Hello from Panama!
Beach Camping in Guanacaste, Costa Rica
After 3 months of travel through Costa Rica, we finally crossed into Panama a few days ago. Costa Rica was beautiful and full of so much wildlife. We’ve seen countless colorful birds, sloths, monkeys, butterflies, iguanas and so much more. But on the other hand, it wasn’t the ideal place for camping. Between the heat and per-person cost of campgrounds, we found ourselves spending a lot more time in Airbnbs than we liked. For the same price to sweat at camp, we could instead rent an air-conditioned house. I know it sounds nice to be in rental but being in our own home is what we prefer. Just a heads up for other international budget travelers like us that prices for groceries, national park entrances, hikes, and campgrounds are going to give you some serious sticker shock.
Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica
But the upside of being in rentals is that it’s a lot more conducive to getting things done. And that means it was the perfect place to get our podcast up and running again. Yeah!
Yes, we had a podcast. We started it just before leaving the US in 2018 to spend 4 years in Europe. It covered topics like shipping, roadschooling, switching vehicles, European overlanding, sanitation, and a couple of interviews. This time around, we will split our time equally between educational topics and interviews.
Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica
So far, we’ve released new educational episodes talking about Sprinter Vans versus Four Wheel Campers, Traveling to Baja California, and Overlanding with Cats. These aren’t short and sweet episodes but more of a brain dump to share all we can about each topic. In addition to that, we also interviewed MAK and Owen from Bound for Nowhere. It’s nice to sit down with friends online to catch up and share their inspirational stories. You can find our podcast in all the usual places or you can click here to find the most current ones on our website. We also have them in video format on YouTube if you’d rather watch them online.
Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica
And in other news, we have a shipping date! In mid-April, we will ship our van from Panama to Colombia to get around the Darian Gap. That will then signal the start of our next leg through South America. We plan to get to the bottom of South America by Christmastime, which is their summer and the ideal time to be that far south.
That’s all the exciting news for now. Expect another newsletter update next month.
Thanks for reading,
Marlene
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