When I think about my life, I don’t see a big house. I see myself doing exactly what I’m doing now. Blogging sometime around midnight. Thinking about the last 7 years of international travel. My running shoes are still on. They’re damn comfortable. Where I live, I have a balcony and I have Mark, but instead of overlooking the intracoastal, I am in a studio overlooking Hong Kong, or house-sitting in Tuscany. Right now I’m drinking water, but elsewhere it’ll be tea. In Latin America, espresso. I may have dinner with a different group of people every night. Sometimes I will eat alone. Sometimes I will have to try the homemade wine, and I will likely overindulge. I’ll learn Zulu from little kids and take a timelapse of the Milky Way. I’ll be a staff photographer for Costa Rica Tourism and Mark will find those hidden gems he is so good at finding. This is what I must have. It’s an intense, non-traditional, unpredictable lifestyle. It’s not for everyone. It’s not meant to be understood. But there’s only one person that needs to, and I’m pretty sure he does
travel
A Floridian Discovers the U.S.
I’m a native Floridian. Never lived anywhere else. This may be fueling my need to trade the beach for the mountains. I live a mile away from the beach and haven’t been there to go get a tan or swim in over two years. This probably sounds pretentious.
The Mr. and I have driven through the 48 contiguous states here in America, which has forced me to come to grips with the fact that I live in a sunny, winter-free bubble devoid of the work and pleasantries that come from living somewhere with actual life to it. The following is a series of moments from the road trips where I felt my true Floridian showed its bright, naive colors:
1) Driving through Wyoming in the middle of the night. A road construction sign blinked “Caution: Elk ahead.” I wondered to myself, What does an elk look like? This highway had a speed limit of 70, but I slowed to a crawl of 25. Just as I go to pass the sign, multiple giant deer-looking animals with huge antlers start traipsing across this lonely (read: pitch black) road. I pull over the side and give Mark a sideways glance that means, You’re driving.
2) Driving through South Dakota on another night mission and I see this sign:
I spend the next two hours convinced that reflectors on the side of the road are beady little eyes belonging to an animal just waiting to jump out in front of the car. (Squirrels do this all the time in Florida; why would deer be any different?)
3) Losing my mind because there was snow in Georgia in February. February is basically summer, no? It was also hot in Georgia. Hotter than Jacksonville. Why in the world was there snow still on the ground?
4) Traveling to Connecticut in April, excited to see the fresh green of spring and instead seeing dull, brown trees everywhere. Isn’t April spring? Where is all the foliage?
5) Taking a picture of cracked dirt. A novelty. There is no dirt in Florida. It’s limestone. And coral. And some ground up seashells. Also, it rains almost every day in South Florida so why would there be any cracks like this? True Texas style.
Bonus: In true Florida fashion, apparently my entire body is cold except for my toes. Because wearing close toed shoes isn’t a thing.
Traveling to Costa Rica? Read This First (Updated for 2015)
Costa Rica is a haven for adventure lovers, thrill seekers, and romantics. When we visited earlier this month, we were burdened again and again by some information that, well meaning, is not entirely true. Here to debunk some of the most popular “advice” of Costa Rica.
MYTH 1: You can’t drive the country alone.
FACT: The country’s roads, though still largely created by boulders and rocks of many sizes, can be driven without hired help and you definitely don’t need a tour bus. A 2WD vehicle is not necessary if you are staying on paved roads.
Please note that the roads to Volcan Arenal (Arenal Volcano), La Fortuna (city, and La Fortuna Waterfall) and the surrounding hotels are largely unpaved. The road from La Fortuna to Monteverde is also unpaved (even if you take the ferry across the lake, much of your travel is going to be on unpaved road.
MYTH 2: It’s unsafe to drive at night because of thieves.
FACT: The danger lies in the complete inability to see axle-breaking potholes in the road at dark. No street lights line the unpaved roads. Seldom you will have a fence between the road and the cliff, but rarely. Please don’t drive once the sun completely sets.
MYTH 3: San Jose is like any other capital, easy to navigate.
FACT: Wrong on so many levels. San Jose is rife with very narrow roads and two-lane roads that abruptly become one-lane. We got lost (several times) even with the Costa Rican GPS.
MYTH 4: My iPhone GPS or Google GPS will navigate me through Costa Rica.
FACT: Yes, the Costa Rican GPS is expensive, but I promise you that you will use it and you will love it. The Costa Rican GPS alerts you of school zones, dangerous bridges (often one-way), and reduced speeds.
Google satellites are extremely dodgy in the mountains and the instructions are delayed by three to five seconds. This doesn’t sound like a lot on paper, but Costa Rica driving instructions involve a lot of “Turn right, then make a sharp left, then turn right again” in a second’s time. The lag from your standard GPS will prove frustrating at the very least.
MYTH 5: Rental car insurance is a waste and I should get only the minimal coverage.
FACT: The majority of domestic car insurance companies limit their liability on rentals abroad. Even if you call your insurance company and are advised otherwise, some information is bound to be omitted. We opted for the insurance that gave us ZERO liability; the agent literally said, “You can bring the car back in pieces, and no charge.” Yes, this almost tripled the cost of the rental car, but having that green light to be as rowdy on the rocky roads as we could be, well, was a treat.
MYTH 6: Sodas are the cheapest place to stop and get food.
FACT: Food prices in Costa Rica have tripled over the past three years. Formal restaurants will still be the bulk of eating expense, but the sodas we went to in the highlands cost us $6 for a heaping helping of chicken and rice.
Bonus:
If you want to drink Costa Rican beer on the cheap, head to the closest supermercado, or market, where you can still pick up beers for less than $1 each.
#5: Depart, Connect or Land at 10 New International Airports
The Day Zero Project is a platform where people everywhere create a list of 101 things they would like to do in 1001 days. It’s just shy of three years and can be anything from learning a skill to completing an old goal or something like finishing the Krispy Kreme Challenge (eating a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and then running a mile!)
One of the things on my list is the title and purpose of this blog: depart, connect or land at 10 international airports that I have never been to. As of today, 10/15/2014, I have been to the following:
Louisville: 07/07/2013
Denver: 09/02/2013
Baltimore: 09/22/2013
Houston Hobby: 01/31/2014
Austin: 01/31/2014
Nashville: 02/02/2014
Seattle: 05/21/2014
Chicago O’Hare: 09/06/2014
There is something very magical that happens at airports; I frequently get odd looks when I mention this to someone as, for the average Joe, an airport brings about a lot of stress: waiting in line after line, sitting in uncomfortable airport seats, paying $12 for a pack of Twizzlers, sick people everywhere, and the jostling and general annoyance when people begin to board the plane and insist on sitting in their designated seat even though it makes absolutely no difference where you sit. This is why I like Southwest’s style of “sit wherever the hell you want. We just have to get this plane in the air.”
I digress. A life of a person reads much like a chapter book. Some chapters are better than others, but an airport is a platform for a serendipitous moment, an exchange, an opportunity to meet someone who resides thousands of miles away from you but is a kindred spirit. It’s a platform where sharing the armrest and asking someone “Are you visiting or going home?” establishes a long-forgotten human connection. It’s almost liberating. The odds of seeing that person again are slim. Something is weighing heavily on your conscience, and here you are in a plane with infinite non-biased third party perspectives. Each story a person tells me is akin to ripping out a page from his or her book and handing it to me.
Here you are. I won’t see you again. Here’s where I am right now. Here’s what I’m thinking. What I’m worried about.
How beautiful that is. You’re now in that person’s book. A guest star. 5 minutes. 5 seconds.
So many things happen before you get to an airport. You pack. There’s feelings of enormous intensity both good and bad. Some people are leaving home; some people are in search of it. Some people are reuniting with their beloved. Some are running away. Some are pursuing an opportunity. Others are leaving one behind. Some are moving away. Some are moving back. Some are ending relationships. Others are trying to fix them.
All beautiful stories. All honest scripts of the human condition. Together in a stew that is an airport.
I wanted to depart, connect or land at 10 international airports for this reason. Seattle passengers were more outdoorsy, down to earth, and more liberal than the people in Miami. People in Austin were fun-loving, food-loving, beer-loving people. Nashville was rife with that famous southern hospitality and amazing sweet tea.
A follow up to this blog, Airport Moments, will be crafted shortly after I post this.
Maybe this makes sense. Maybe it’s poetic. Maybe it’s far out and I’m seeing a disaster area through rose colored glasses. I won’t deny any of these sentiments. But an airport is one of the places that excites me: a raw hive of half-written stories.
MM.
State Signs Tour: Part III – The West in a Weekend
The west has some undeniably beautiful landscape – from Colorado to California to Yellowstone National Park. As a duo coming from Florida we witness no seasons (unless you count VERY rainy and LESS rainy seasons) and no real topographic change. This is the foundation for the dash to drive the entire west in a weekend.
Remember that we are your corporate employed 9-5 day jobbers. We gave ourselves three days to drive through America’s largest states. We dropped ourselves into Denver at 11pm straight from Miami. Landing at a new airport always gives me such a rush (see blog post: #5: Depart, Land or Connect at 10 International Airports) and Denver was new to me. We walked straight to the rental car kiosk, picked up the car and drove straight through the night from Denver to the Four Corners Monument.
The timing couldn’t have been better. We pulled up the Four Corners Monument right as the sun was coming up. It’s a beautiful, humbling sight to see this giant orb of light awaken a desert where no concrete jungle resides for hundreds of miles.
FRIDAY:
At this point we had been up for more than 24 hours. After visiting the monument, we head to each of the states that make up the four corners and collect those signs like Mario collected gold coins on Super Nintendo.
BONUS: Navajo Nation!
And last but not least, Utah!
We had a limited amount of daylight hours, so we wanted to be sure to get to the Grand Canyon before the sun set. It was an afternoon well spent, and Mark spent a considerable amount of time off the park trails.
The sun began sinking into the horizon shortly after we left the Grand Canyon, bound for Nevada. It’s now Saturday evening, and we’ve been up for nearly 36 hours without shut eye. I’m starting to get tired – seems reasonable, right?
We make Nevada, and every time we cross a state line I get another surge of energy.
We decide to stop in Vegas.
We grab In-n-Out (a must do, right?) and set up camp at Bellagio (more on that experience later). We decide to lay on the bed and give our bodies a well deserved stretch and…
That’s all I remember of Vegas.
SATURDAY:
We woke up and left Vegas at 11am. A quick 45 minute loop west welcomed us to San Bernandino, CA.
At this point we plugged in the GPS our destination for the night: Walla Walla, WA. What did the GPS say? Continue straight for 500 miles. US-93 is dubbed the Great Basin Highway and is the lonely two-lane road that gets people from Vegas to Idaho.
By the time we reach Idaho, it’s just about midnight. Mind you, we did this drive in September, when it’s still blistering hot in Miami, so I did not pack jackets or close-toed shoes or really anything to keep warm. But when I stepped out of the car to get a snapshot of Idaho at midnight, I surely wish I had packed differently.
We cut over to Oregon because there was no stopping now. We were armed with energy drinks and super unhealthy snacks. I lamented driving through Oregon at night ( and I’m sure most Oregonians would agree with this sentiment) as the countryside in the Pacific Northwest is some of the most beautiful (in my completely biased opinion). However, the goal was to collect state signs like gold coins in Super Mario, so that we did do:
Our intended destination was Walla Walla, but we’re overachievers and we drove the extra couple of hours to Spokane. This is where my energy exploded everywhere because I absolutely love Washington. It’s probably my favorite state. I’ll probably write an entire piece decided to Melody’s love of Washington state. For right now though, we’ll stick to just the state welcome sign.
SUNDAY:
Mark also decided that a night picture of the Idaho wasn’t good enough, so he took a beautiful capture of the sun peeking through the Idaho sign at the Washington border.
Not an hour later do we cross into Montana. At this point we begin wondering how far it is to Glacier National Park.
… It was too far. We wanted to do Yellowstone slightly more.
When we arrived to Yellowstone, we had just a few hours to explore the park. This is easily a place to spend a week but we managed to see Old Faithful, which is incredibly timely, several mineral springs, bacteria pools, and a buffalo.
We did find a little gem of a waterfall, Lewis Falls, upon exiting the park (headed south toward Colorado).
It’s about 8 hours from Yellowstone National Park to Denver, CO where our flight was scheduled to depart the following night.
MONDAY:
We departed Yellowstone just as the sun was going down and drove through Wyoming. We collected our last sign, our last gold coin, at the Wyoming/ Colorado border.
MONDAY NIGHT: We took the redeye from Denver to Miami, arrived in Miami at 5am and were back to work by 8.
Our whirlwind trip can be summed up like this:
Getting the Best Experience at La Fortuna Waterfall
A trip to the mountains of Costa Rica is incomplete without a visit to La Fortuna Waterfall, and for good reason. It’s a beautiful sight. You can swim in front of it and get an awesome picture of yourself with the waterfall thundering behind you. The hiking trail is well traveled, though it’s much easier to walk down the hundreds of steps than it is to come back up. There’s landings at regular intervals to rest.
However, in the last few years tourism to Costa Rica has exploded. The well traveled tourist trail is getting even more, well, traveled. What once was a waterfall that one could spend uninterrupted hours at is now a lunch stop for tour companies operating in the Arenal region. This makes alone time with La Fortuna rather difficult. We arrived at 11am to find a few couples swimming at the base of the falls. In the next half hour, Desafio Tour Company and their group of 30-40 people arrived and tourists sprawled out over the rocks in front of the waterfall to eat lunch. Unless a person is sitting perfectly still, the long exposure shot of the waterfall (like the type we were trying to get, above) becomes completely distorted.
There’s a lifeguard of sorts at the entrance to the waterfall now. You used to be able to swim behind the waterfall (a sublime experience) but this lifeguard does not permit that. In fact, if you get too close to the waterfall you get a whistle blown and a hand waving you back to shore. It takes the “unadulterated nature factor” away.
Regardless, the waterfall is still worth a quick visit. Here’s how to get your best experience:
1) Make sure you are down to the falls before 10am. In order to do this, you’ll have to get your ticket to the waterfall by 9am (tickets are still $10 USD).
2) Carry a small backpack with drinking water, a light snack, flip flops/ water shoes, and a towel.
3) Wear your bathing suit. There are no stalls to change in.
4) Leave before the lunch crowd, which trickles in about 11:30am. (It pains me to say there’s a lunch crowd at a waterfall, but there is).
#MarkandMelody
New US Customs Procedure for International Flights: 2014
The customs procedure when landing at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport has changed quite a bit. Our experience was unpleasant because five or six international flights landed at FLL at the same time. This increased a typical 5-10 minute wait at customs to over an hour.
There are two lines for customs: one for visitors to the USA and one for residents. So far, pretty standard. There are two rooms where lines form. The line for the visitors goes much faster but that’s likely because there are well, a lot less visitors than US citizens.
The most surprising advent in the customs procedure is the passport check is completely automated via a kiosk. The customs agents are of no help, but this is to be expected. The prompts on the kiosk are less than clear, also. To pass the kiosk, you must put your passport over a scanner. The machine scans the document page of your passport (document page has your name, picture, birthday, issue date, et al) and shows a picture of the scanned page to you. You verify the information and then…
You look directly into a camera on the kiosk and take a picture. If you do not look straight into the camera, the picture will not take. Once the kiosk takes a picture of you, a receipt prints out with your picture and the same information that’s on your passport plus your arriving flight information.
Once you get to the customs agent, the agent compares the photo you just took at the kiosk and the photo on your passport. I did not see anyone get pulled aside for discrepancies, but I imagine it’s a more…investigative look into why the two pictures do not match to the liking of the customs agent. The agent then finishes the routine questions: “What countries did you visit?” “Are you bringing any fruit, firearms, tobacco, etc?”, stamps your passport and you go to baggage claim to collect checked bags.
People were very confused by this entire process. I imagine once an agent or two comes in that actually assists first time international travelers with the kiosk, the procedure will go a lot smoother. People who travel frequently will find that this procedure more closely matches the customs process of say, China.
Have you traveled internationally and experienced a similar customs process? Or was yours completely different? We’d love to hear from you!
#MarkandMelody
The Most Ridiculous Drive: State Road Sign Tour: Part II
AKA: State Road Signs: Part II
What was supposed to be a trip to Miami to Dallas and back turned into Miami to North Dakota.
I’m tired just thinking about running this trip again, but it is one of our craziest adventures to date.
The fourth of July holiday lent us a four day weekend. Considering we covered nearly 2,000 miles in less than 72 hours, we were excited to see what mess we could uncover with four whole days.
We took off early afternoon on Wednesday July 3rd. The trip leaving Miami to get up to Tallyho (Tallahassee area aka Seminole Nation) was relatively smooth. However, anyone that has driven any length of Interstate 10 knows it’s the most boring but difficult road to drive. It’s like driving on a cooked spaghetti noodle. There is no part of the road where you set cruise control and just coast. It’s treacherous. It was raining. And in Mark-like fashion, the wheel got turned over to me at 2am, but not without snapping these gems first.
It was raining. It rained for awhile. We were dodging rain drops like they were bullets.
Once the sun came up, I was anxious to get some shut eye. I wanted to doze, but we were so close to Arkansas! Once the Mark has slept, he becomes quite vibrant and alive. Everything outside the car becomes positively awesome. I’ve reclined my seat back, a shirt over my face to block out the sun I so desperately wished for, and I’m just about asleep when I hear..
OH MY GOD! Look at that! That is cool.
Moments pass. I think to myself, that was probably something neat to see. Not a minute later does Mark go, “Wow! Those are gorgeous!” OK. Now I can’t sleep. How can anyone sleep with that much enthusiasm balled up in the driver’s seat?
Coffee, I’m thinking. Anything. But now the sun is up, and honestly the fact that I was in the car in a different state made me so excited that sleeping now became impossible. The seat back gets propped up and we make our way through Texarkana. By the way, an interesting place. We spent about an hour trying to figure out whether it’s TexarCONa or TexarCANa. Goodness.
It’s about this time where we begin to discuss driving to NORTH DAKOTA. It’s only another thousand miles or whatever, right? What’s the difference. We’d already driven that. I’m on the phone with Hertz trying to determine if it’s even remotely possible to drop the car off in a different state and fly home.
Improvising at its best.
Finally a nap. We go to explore Dallas. Where’s all the fireworks? Where’s the drunken debauchery? Nowhere to be found. Dear Dallas, your Independence Day festivities are lacking. Sincerely, ME. We wound up rubbing shoulders with some young Marine friends and some woman that was very interested in my man. Which made me very interested in her. Until I saw this gem.
That’s about all I remember about Dallas.
The next thing I remember is leaving Dallas and heading up to the Dakotas. So close, but yet so far.
We zigzagged across state lines which is pretty easy to do; there’s really only one interstate that takes you straight up the country.
By the time we got to Iowa, it was time to eat. We were chugging along with the help of Monsters and an assortment of candy ranging from Twizzlers to sour gummy worms to chocolate . It was time to eat real food.
Interestingly enough, we got welcomed to Omaha before the state of Nebraska.
We’re getting into the wee hours of the morning again, so that means it’s my turn to drive.
The road from Nebraska to North Dakota is lonely. The speed limit is 75. There was construction. It was dark. The sky was truly a blanket of stars. Had I been camping, I would have loved it.
But I wasn’t camping. So I didn’t love it. It was in fact a very stressful drive. There were warning signs for all kinds of wildlife that may be bouncing around in the bushes. I feared every reflector post on the road was a pair of beady little deer eyes. From about 10pm to 4am, (Mark will disagree with this to no avail. He calls this an exaggeration) I carried the tremendous burden of transporting us safely to the Dakotas, waking him gently once we finally arrived.
Finally we get to North Dakota. I’m gently awoken that we’ve arrived at the North Dakota sign. I sleepily open the passenger door and these MOSQUITOES THE SIZE OF SOFTBALLS get themselves knotted up in my hair. Rude awakening. What’s more is that we got a crap shot of the North Dakota sign. The iphone did the best it could.
By the time we leave Chicago (after failing at obtaining Chicago pizza, that story soon to come), it’s nearing 9pm. We’ve decided at this point to drop the rental car off at the Louisville International Airport and fly back to Miami from there. There are five more states to go. Ready?
It’s well past midnight. We make Michigan.
It’s raining. We’re both exhausted. We need to sleep. We pull off on the side of the road to take a quick nap. A highway officer knocks on our window, tells us, You can’t sleep here, but there’s a rest stop a mile up the road. Mark drives us to the rest stop. We get some shut eye, and wake up with the sun and begin our drive again.
We make Ohio shortly before breakfast.
Not bad for 96 hours, right?
#MarkandMelody
State Signs Tour: Part I
In a year and a half, we’ve logged over 12,000 miles traveling by car.
…WOW. That’s about the distance from Anchorage, Alaska to the Panama Canal and back. To answer the question that’s bugging you, yes we’ve talked about it and yes: driving the entirety of the PanAm is on the agenda.
Here’s PART I of our tour of the 48 contiguous United States via the state welcome signs. This was a personal goal of Mark’s we completed in just over six months. Most of our drives we spent the first day and night (upon landing at an airport) driving. About half of the pictures are in the daytime; the other half are at night. Without further adieu, our tour!
Southeast Trip – February 2013.
Next up! The Northeast! We flew in to Baltimore (BWI) and after getting stuck in DC for about 2 (Mark will probably say 5) hours, we finally made it out and got on our way.
Last but not least, the sun setting over Maine. To head back toward Baltimore or stay in Portland and feast on lobster? Silly question. We feasted.
Northeast Trip, April 2013.
Stay tuned! The Central Trip will be coming up momentarily.
#MarkandMelody
A Step, a Mile, Thousands of Miles
When describing our travels and adventures to others, the most common response received from friends, coworkers, and random strangers alike is something akin to “Really?! Are you crazy?”
Melody and I enjoy a challenge.
Whether it be to visit 48 States and take a picture of ourselves next to each “Welcome to ______” sign, or to get from Portland, ME to Baltimore, MD in 6 1/2 hours (not a favorite memory for Melody)…we welcome the challenge.
Our first ‘real’ outing was many many moons before our relationship began, but from the moment I met her – amid the deafening roar of the first top-fuel dragster event at Palm Beach International Raceway (formerly known as Morosso) – I knew that this was the person I wanted to get to know better and a person whom I would take great pleasure in having the company of. The only problem was…I was in a relationship, and so was she. This would prove to be the greatest test of my patience to date.
After a series of trials and tribulations with other people, I decided to take a year off of the ‘dating’ scene. What I found within this year was that I am much stronger than I gave myself credit for, and that if I wanted to…I could do great things. I focused on work, developing my business, and thought about the future and where I wanted it to take me. This was also when I began traveling and spending more time with friends, developing stronger relationships with my friends.
In March of 2012, having worked as a Valet attendant at a condo in Boca Raton, FL for the previous 2 years, I realized that I was living a stagnant life and needed to make a change. I decided to pursue my business full-time. The first few months were a little tight, but with the insight from other young professionals and my mentor Dr. Kerensky, I soon began to build my client list and develop my specialization into Efficiency Consulting.
Seven months later, I secured the job which I am still at today, implementing policy and procedures at a construction company based out of Miami, FL as a Special Projects Manager.
One late night in February, after a long day at work, the decision was made that I would take a random trip up to Jacksonville – final destination unknown. I had been speaking with Melody off and on since October of the previous year, and I invited her to join me for a road trip. To my delight, she agreed – sparking our non-stop travel since.
Our first trip totaled 1700 miles in 3 days, driving nearly non-stop. We left from Boca Raton and drove to Jacksonville, FL through the night. We watched the sun rise at the Jacksonville Beach Pier, snapping beautiful photos along the way.
Sunrise at Jacksonville Beach
Melody on Boardwalk
Exhausted and weary from our travels, we got breakfast and coffee, then visited the local Walgreen’s. We procured a map and four quarters, dropped the quarters, and drove to the intersection of the coins – which happened to be Fitzgerald, GA.
Along the way, we had a cotton – pickin’ time!
Built some Snowmen!
Made Snow Angels!
We drove across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, talking and laughing, with only one night of sleep in Georgia.
This trip marked the first real time that we had ever spent together alone, and was a true test of endurance for us. We spent nearly 40 hours in the car together, and what’s more…we didn’t kill each other.
Since then, we have logged about 12k miles driving around the United States. We have taken pictures of ourselves next to 46 of the State Welcome signs (we managed to miss Massachusetts somehow after driving through it 4 times and it was raining when we went through New York), and have been on many amazing journeys, with many many more planned.
Every Country Couple 