, and in 2019 will set out for Europe and Africa.

If you’re interested in my perspectives on Central America, read my articles on My 25 Favorite Experiences in Central America or 10 Things I Love there or 10 Things I Dislike in the region.

Of course I also wrote many posts about each country, which you can find here:

Belize – Guatemala – El Salvador – Honduras – Costa Rica – Panama – Nicaragua

Mexico – Puerto Rico – Cuba

gorgeous Vinales – Cuba

I Finally made it to Cuba !

I’d been dying to visit Cuba ever since I started traveling around Latin America in 2015. I knew flights to/from Mexico were super cheap. And President Obama made it easier for Americans to visit for the first time since the early 1960s.

But I kept hearing that Cuba is very expensive.

One huge draw back for me was the relatively expensive cost of budget rooms there. But in mid 2018 I found out from another traveler that that’s changed. There are hostels now in Cuba, as well as much cheaper prices on some rooms in guest houses.

So I researched it all and discovered that I could actually visit Cuba pretty much on my usual budget. So I booked my flights and headed off to Cuba for the whole month of October.

I wrote about my impressions of Cuba here – about travel to Cuba for Americans here – and about budget travel costs here – as well as other articles on Cuba here.

Stolen Computer / Broken Computer!

My only bad news in 2018 involved terribly bad luck with computers. And I certainly learned the importance of backing up files this year!

In late January, less than two weeks after arriving in Costa Rica, my laptop was stolen while I was waiting for a bus. It was a rather inexplicable event that’s a bit too complex to detail here.

Suffice it to say that suddenly all my documents & photos, itinerary for hotel review appointments, my music & films, and my means of working all vanished in the blink of an eye. Well, actually, during a quick trip to the toilet.

It was a shocker.

But since I work online, I was forced to quickly buy a replacement laptop in the closest city, Liberia. Along with that, I also had to buy a new mouse, keyboard and computer bag.

Liberia stores offered a very limited selection on all those items, so I had to pick and choose from what was available. But I did get myself up and running within a week, then pressed on with hotel reviews and travels.

Initially, I thought I’d lost everything. I did actually have most of my docs & photos backed up on a hard drive. Unfortunately, that hard drive was in the stolen laptop bag! Eee-gads!

But I gradually realized that I had most of my best photos preserved on my smugmug photo website, my Jalbums site and my travel blog. I also knew that I’d backed up everything on a hard drive at my mom’s house in Florida before I took off in Feb. 2017. So most docs and photos were preserved up until then.

It was just my travels in 2017 and 2018 through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua that were mostly lost for good. Then I discovered a huge chunk of those on three camera memory cards – 16 GB. All in all, not too bad a loss.

I was back in business as usual.

I never dreamed I could have TWO computer crashes in ONE year!

Amazingly, during my last week in Cuba in October, my newly purchased computer suddenly refused to start up! Laptop ’emergency mode’ declared that the hard drive wouldn’t function. Far out! How could an 8-month-old hard drive fail?!

Luckily, I had two consolations. First, the laptop was under its one-year warranty. Whew. Secondly, I was going to be back in Florida the following week, where I could get it checked out.

Back in St Petersburg, I found an HP service center at Office Max and took my laptop there for inspection. As it turned out, not only had the hard drive failed inexplicably, but it was so wrecked that they could not extract one single file!

For the second time in one year, I’d lost everything! Unfortunately, I had not backed up anything since I’d bought the new laptop. So everything I’d done since February, 2018 was gone. Documents. Photos. Hotel Work.

Once again, I started digging for sources of my work. I discovered more photos on the three camera cards. I found all my hotel work attached to emails to/from my editor. I sleuthed all my paid travel blog work with advertisers from emails and bank statements. And I finally dug out that hard drive I’d left at my mom’s house, which was filled with 100+ GB of photos and documents of my travels from many years back.

My biggest lesson from all of this was to learn to do regular, online back-ups of everything! I’m now getting into a weekly back-up routine here in Florida before I set out on my next leg of travels. Let’s hope I don’t ever have to use them, but just in case, I will be covered next time!

I was also pleased to note that I somehow managed to stay pretty calm, stress free and un-flustered through both incidents. A clear indication that I’ve come a long, long way in the ‘personal development’ realm since my youth! Onward ho!

hanging out with my Couch Surfing host in Sonora – Jorge in Nogales

Return to Gym Workouts

Not many people know this, but I practiced quite serious body building for about two years while living in Kyoto, Japan. I was at the point where I was thinking of competing! But that’s also the time that I set out on my world travels at long last. And competitive-level body building isn’t really feasible during a nomadic travel life. Lol

During my travels, I’ve returned to gym work-outs from time to time, mostly when staying in a place for one month or longer. But I haven’t done so since leaving SE Asia in 2015.

Then in August, 2018, I ended up staying with a Couch Surfer in Nogales, Mexico, who is a champion body builder. Sonora State Champion, to be specific. During the week I stayed at his place, I hung out at his gym and got back into weight training.

I liked it so much that I decided to start hitting gyms regularly as I continued traveling through Mexico. Nearly every town in Mexico has at least one gym, if not more. So it was an easy task to get in 2-3 work-outs each week, no matter where I was. And I wondered why I hadn’t been visiting gyms all along in Latin America!

Working out at gyms in Mexico proved to be a very interesting, eye-opening experience in itself! I discovered how very popular gyms are in Mexico.

Most surprisingly, though, I found that every gym I visited had a huge proportion of women working out! I’d say easily 40-50% of most gyms were filled with Latina women working out. Interestingly, they all seem to concentrate primarily on plumping up and hardening their derrieres (asses)! Makes sense, given Latino men’s apparent obsession with women’s asses. Lol

I worked out at gyms in Cuba as well. And now that I’m back in Florida, I’m continuing with regular weight training work-outs and am greatly enjoying my firmer muscles and extra body tone.

dinner party at Couch Surfers Alberto & Cesars house – Durango

Rediscovering Couch Surfing / Amazing new Mexican friends

Historically I haven’t had much success with Couch Surfing. I’ve tried it off n on over the years, but have always found that it took an exceedingly huge amount of time to find a host, if I could find one at all in the places I was heading. So I finally pretty much gave up on that.

But when I headed to Sonora, Mexico in August this year, and found out how expensive travel – and accommodation – is in that region, I gave Couch Surfing another try. That proved to be one of the best things I’ve done this year!

It turned out that there are dozens and dozens of Couch Surfing hosts in most Mexican cities and at least a few in most towns. As a result, I was able to find hosts in Nogales, Chihuahua, Durango and San Luis de Potosi.

That was great for my budget, of course. But the best thing, hands down, were the wonderful, amazing hosts I stayed with. Wow, every single one of them was fantastic and have become new friends that I’ll stay in touch with – and hopefully meet again – far into the future.

Each of them have at least one major interest the same as mine, so I hit it off with all of them. Jorge in Nogales is a champ body builder. So he got me back into regular weight training again.

Mariana is an avid world traveler and cat & dog lover. She left for South Africa (!) just one day after my stay with her. She also helped me find gourmet coffee and secure a hotel room in Chihuahua city after my stay at her house.

Alberto is also a world travel addict, as well as a huge Japan-ophile and gym enthusiast. We did nearly everything together during the eight days I stayed at his stunning house in Durango. He left for a 1 ½ month trip to China – Everest – Japan couple weeks after my stay.

Pablo and Christian are entirely immersed in yoga, meditation and healthy living. Christian’s family has a major yoga study, where they both teach. The two of them also have a vegetarian restaurant in town, teach yoga & meditation around Mexico and lead annual yoga/meditation trips to India.

They graciously gave me free yoga classes at their studio and let me borrow their bike during my stay. I also enjoyed eating yummy food at their restaurant, looking after their cats and walking their dog daily.

All these wonderful warm-fuzzy friendships have left me feeling quite glowing for the latter half of the year, reminding me how fantastic – and important – it is to be surrounded by happy, upbeat, like-minded people. I’ll have to continue doing so in 2019 and beyond.

Thanks so much, my wonderful new friends, for reminding me about the joy and power of great friendships and positive warm energy.

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