Author: Charlie Marchant

2014 in Photos

Back in January, who knew that our 2014 would look like this…

When we came home from Taiwan at the end of 2013, Luke told me that 2014 was my year. By that, he meant it was up to me to choose what we would do. Moving to Taiwan was his idea and though I chose to follow, it wasn’t an easy decision for me. Although I loved our year away in Taiwan, I felt homesick often and that feeling was always exacerbated by the stresses of teaching.

I loved the travel, I loved weekend road trips, I loved the independence and having our own home, and I loved Luke. But I wasn’t happy as a teacher and I didn’t want to be crawling through the week, desperate for the weekend. I wanted to make changes to our lifestyle. By the end of 2013, we were both ready to leave Taiwan.

Though I don’t think about it as 2013 being Luke’s year and 2014 as being my year, there’s no doubt that this year I was the one who put forward the idea of an alternative travel lifestyle as freelancers and house sitters. Thanks to Luke’s trust, our combined determination and perseverance, and the incredible generosity of strangers, 2014 has been the happiest year of my life.

3 mins read

I Want To Travel, But What If I Run Out of Money?

Reader Question: I’ve decided that I want to travel. I have zero attachment to material things, I’m a really simple person, calm, easy going and minimalist. The only thing that stops me from starting my trip is knowing that I won’t have any income and the only thing I fear is to put myself in a really bad situation, I want to prevent that.I’m thinking of what could happen if a run out of the money that I have managed to save (which isn’t much). The only thing that has occurred to me is to use Couchsurfing to find a place to stay and try to find a temporary job wherever I go. I also thought of doing WOOFing.My journey starts in January. I have a flight to France and that’s the place to start for me. I’m planning to travel around Europe. For now I can speak English, Spanish, a bit of Italian and I’m learning French!What would you suggest to me?

7 mins read

The Generosity of Strangers Has Made Our Travels Possible

Our travels have been made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of strangers from all over the world. To all of you, we want to say thank you.

When I say that our travels are only possible thanks to the generosity of some incredible people that we’ve met during our journey, I mean it. I have never in my life felt some overwhelmed than when I think of all the people who have opened their homes and their hearts to me and Luke on the road. From families in Poland to eco-lodgers in Costa Rica, we’ve been welcomed and supported by strangers from all over the world. It is thanks to you that we have been able to keep travelling.

5 mins read

How Much Does It Cost to Travel Bocas del Toro, Panama on a Budget? [Infographic]

The Panamanian island of Bocas del Toro isn’t the friendliest of places for a budget traveller, but keeping travel costs down is still do-able.

When we were travelling in Puerto Viejo we decided to hop across to Bocas del Toro for a week. As expected our travels in Bocas del Toro stretched our budget way more than Nicaragua and a little more than Costa Rica. These expenses are just for Bocas del Toro, not for Panama as a whole. We’re travelling in mainland Panama for a month over Christmas and New Year, so it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

3 mins read

When I Met the Man Who Built His Own Paradise

In a dockside bar in Bocas del Toro, a silver-haired Belgian man, once a lawyer on Wall Street, told us how he escaped, disconnected and built his own island paradise in Panama.

4 mins read

Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica – Travel Guide

Colourful Creole houses, laid-back Caribbean vibes and coconut rice and beans make Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica right where I want to be.

One of the small handful of towns on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, Puerto Viejo is overflowing with vegan cafes, young rasta guys on bicycles trying to sell you weed and lazy stretches of yellow sand beaches. After almost three weeks of lazing around – I mean, travelling – eating and sleeping in the Puerto Viejo area, I’ve definitely got some favourites.

9 mins read

An Abudance of Wildlife: The Importance of Eco-Design

Sloths climbing tree trunks, howler monkeys foraging in the branches, agoutis running under the cabins, toucans flying overhead, red-eyed tree frogs laying their eggs by the pond at night, and an olingo passing silently through the darkness.

We’ve been travelling in Costa Rica for six months now and we have never stayed in a place so alive with wildlife as La Kukula Lodge. As we witnessed yet another troop of howler monkeys scouring the trees above our balcony, we realised the important role eco-design played in allowing the lodge to exist in harmony with the jungle.

4 mins read

Vegan Caribbean Cooking Class in Costa Rica (+ Recipe)

I had heard rumours that Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast had the best cooking in the whole of Costa Rica. As it turns out, the rumours were true.

On our very first night in Puerto Viejo, we fell into an empty soda where a local Afro-Caribbean woman cooked us a traditional meal like nothing else we’d tasted in Costa Rica. Rice and beans stewed in coconut milk, fried plantain fritters, and a flavourful veggie sauce warmed our bellies. We were hooked, I had to learn how to cook like that.

5 mins read

How Teaching in Taiwan Prepared Me for Long-Term Travel

One year ago, I quit ESL teaching in Taiwan. Now I’m on an indefinite travel adventure in Central America.

When I left Taiwan, I knew that I wanted to travel more but I still didn’t know how I was going to achieve that. Instead of sitting down and crafting out a long-term plan in time for our return to unemployment, Luke and I booked a flight to Vietnam and blew some of our hard earned savings. After all, we’d saved them for travelling.

By this time, I’d started keeping track of our expenses. Vietnam is a cheap place to travel, but when I looked at our Vietnam travel budget, I realised that the £6000 (that’s $9600) we’d each saved from teaching in Taiwan wasn’t going to go that far. We had to rethink the way we travelled.

5 mins read

How Much Does it Cost to Travel Nicaragua on a Budget? [Infographic]

Nicaragua was named one of the cheapest travel destinations for backpackers in 2014, so I was amped to be travelling in a country where our small travel budget would stretch further.

Nicaragua, to the north of Costa Rica, is the largest country in Central America. Before travelling there we’d only heard good things from other backpackers – and they were pretty much spot on. The country is beautiful, the people are friendly, and it’s pretty cheap for travellers.

3 mins read

A Thousand Turtles Nesting: An Arribada in Ostional, Costa Rica

A woman was running wildly down the beach beating a big plastic bottle with a driftwood stick. We stared at her in dismay.

The fierce yet slender woman swung the stick around her head like a lasso, and in a frenzy, the large black vultures that had been skipping along the sands scattered. She saw us staring and came over. “They’re trying to get the baby turtles,” she said breathlessly. “You’re staying with us, right? At the turtle lodge? I’m Luis’ wife.”

6 mins read

Is Volcano Boarding in Nicaragua Really Awesome?

If you’re travelling in Nicaragua, everyone will tell you that the one thing you can’t miss is volcano boarding down Cerro Negro (the Black Hill) in León. Having looked at the ominous volcano from the roof of León Cathedral and after reading rave reviews from adventurous travel bloggers and TripAdvisor-happy backpackers who unanimously labelled the volcano boarding experience as AWESOME, I was still reluctant to go.

4 mins read