Overtourism has been making an appearance in the media. Many tourist hot spots have become super saturated with selfie stick wielding package tourists. Places like Venice, Dubrovnik and Barcelona have become inundated with tourists to the exasperation of many locals.
No country does wildlife parks as well as Costa Rica. They manage their parks to maximise enjoyment for tourists while providing a safe and sustainable habitat for its rich abundance of mammals, birds fish and insects. Its a land where you can be assured of getting up close and personal with all manner of exotic birds and animals in their natural environment.
We are back from a 2 weeks trip to Costa Rica. As independent travelers I generated a list of things I wish I had known or researched before we left. We hired a car and traveled around the central Pacific regions doing a bunch of day hikes hoping to see the local wildlife.
3 days hiking and 2 days Kayaking
Hiking to the hill tribes followed by kayaking to the Buddha Caves on the Nam Ou and Mekong Rivers outside Luang Prabang, was 5 days that was arguably life changing. It was tough hiking, punctuated by amazing local people along the way with a backdrop of lush tropical views.
Hiking at night at first can seem pointless or possibly dangerous but it need not be either. Here in the Canadian winter the daylight hours are often spent at work and hiking at night becomes the only way to get your walks in during the week.
Mt Roraima rose to fame when Sir Walter Raleigh described it during his search for the legendary golden city of El Dorado and Arthur Conan wrote of it in his novel “The Lost World”. Despite its fame it is not on the path so well-traveled.
We've all done it. Over-packing can happen to anyone. I've done more than once and regretted it every time. You often start out with the best intentions of "only taking what you need" and then you think "oooh! I might need an extra this or that, or I could go somewhere posh and need to dress up".
The Caving Weekend of Caving, Camping and Swimming for Non Cavers
Vancouver Island has over 1000 underground limestone caves. Over 10km of these have been explored. It is the home of caving in Canada as the total amount of explored caves on Vancouver Island is more than the rest of Canada combined.
I wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago but only had 2 weeks annual leave. I can't carry a backpack for 2 weeks as my knees are not up to the task. The French Camino (the one in all the movies) is busy as Walmart on Black Friday so I chose The Camino Portuguese and did it the lazy way.
A middle aged friend of mine recently told me that she would love to walk the Camino BUT her bad back won’t allow her to carry a backpack.
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