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After eight months in Latin America (and Greece), we decided to come home to the Los Angeles metro area. (If you read Yahm’s last post, you know how proud we are to be from The Valley.) When we initially landed in the United States, we experienced a surprising amount of culture shock. Besides having to…
Because we are Angelenos, our home base for our return to the United States is Los Angeles. That said, we decided to take a roadtrip to the Phoenix metro area where we used to live to see friends and pick up some items we had left. Since we still have the travel bug, we decided…
After eight months of travel through Latin America (including a Grecian detour for two weeks), we thought it would be fun to share a list of our favorite and not so favorite places and experiences, as well as some random fun facts. Overall Country Rankings Yahm’s List 1. Guatemala 2. Panamá 3. Colombia 4. Brazil…
When we were in São Paulo in late-November/early-December of 2025, we did not take nearly as much advantage of the public transit system as we should have. We used far too many rideshares and taxis. This time though, we wanted to utilize the bus and subway system that helps move millions of Paulistas across this…
Since our plans for Argentina didn’t work out as we hoped, we cut our time short and decided to venture to a new country. We chose Uruguay for a few reasons. When we did our initial research about Latin America, Uruguay piqued our interest. The country has more cows than people and has a long…
Due to logistics and cost, our time in Argentina mainly consisted of exploring Buenos Aires. However, we were not far from some protected sections of one of South America’s most imperiled and lesser-known biomes: the Pampas. The Pampas is a large expanse of flat grasslands with minimal tree cover as well as rolling hills. This…
Yahm and I have not fully connected with Buenos Aires quite yet, though as of the time of this writing, we are still here for another ten days so maybe our opinion will change. One aspect to the urban-scape of Buenos Aires that has impressed us, though, is the public transit system. It is one…
South America is known for containing some of the most famous ecosystems on earth such as the Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal wetland. That said, one of the continent’s most diverse biomes, as well as its most threatened, is the not as well-known Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest). Prior to European arrival to South America, this…
Our time in Rio de Janeiro was a lot of fun, even though we barely scratched the surface of Brazil’s second largest city. Rio is not as sprawling as some other megacities, but it does cover quite a bit of land. Mixed transit types cover almost the entirety of the city’s 471 square miles (1,221…
After an amazing week in São Paulo, it was time to head north towards Rio de Janeiro. Since the two cities are 270 miles (435 kilometers) apart, we decided to split the journey up by visiting some of the smaller towns along the Atlantic coast of southeastern Brazil. The first town we journeyed to was…
Parque Nacional Natural Tayrona (Tayrona National Natural Park) sits on the country’s Caribbean coastal plain, approximately 25 miles east of the city of Santa Marta. It protects over 37,000 acres (15,000 hectares) of coastal tropical humid rainforest, seashore, coral reefs, cloud forest, thorn scrub, tropical dry forest, and mangrove forest. The park’s location between the…
After our introduction to Colombia through its largest city and capital Bogotá, it was time to see one of the country’s more bucolic settings. We headed due southwest to the town of Salento to stay for a few days and be close to some of the nation’s more amazing hiking locales. While some countries are…
Bogotá, as discussed in our general post, is a sprawling city of around 10 million people. Cities of this size have incredible challenges when it comes to transportation and the movement of people. Bogotá is incredibly walkable despite being highly car-centric; and, of course, there are taxis and Ubers (which are technically illegal but still…
Following a week in the Bocas del Toro archipelago, we headed back to the mainland to our next stop: El Valle de Antón. This small village lies in the crater of an extinct volcano. From where we left our car in the port city of Almirante to El Valle de Antón (“El Valle”) is a…
Among the world’s most economically consequential linkages, the Panamá Canal lies within the metropolitan area of Panamá City. The canal runs for approximately 51 miles (82 km) through the narrowest part of the country. It connects the country’s Pacific Ocean coast with its Caribbean Sea coast. In its middle course, it rises above sea level…
The final days of our time in Costa Rica before we head to the next nation in our travels is a bit of a whirlwind. Following our stay in the Tamarindo area, we headed northeast into the volcanic highlands of southern Alajuela Province, near the town of Guayabal. Our route was a backtracking (mostly) of…
From the Monteverde area, we headed northwest to the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, specifically the Tamarindo area. As shown in the map above, our journey took us along Route 619/606 north (much of which was rugged and winded through cattle fields and rural homes off the beaten path). We then met Route 145 (a…
As discussed in our main post, the next destination on our Latin American travels is Costa Rica! The country is bordered on its west by the Pacific Ocean, on its east by the Caribbean Sea, on its north by Nicaragua, and on its south by Panama. The Costa Rican government has set aside 25% of…
One of the parts of this Guatemalan adventure I was most looking forward to was hiking around the ruins of one of the biggest and best preserved Mayan archeological sites in the Americas: Yaxha (pron. ya-sha). Yahm was unable to join me as she was a bit under the weather, but nonetheless helped me prepare…
Guatemala is truly a country of lakes. Along with volcanoes and mountains, this country features 23 major lakes and over 110 smaller lagoons. Of all of its lakes, none is more famous and perhaps none more beautiful than Lake Atitlàn. Don’t take just my word for it. German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt called…
Buildings that on the outside seem banal or a bit rundown, yet go inside and the paseos and interiors will astound you. They are spacious, elegant, and beautiful. Yahm and I have been staying in a cafe that doubles as a hotel with spacious downstairs and upstairs balconies and patios that look European. However, the…
Traveling While Introverted 