Hello,
little Wizards! I know my last post was a really sad one, and like I mentioned
at the end of it, I do have another trip coming up- now it’s just a few days
off- so it’s time for some happier news! I didn’t mention this here on the
blog, but I switched jobs back in September- DEFINITELY the right decision- and
because of that I knew that I’d have to focus more on smaller, shorter trips
that didn’t involve volunteering or working in other places, but rather just
exploring and the more typical style of traveling that I haven’t done a lot of.
I’m not saying that I’m giving up volunteering abroad or long term traveling as
a whole, it’s just not something that I’ll be able to do for a while. I also
knew, of course, that my itchy feet wouldn’t let me go completely travel free
for a long time, so back in early March, I booked my flights to my next
destination!
I went back
and forth for a while about which country I wanted to visit next. Like I said,
I knew I wouldn’t be able to go for a long time so I wanted to pick a place not
too far away so it wouldn’t take too long to get there. That meant I mainly had
my eye on the Caribbean or Central America. I went to both Costa Rica and
Cancun last year (I didn’t blog my trip to Cancun since it was just a vacation
and I wanted to disconnect for a while), and while I loved both of those
places, I wanted to try somewhere different for this trip. I’ve always really
loved the ocean and any destination that gives me access to it is especially
appealing in my book. I’d been hearing about Belize from friends and family for
a few years- a couple of my zoo friends have been on trips there, and two years
ago my sister and brother in law spent their honeymoon there- and some travel
Youtubers that I follow have also recently talked about trips there that
they’ve loved. I was also considering some other destinations, but after
looking up some pictures of Belize and learning that it has the second largest
coral reef in the world, I officially made the decision to go there next. Now,
two months after booking the flights, the trip is nearly here- I leave in four
days!
Usually
before a trip, I’ll post a rough itinerary of what my time there will look
like. With this trip, I actually have very little officially planned out, but
here’s what I know so far. This upcoming Monday, May 6th, I fly out
of San Antonio a little after noon. After changing planes in Houston, I land in
Belize City at 3:45 pm Belize time- they’re one hour earlier than SA time.
About an hour later, I have a very small flight- it’s literally scheduled to
take ten minutes- from Belize City to Caye Caulker, the island where I’ll be
spending the majority of my time in Belize. I’ve booked in for the five nights
of my trip at the Travellers Palm Backpackers Hostel in Caye Caulker. This will
be the seventh hostel that I’ll be staying at in the nearly four years that
I’ve been traveling internationally- I’ve stayed at three in South Africa, one
in Peru, one in Costa Rica, and one in Amsterdam. I’ve had a lot of really
interesting and memorable experiences while staying in hostels, and overall
I’ve really loved my time spent in them- my two favorites would probably be
Atlantic Point in Cape Town and Dutchies Hostel in Amsterdam.
Like I
mentioned, I’ll be staying in Belize for five nights, all of them on Caye
Caulker. On Saturday, May 11 shortly after noon I’ll be getting another very
short flight from Caye Caulker back to Belize City, then flying out of there at
3:45. After again changing planes in Houston, I’ll arrive back home in San Antonio
at 10 pm- thankfully I have the next day off work to do some recuperating!
Other than
the flights and hostel stay, I don’t have anything at all booked or officially
planned out for my five days in Belize. I’ve done some online research about
things to do on Caye Caulker, and written down some recommendations from my
sister and brother in law. I think this will probably be a very simple trip- my
guess is it’ll consist mostly of swimming in the ocean, snorkeling among sharks
(yup, that’s a very popular draw there) and other reef life, and relaxing on
the beach. Just based on the pictures I’ve seen on the internet, the water
around Belize is some of the clearest, bluest you’ll ever see, and yes,
snorkeling among the nurse sharks, rays, sea turtles, manatees, and other ocean
life is one of the most popular things to do there. I’ve also gotten
recommendations from people about where and what to eat in Belize and other
little tips like that, but I think the majority of my time will be spent in and
around the water. I’ll be bringing my underwater camera with me on this trip so
hopefully I can get some nice pictures to share here in the blog. Obviously, as
usual, my laptop will be coming with me and I’ll make at least two or three
blog posts during my time there.
Thinking
about my plan for this upcoming trip really makes me think about how I’ve
changed and progressed since I first started traveling solo a few years ago.
With my first international trip, I had pretty much every detail of those nine
weeks planned out- I knew where I was staying for each and every night, what I
was going to be doing, how I was going to get from one place to the other,
where I needed to be at what time, everything. I thought that was the way to do
it. Now, nearly four years and six international trips later, it’s a very
different story. I’ve learned that you don’t have to plan out every minute of
your trip- and in fact, it’s often best that you don’t. Opportunities pop up
all the time while traveling that you don’t foresee, and it’s nice to have the
ability to say yes, which you can only do if you aren’t tied down with other
plans. Over the past few years, I’ve learned a lot and grown confident enough
in being a solo traveler that I find having an open schedule while traveling
very freeing rather than scary.
Well, that’s
about all I have to say in this post! Hopefully I’ll make one more blog post
before I actually leave for Belize. Four days and counting! This post’s food
for thought: “Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another
strange land, grows especially strong in spring.”-Vladimir Nabokov
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