We spent our final days in Costa Rica on the beaches of Manuel Antonio. The town rests on the country’s West Coast and offers a thin shoreline of light brown sand dressed with massive, dark gray rocks. The crashing navy waves of the Pacific Ocean roll up and down the beach, wiping away footprints of those walking the sand, then leave behind shells and small rocks as the waves rush away again.

The ocean felt warmer than any natural body of water I have stepped in before. In fact, the lukewarm water of the hotel jacuzzi was debatably cooler than that of the Pacific. We dove through the rolling ocean waves, bronzed our bodies on the sandy shore and drank fresh banana juice at a local beach side restaurant.

“Que esto?” I asked the local Costa Rican man who worked the roadside fruit stand outside Monteverde. I held up a green fruit that looked strikingly similar to a character out of Super Mario Brothers.

“Si. Guanabana!” he replied.

“Guanabaaa…huh? Pero, que es?” What IS it?

“Su fruta,” the man running the fruit stand replied. “Muy bueno.” It’s very good fruit.

“We’ll take it! Uno, por favor.”One, please. He did not answer my question, but at that point I also did not know how else to inquire about it.

If friends told me two weeks ago that I would leave Costa Rica having literally swung like Tarzan through the jungle, I would not have believed them. But, a Tarzan swing presented itself on our travels through Monteverde and, among other uncomfortable feats this day, we took advantage of it.

On our first full day in the rainforest, we walked the five-minute trek through town to catch a 7:30a.m. public bus to Monteverde Cloud Forest. While stretching our mostly forgotten Spanish skills to maximum capacity, we found our way onto the 800 colones (one dollar) transport. This short, but highly confusing venture marked the moment I officially decided to add become bilingual to my bucket list.

I had never gone horseback riding before…not until I met Vanessa (pronounced Banezza), the horse presented to me on our last morning in La Fortuna.

Before leaving the volcano town, we took a three-hour, round-trip horseback ride to La Fortuna Waterfall. I’m unsure of how intense horseback riding lessons are in the states, but in La Fortuna it was simple: Hold the reins with one hand. Pull back at the reins to make the horse stop, or to the side to guide the horse left or right. “Easy,” the guide said, “now you are natural cowboys and cowgirls.”

Costa Rica boasts an amazing mixture of beauty and adventure, and in fewer than three days we have been able to see both.

My traveling companions – Will and Julie – and I began our week of adventures with a 7:00a.m. canyoning trip, which involved a three-hour lesson on repelling down the cliffs of La Fortuna. For those unfamiliar with repelling, it is, more or less, rock climbing backwards. The experience goes something like this:

*Photos coming soon – I currently have no photo uploading capabilities.

It’s morning in La Fortuna. I sit in a wooden rocking chair on the porch of our hostel and stare into the morning fog at the sprouting palm trees and red-roofs below. I am only one story above the world, but few buildings are taller than that here. I am one of the few awake at 6:30a.m., and a small brown bird sings me a song from a nearby rooftop.

One 10-hour car ride, one three-hour plane ride and two, two-hour bus rides after leaving our home in New Orleans, Louisiana, we made it to the wet bar and hammocks of La Fortuna’s Arenal Hostel Resort. The trip was long, exhausting and beautiful.

It’s a strange feeling to be exhausted off five hours of backseat sleeping during an overnight road trip, but also the most rested member of a group. But, that’s traveling. That’s part of the journey.

We are on our way to San Jose, Costa Rica, and a $400 difference in flight price prompted our 10-hour drive from New Orleans, Louisiana to the Orlando International Airport in Florida. Luckily, I am with two fellow travelers who are equally as crazy as me – my younger sister, Julie, and our good friend Will.

I took a walk recently to the edge of the world – to a place where the sunset and the subtly crashing waves were all that the eye could see. I stepped barefoot through the Gulf of Mexico with the sky to my left and a beach in my toes. I have worked hard this semester of graduate school, and a relaxing weekend away from my daily routine proved both necessary and centering.

Purple, green and gold fleur de lis door wreaths, carnival masks and colorful plastic beads trimmed New Orleans’ homes and fences. The jazzy sounds of high school marching bands practicing for parades filled the streets of local neighborhoods. An eagerness for Mardi Gras had reached the Crescent City, and it was only January.

After visiting Nashville, Tennessee on the fourth night of our road trip, my sister, Julie, and I geared up for a day of historical site-seeing along the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Our brother, Dan, and I attempted this drive once last summer after receiving a recommendation to take the famous byway from Nashville to Southern Mississippi before cutting South to New Orleans. Not 30 miles into our trip, we crossed a park ranger who threatened us off the parkway with a ticket and authoritative scolding. Unbeknownst to us, a 14-foot yellow Penske truck is considered a “commercial vehicle” and eyesore on a scenic byway.

Though Dan could not join us on this road trip, Julie and I took advantage of having our compact Toyota Camry and picked up where Dan and I left off.

I first visited Nashville, Tennessee this past summer as part of a Midwest road trip with my brother, Dan. We visited the city in mid-August when the near-100-degree temperatures and humidity index left us wandering the streets dressed in shorts, flip flops and sweat.

This week, the city prepared a more mild climate for another round of siblings to come through. My sister and I arrived from St. Louis just in time to enjoy a sushi dinner, check-in rush hour at a motel-style Best Western (equipped with an already-intoxicated bachelor party to greet us) and an evening walk through downtown. We visited Nashville for one day on this road trip and managed to see most of its highlights.

Thursday morning, Julie and I took our trip West for a turn South. With Einstein Bros breakfast sandwiches in hand, we got an early start out of Chicago and headed toward St. Louis, Missouri.

We spent almost two days exploring St. Louis, but not without first making a stop in Illinois’ capital city of Springfield. Three hours and acres of open land Southwest of Chicago, we parked Julie’s car near the state capitol building and went for a walk.

A famous saying reads “Home is where the heart is,” and day two of our road trip brought new meaning to this phrase for me.

Wednesday morning, my sister, Julie, and I woke up in South Bend, Indiana only 95 miles from Chicago, Illinois. Though we grew up in Rochester, New York, Chicago has been the next closest city to offer me that warm and welcoming feeling of home. The city was finally within reach, and I couldn’t have been more excited.

I have driven Interstate 90 between Rochester, New York and Chicago, Illinois more times than I can count. Before Tuesday, however, I had only been a tourist along this route once during a family road trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This week, my sister, Julie, and I decided to tour this land while kicking off our road trip South. What I learned? Ohio impressed me.

Our day included a 7:00am departure from North Chili, New York and a 10:00pm dinner at a local Notre Dame bar called “Brothers.” By the time Julie and I pulled into South Bend, Indiana, we ate what could have been the most delicious veggie burger and chips I have ever devoured.

I have been called “baby”, “darlin’” (pronounced “da-lin”) and “sweetheart” (pronounced “sweet-hot”) by uncountable strangers, including middle-aged men. I learned how to measure air pressure and fill four car and two bicycle tires at a gas station. I detoured down a nearby sidewalk on my bicycle due to a high school marching band rehearsing along a side street. I have officially lived in New Orleans for two weeks. In that time, these three experiences have summarized my limited (but quickly increasing) knowledge of this Crescent City.

I live and breathe travel. I love to see new things, but more importantly I travel to learn. To me, exploring the world firsthand has proven the most effective way to learn about the depths of people, culture and myself. Our trip from Chicago to New Orleans included a drive through seven states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Of these seven states, I had only been to three before making this trip, which proved a unique and exciting opportunity to learn more about the hidden beauties and truths of America.

The land between two cities sometimes makes for the most interesting places to explore. Though the 427 miles of land along the route between Little Rock, Arkansas and New Orleans, Louisiana may require a more intense search to support this theory, my brother, Dan, and I found ourselves still entertained by these lonely miles of countryside.

It all started during our hour-long exit from Little Rock. Because of the detours and lack of road signs, we found ourselves driving down a wooded backroad with not a soul, car or house in sight…not a soul, that is, besides a brown, mid-sized dog trotting down the road toward us wearing a collar and leash around his neck.

I only enjoy adventurous travel with a few people, but my brother, Dan, is one of them. We travel well together, because we can change plans last minute, make no plans at all, and get pulled over on a famous Central Tennessee parkway then laugh about it while forging ahead to find an alternate route.

Upon leaving Nashville during our week-long adventure south, we received a recommendation to drive the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile scenic route we had never heard of and spent all day learning to pronounce (turns out, it’s “Na-chiz” if you talk like a true Southerner). Though we already had plans to see Memphis later that afternoon, the Parkway seemed well worth a three-hour detour along the way.

It’s 95 degrees and humid. We cannot stop sweating. I’m in shorts, a tank top and flip flops, so I cannot imagine what the people wearing cowboy boots must feel like. Maybe they’re all just more accustomed to this Nashville, Tennessee weather than we are.

Nashville may be the happiest place on earth for someone whose favorite things include alcoholic beverages and country music. Most of the city’s entertainment revolves around bars and live music, so anyone who enjoys this combination has a good chance of enjoying Nashville. Non-Country music fans can still enjoy relaxing with a cold beer (or double jack and coke, as the middle-aged gentleman next to me ordered yesterday) among the various age groups of bar visitors along Lower Broadway, a four-block part of town lined with bars, restaurants and businesses.

The accents and humidity are becoming thicker. Words are becoming both shorter and more drawn out. Odd stares have led me to believe my vegetarian habits are becoming less common. We are approaching the South.

Today’s trek began at our cousin’s home in Louisville, Kentucky and ended at a $60 Days Inn in Knoxville, Tennessee. We stepped foot in three states today – the third on a drive through Cumberland Gap National Historic Park at the juncture of where Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia meet. At one point, we straddled the state line between Kentucky and Tennessee while overlooking the Appalachian Mountain region in Virginia. I never imagined Kentucky to stretch so far east. In fact, our road trip through the Midwest has kept us on east coast time most of the journey so far.

It’s official. I no longer live in Chicago. I currently don’t live anywhere, actually. For the next week, I will be homeless, bouncing around from couches to hotels to spare bedrooms. Last night, I even slept on couch cushions (minus the couch) on the floor of my own empty Chicago apartment. As it turns out, moving sometimes brings unexpected twists to set plans.

Today, my brother, Dan, and I set off for our road trip south from Chicago to New Orleans. Since neither of us have seen any land between the two cities before, we decided to make my city-to-city move an adventure. And what an adventure it has already been.

When I moved to Denver, Colorado from Western New York five years ago, several differences became immediately apparent between both regions. Denver has significantly nicer weather, simpler road structures and younger history than most places in New York. When I moved from Denver to Chicago, Illinois three years later, I witnessed more cultural differences. In addition to the faster pace and more expensive cost of living, locals’ demeanors in Chicago became my most noteworthy observation of all. Even after two years of living amidst the city’s hustle and bustle, I have found Midwesterners overall to be among the most approachable and down-to-earth group of people I’ve ever encountered.

I just completed the hunt for my ninth apartment in five years. My search this round took place in New Orleans, Louisiana – a place that will soon become my seventh city of residency in 10 years. I have lived in big cities and small towns, and my apartments have been newly renovated, deteriorating vintage ratholes and everything in between. Below is a summary of my search as a well-traveled, female twenty-something who is about to be a resident of the Big Easy:

I have been to San Diego before, but only to visit specific destinations in the city. I drove there from Los Angeles a few years ago to visit a friend who took me to the San Diego Zoo and Coronado Island, and I went again about a week later to see a Padres game at PETCO Park. I loved San Diego, but it was during this trip that I fell in love with San Diego.

Just a hop, skip and a 100-mile car ride northwest of Los Angeles, California is a city many refer to as the “American Riviera”. Most dictionaries describe a Riviera as a coastal region with a subtropical climate and vegetation, and this is exactly what one would find upon arriving in the sunny city of Santa Barbara.

There is no better way to take the edge off a chilly Midwest spring than to hop a plane out west for a long weekend in the California sunshine. Though the palm trees and warm breeze give off a calming vibe when walking out of LAX, a visit to Los Angeles is not a trip everyone would describe as relaxing. Even at 10:00pm on a Wednesday, my brother, Dan, weaved his car through the crowded freeway traffic, passionately flipping the bird to overeager L.A. drivers as they sped past us. This is, of course, quite an average ride to a local like my brother, so I just sat back and laughed my way to his studio apartment in the neighborhood of Los Feliz.

It should only involve someone taking a walk along Chicago’s lakefront on a warm summer day to understand why people fall in love with the city. Chicago is the third largest city in the United States and, while overwhelming to some, there are places one might escape to feel comfortable and at peace. The Lakefront Trail is one of them.

There comes a time in every seasonal city when the sounds of chirping birds once again fill the streets and the light at the end of the long, cold winter tunnel comes into sight. This time is usually what one might call a springtime teaser – a few day stretch during the final winter months when we all know the dreaded season is not yet over, but that spring is somewhere around the corner.

I made my way to work this morning along paths of half-shoveled sidewalks and piles of snow mountains. It is the day after the Blizzard of 2011, the storm that packed the third highest snowfall in Chicago’s history at 20.9 total inches.

Many companies began sending employees home early Tuesday afternoon in anticipation of the storm locals were referring to as “SNOMG”, “Snoverloaded” and my personal favorite, “Snowmageddon”. The snow started falling hard around 3:00pm and did not stop blowing until late Wednesday morning. While some did have to find a way into their offices Wednesday, most establishments kept their doors shut, including Chicago Public Schools which had not closed since 1999.

Mountain towns are much like beach towns. Laid back, friendly people roam the streets with their skis, boards and seize-the-day attitudes. Both towns offer relaxing atmospheres, breathtaking scenery and options to either lounge or play, depending on one’s preference. During the three years I lived in and traveled through Colorado, I had the opportunity to visit a number of mountain towns, all which held their own unique characteristics. Among my favorites was Breckenridge.

If you are lucky enough to have a window seat when flying into Denver, Colorado, you will find yourself overlooking miles of empty dirt lots that are separated evenly by straight, desolate country roads. First-time visitors may question the spoken beauty of Colorado until the plane takes a turn toward the airport and the Rocky Mountains come into view. Within moments, the “Colorful Colorado” description makes a bit more sense as these black, snow-capped mountains make the brown, square plots of land look somehow beautiful. The mountain range provides a majestic backdrop to the open earth, and the bright blue sky shines brightly behind the peaks illustrating what many would only find in a watercolor painting.

After studying abroad my junior year of college, I realized my life of traveling had only just begun. It was the first time I had left North America and, with the exception of Canada, the first time I had left the United States. “I wish I could have kept going”, I would tell people upon my return home. After seeing the beauties of Italy, I wanted to see what else the world had to offer.

I quickly realized I had been the next victim in a long string of travel-infected relatives. “Uh, oh”, my cousin said. “You caught it. You caught the travel bug.” My brain had become contaminated with an obsessive desire to see the world, and this disease has followed me ever since.

With a turn of the calendar and changing of the clocks, the snow has begun to fall in Chicago. While this northern city is known for its frigid winter temperatures and heavy gusts of chilling wind, it has a unique way of giving off a sort of warm feeling around the holidays.

I am not quite sure where the confusion set in, but somewhere between the words “major” and” city” I missed the memo that people are allowed to move slow. When looking at a city like let’s say Chicago, for example, I would go so far to say that moving at a quick pace is not only necessary, but also a courtesy.

The thing is, I actually do not have all day to make it to any one particular destination on most days of my life, and the honest truth of the matter is that few city dwellers do. While I am all about taking in the fresh air and stopping to smell the flowers, choosing to do this during rush hour on a city’s downtown sidewalk is probably not the best time or place.

It took me a few hours of walking around New Orleans, Louisiana before I figured out what NOLA meant. I spent a morning roaming the palm tree-lined streets and passing stores called “NOLA Carpets”, “NOLA Antiques” and “NOLA Hardware”, confused about what kind of company could possibly handle so many industries. Finally it clicked: NOLA stands for New Orleans, LA. Either I was completely clueless of the city’s lingo, or in desperate need of a morning cup of coffee.

I grew up knowing America as “the land of opportunity”, a place where anything is possible if we just dream, try and believe. While I am at a natural advantage for achieving success with a supportive family, ambitious nature and love for learning, I did not understand how much truly is available to us until I visited Peru.

While the increased tourism and exporting of goods has helped boost Peru’s economy, even the country’s nicer areas do not have the services that the poorest areas in America have. As tourists, we had to be cautious of simple routines like rinsing our toothbrushes under faucets to avoid potential illness from unfamiliar water. In some areas, though, locals live their whole lives without any running water at all.

Our final days in Peru came quickly, but we spent them gratefully in the country’s two largest cities. After returning from Colca Canyon, we spent time exploring Arequipa, which gets its nickname “La Ciudad Blanca”, or “The White City”, from the buildings made of white volcanic rock called sillar. The city is more financially independent than many others in Peru due to industries like mining, cement and agriculture.

Arequipa’s Plaza de Armas was one of my favorite city centers we visited. Pigeons and palm trees filled the square, which is enclosed by three sides of long, colonial-style buildings that held cafes and restaurants, and a beautiful twin-towered cathedral on the fourth side that serves as the plaza’s main focus.

Within two hours of returning to Puno from our two-day trip around Lake Titicaca, we took a six-hour bus ride to Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru. To welcome me back to the bathrooms of the mainland was the Puno bus station, a “Toilet” I will happily never visit again.

The bus station itself is dirty and the food was bad enough for Eric and I to settle for cheese and avocado sandwiches with pringles and chocolate candybars for the bus ride. Worst of all though were the bathrooms, which cost 0.50 Soles to use. I would expect this for a public bathroom
in Peru, but it instantly annoyed me that I was a paying customer of the bus station and had to pay to use the toilet. After I paid, the woman handed me one single piece of ¨toilet paper¨, which looked more like a small, thin American napkin.

On Sunday, we hopped a tour bus service called Inka Express that drove us nine hours along the countryside between Cusco and Puno. Along the way, we saw some ruins from other small Incan cities, chatted with three fellow travelers from Hong Kong and Australia over a buffet lunch , and toured around a small museum, Jesuit church.

We spent the evening relaxing over a nice dinner in Puno, then began our two-day journey around Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world and, by volume, the largest lake in South America.

We are halfway through our trip to Peru. There is so much I have learned and observed about the Peruvian culture that those reflections alone deserve to be highlighted in their own post.

Bathrooms
The plumbing in all of Peru is weak, so Peruvians do not flush toilet paper, no matter what that toilet paper is used for. Every bathroom has a small trash can next to each toilet to deposit the toilet paper in. This took a little getting used to and, while I have grown more accustomed to it, there have been several “oops” occasions when I have accidentally dropped the toilet paper into the toilet, or my nested paper escapes into the bowl too quickly for me to catch it.

On Wednesday morning, we took a 35-minute flight from Cusco to Puerto Maldonado, a small town on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. Our journey kicked off to a fate-based start while waiting in our shuttle for the rest of the tour group to arrive. Eric and I waited with two other couples around our age and, as it turned out, we were all from the United States.

After a 25 minute bus ride, a near-four hour train ride and another 25 minute bus ride, we made it from Cusco to Machu Picchu. We spent the past two days exploring the ruins of the old Inca city, which many now consider to be one of the seven wonders of the world.

It took the Incas about 80 to 100 years to build Machu Picchu. They started building the city around 1450, then abandoned it in the 1500s, for fear that the Spanish would take it over like they did so many other Peruvian cities at the time. The Incas left Machu Picchu unfinished – as evidence shows in many of the unsmoothed rocks that make up the city structures – and trekked to the other side of a nearby mountain with their artifacts, mummies and other valuables. Unfortunately, the Spanish found them in their new living place and conquered them there. The Spanish never found Machu Picchu and, until it was refounded in the early 1900s, the entire city was completely overtaken by jungle.

Yesterday, we spent the day exploring Cusco, the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America. The city´s elevation is about 11,000 feet above sea level and, for those of you who are familiar, Breckenridge, Colorado´s base elevation sits at about 9,600. Cusco´s city layout was designed in the shape of a Puma, so nearly every road includes a walk up or downhill. We definitely felt the thin air while walking, and had to stop several times to catch our breaths.

Two days, four cities and two countries later, we made it to Cusco. We arrived in Lima last night around 11:00, spent the night at a hotel, then headed back to the airport for a quick one-hour flight to Cusco this morning.

With the exception of getting ripped off by a cab driver from the Cusco airport to our hostel – something we were cautioned about several times and still managed to get sucked into – our trip has been smooth so far.

My boyfriend, Eric, and I are heading to Peru, South America for the next two weeks to travel around the southern part of the country. Below is our travel route, which begins and ends in Lima, Peru’s capital city. Stay tuned for posts along the way!

Cities/Attractions Within Our Route:

• Lima
• Cuzco/Machu Picchu
• Puerto Maldonado/Amazon rainforest
• Puno/Lake Titicaca
• Arequipa/Colca Canyon/Chivay

On Friday, I visited the travel doctor to get my yellow fever vaccine for Peru. While I thought the appointment would be a quick jab of the shot and I would be on my way, the doctor sat me down and ran through everything I need to be aware of being leaving for the two-week excursion. Below is what I learned:

1. Apply sunscreen 30 minutes before being exposed to the sun, because it takes that long to start taking effect (this is why people still get burned when they put the sunscreen on while already in the sun. Who knew?)
2. Buy bug spray with at least 30 DEET and apply every four hours.

It is nearly impossible to keep an aesthetically pleasing appearance during Chicago summers. While the locals welcome in every opportunity to be outside, the humidity hits this city in a way that makes us question whether morning showers and hair straighteners are anything but a waste of time.

The people of Chicago spend their days engulfed in humidity. Since few of us have the luxury of cruising the city all day in air-conditioned cars, we walk several blocks to buy lunch, wait in stuffy train stations for a ride home, and fan ourselves with the latest edition of the Red Eye newspaper while the sun traps us at bus stops.

A couple days ago I had my first experience at the Taste of Chicago, a 10-day lakefront festival where dozens of Chicago restaurants come together to serve the locals more than 200 different food items in one place. While “The Taste”, as the locals call it, is notorious around the city for being an unbearably crowded must-see event, I must have chosen the perfect evening to take part.

For eight dollars, I sampled gazpacho, a pear salad, tacos and sweet potato fries. If the line for the chocolate churros had been shorter, they would have been added to my list.

While I sat under the warm evening sun, sipping a vodka lemonade and watching Brett Dennen and Mat Kearney perform their free concerts I thought, “Wow, Chicago. Your summers certainly upstage your winters.” And upstage I was – first row from the stage, with the city skyline behind me and soulful music filling the streets.

In the past week, on two separate occasions, two near-empty busses failed to stop and pick me up at my bus stop. The drivers did not slow down, pull over, or even attempt to entice me whatsoever by swerving slightly toward my side of the curb.

After replaying the first drive-by in my head and even re-enacting it for a few friends, I figured, despite my insistence that there is no way the driver could have overlooked me waiting on the sidewalk, it must have been a fluke.

San Gimignano, Italy

June 2004

Friday evening, I walked down the main road of a Chicago neighborhood. Within one block, I passed a group of rowdy smokers standing outside a dive bar, two parents contentedly walking their children past the group of rowdy smokers, three bikers, one dog-walker, two girls in jeans and heels – clearly dolled up for the night – and an elderly man buying an ice cream cone for a young boy.

As for me, I was meeting my boyfriend (who was also riding a bike) for dinner on a street patio, amongst the now bright green trees of Bucktown.

I’m going to chalk this up to an impressive characteristic of Chicago. To have so many different ages, missions and ensembles of life on one side of one city block in the third largest city in America is something to be proud of.

One dictionary defines etiquette as “rules governing socially acceptable behavior”. My parents taught me these socially acceptable rules of dining when I was young (table etiquette). I learned the courtesies of the road at age 16 (driving etiquette). While living in Denver I learned how to navigate the sidewalks, bike paths and mountain trails with class (biking and hiking etiquette). Now in Chicago, I am learning the respect of public transportation (train & bus etiquette).