Travel Resources

Travel resources for your next trip. From travel packing lists and how much to budget for your travels to being aware of your surroundings and keeping healthy while you’re away. Forward planning isn’t always easy, so we’re here to help.

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

How Not to Get Robbed in Central America

Want to know our secret to not getting robbed while travelling in Central America and the rest of the world?

Everyone told us that as tourists, we would be obvious targets in Central America. People who had never even been to that part of the world all had horror stories and travel advice to share. From our safe, friendly and crime-free experiences in Asia, we knew to take their advice with a pinch of salt. But when we landed in San Jose, which is a jungle of razor wire and iron bars, it looked like they might be right…

7 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

How Much Does It Cost to Travel Costa Rica on a Budget? [Infographic]

Costa Rica is not a cheap country to travel, although it is possible to travel Costa Rica on a budget.

We’ve kept our travel budget really low here in Costa Rica thanks to house sitting, but during our travel breaks we have to be more conscious about what we’re spending. Our travel budget is near to the rock-bottom expenditure for a night’s accommodation, 3 meals per day, local transport, and minimal costs for activities. This travel budget does not include flights.

3 mins read

Travel Blogging: Build Your Audience, Improve Rankings and Earn Money

When I started Charlie on Travel six months ago, I thought I’d read enough internet articles and spent enough time blogging on a free WordPress platform for my new travel blog to be smooth sailing.

Not so. Even after six months of dipping my toe in the proverbial travel blogging pool, I’ve still barely scraped the surface of what there is to know. I went back to the internet last week to read some more about how to build up a successful travel blog.

I realised then that there is almost too much to know without having a reliable guide. What better to get than a book from two experienced travel bloggers who have already made their blog a success?

4 mins read

Is Indefinite Travel in Central America Going to Work For Us?

All we’ve got is a one-way ticket to Costa Rica, a house-sit lined up for the first few months, and a lot of ideas.

It’s our first time travelling indefinitely. By indefinite travel, I mean travel which is open-ended, which continues until something either goes wrong – whether that’s running out of money, being kicked out of a country because of an expired tourist VISA, or running out of ideas – or something comes up, like just deciding we want to go home to our families.

7 mins read

How to Actually Learn a Foreign Language

As somebody who has failed miserably to learn three different foreign languages, but is having middling success with my fourth, Spanish, I feel uniquely unqualified in sharing my tips for successfully learning a foreign language for free. Enjoy!

4 mins read

How Much Does it Cost to Travel Poland on a Budget?

We had no idea how much it would cost to travel in Poland. We signed up for the Angloville programme on a whim, got accepted and booked some flights. We didn’t plan our travels beforehand, except for a sketchy route.

Fortunately for us, Poland turned out to be a cheaper travel destination than many other European countries. It’s worth noting that our travel budget is so incredibly low because we spent 5 days of our 20-day trip on the Angloville programme where we received free accommodation and food.

4 mins read

Why Learning a Foreign Language Makes You Awesome

Unlike what my grandparents believed, speaking English slowly and loudly doesn’t quite qualify as communicating in a second language. While the prospect of learning a foreign language can be daunting, there are also many benefits.

Not only will it save you a few pennies, or help you avoid accidentally ordering a plate of unnamed innards, it can also make you a better communicator, boost your understanding of different cultures, spur on new friendships and even make you live longer.

4 mins read