AdventuresAroundThe.World

Mon, 08 Jun 2026 16:25:37 -0700

Next up: campervanning around Norway! 🇳🇴

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 19:00:00 -0700

Unfortunately, we had to pull the plug on our trip to El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama due to a concerning health diagnosis that was ultimately deemed a false alarm. We expect to reschedule the trip for January or February 2027 instead.

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 14:32:28 -0700

Next international trip: El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama in February.

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 19:26:46 -0700

Today sorta sucked, but at least we can mark off another country on our Drink a Guinness in an Irish Pub in 32 Countries quest.

What’s that? The only Irish pub, that took 35 mins to uber to, does not have any Guinness to offer, not even in bottles? Whew boy, can’t catch a break… -S🇨🇷

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 17:20:06 -0700

Today was a crappy day of driving in heavy traffic, punctuated by getting hit by a semi truck. We’re fine (and yes, bought all the insurance) but still…not a fun endeavor in a foreign country. Might bail on our wildlife viewing plans tomorrow and just uber around the city to avoid the driving.

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:34:07 -0700

I am always amazed at some of the things people manage to transport while riding a motorcycle. -S🇳🇮

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:00:00 -0700

Our last adventure of the day was a boat ride on Lake Nicaragua among the many small islands. We were even lucky enough to find some spider monkeys. -J 🇳🇮

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:30:00 -0700

We enjoyed a brief carriage ride around Grenada, one of the first European cities in the Americas, founded by Cordoba in 1524. -J 🇳🇮

Masaya Volcano National Park

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:15:00 -0700

We were fortunate enough to be able to visit Masaya Volcano National Park, Nicaragua’s oldest and largest National Park. It was closed in March 2024, when a landslide covered the lava lake with debris, blocking the release of volcanic gases. As a result, there is a significant potential for volcanic explosion. The Park has been closed until very recently. They have reopened, but due to the explosion potential, a ranger is based at the overlook strictly enforcing the rule that groups are only permitted to spend 5 minutes there before they must leave the park. -J 🇳🇮

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 15:00:00 -0700

After breakfast, we stopped in Catarina to visit the overlook to a crater lake and check out the markets. - J 🇳🇮

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 09:56:37 -0700

After standing in immigration lines for two hours, we’ve made it into Nicaragua. Here was our traditional breakfast just over the border, which provided a great view of the two volcanoes of Ometepe Island on Lake Nicaragua (Lago Cocibolca). -S 🇳🇮

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 19:05:09 -0700

Well, talking travel at happy hour has struck again!

During today’s brewery visit, we discussed altering our El Salvador itinerary next month to sneak in a visit to Panama. And, well, we’ve already changed all the bookings. 😂

Our 3 days there will finish off Central America for us both. 🙌 -S🇨🇷

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:49:27 -0700

We managed a quick stop at another craft brewery this afternoon, conveniently located within walking distance of our hotel. Cheers! 🍻 -S 🇨🇷

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:37:46 -0700

These huge fan palms in La Fortuna were so unusual. -J 🇨🇷

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:20:23 -0700

Today we repositioned ourselves from La Fortuna to Liberia in preparation for a very long day tour over the border into Nicaragua tomorrow. The tour is listed as being between 14-17 hours long, but it’ll allow us to visit a country we otherwise wouldn’t have attempted by ourselves. -S 🇨🇷

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:15:50 -0700

Driving from La Fortuna today, we finally found some wildlife! -J 🇨🇷

Coatis on the roadside.

And two different iguanas bookin’ it across the road.

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:00:00 -0700

Seriously, who doesn’t need a few more sloth photos in their life? He is too cute! - J 🇨🇷

Impressive vistas at Paos Volcano National Park

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 16:40:41 -0700

Back in 2016, I took Jen to Shenandoah National Park for her birthday. We stopped at all 70+ viewpoints on Skyline Drive, each of which was completely obscured by low clouds.

Today felt a bit like that.

Our volcano crater view was, well…less than desirable.

Yep, fully socked in, zero view to be had. To be fair, we weren’t surprised. We had decided between a very early start, which might have allowed for a viewing of the volcanic crater below before the clouds blew in, and a later, more leisurely morning that might result in us getting skunked on the view. We chose the latter, and well, we got skunked on on a view of this:

But that’s ok, because while the crater at Poas Volcano National Park is a popular photo spot in Costa Rica, we weren’t super excited to see it. After all, we’ve been to a number of volcanos and volcanic areas already. Though, this one was a bit different in that it’s far more active than any we had visited (besides Kilauea in Hawaii).

There are warning signs everywhere, including lots of maps of various evacuation routes. There’s also a gas monitoring station right at the viewpoint on the crater rim, which helps govern when the viewpoint is open to the public. And all along the viewpoint are little yellow circles pointing out damage from rocks ejected from the crater below.

Anticipating that we’d miss out on a clear view from the rim, we had planned to hike through the cloud forest to an alternative viewpoint of a dormant crater on the other side of the mountain that is less likely to be covered by clouds. That’d be enough for us, giving us a nice view after a leisurely stroll through the jungle.

So we started off on the hike. While the path was paved and generally pleasant, it was much steeper than we had been led to believe—and boy did we notice that fact.

It didn’t help that we were both carrying heavy backpacks and both of our big cameras. Because petty theft, especially of rental cars, is such a big problem here in Costa Rica, we had to carry our most important belongings with us (medications, laptops, passports, etc) along with whatever else we’d need if our luggage was stolen from the car, weighing us down. All at elevation of 8,500 feet.

So we stopped routinely to look for wildlife, catch our breath, and take an occasional photo along the trail.

We eventually made it to the alternative viewpoint of the dormant crater and its lake. Which was, as I’m sure you’ve already gathered, also socked in by clouds.

Oh well, so it goes. At least it was all downhill back to the car.

-S🇨🇷

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 15:41:50 -0700

Yesterday we ended up at the craft brewpub we had originally identified when we first arrived in town. We stopped in sometime in the afternoon but ended up staying pretty late (🥱) after befriending an American couple and watching the college football National Championship game with them. The guy was from Indiana, and we were also rooting for Indiana, so it was easy to join their table in front of the tv.

We had a pleasant time, watching and chatting travel. We tried every local craft beer they had, but were elated when we discovered a couple of well-rated Canadian imports (definitely the best we’ve had in the trip) hidden in the cooler. -S 🇨🇷

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:50:32 -0700

After our wet Arenal Volcano visit, we happened across a touristy bar & grill with street side seating—perfect for some people watching while grabbing a quick bite. We also sipped some local craft beer, which is apparently brewed using wood-fired stoves to brew its beer. Huh. -S🇨🇷

Our visit to Arenal Volcano National Park

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:29:13 -0700

Our main target here in the La Fortuna area was visiting Arenal Volcano National Park. We made an early start to get there, we hoped, before the clouds obscured views of the mountain and while more wildlife was out.

The walk was generally enjoyable, even in the constant rain.

But the trail itself was quite muddy at times, requiring all sorts of maneuvering to get around extended puddles and deep, slippery mud. Jen, unfortunately, doesn’t have waterproof shoes and had a bum knee after the previous day’s hike, so this was an especially difficult challenge.

Had we worn our sandals, we could have perhaps just walked right through the mess, though I’m sure we’d have needed a trekking pole for balance while unsuctioning our footwear from the mud. Neither of us took any photos of the difficult muddy sections, so we only have shots of the good parts of the trail.

One thing we noticed is how difficult it is to spot wildlife in these conditions, at least for amateurs like us. The constant rain meant that there was movement everywhere, the impact of thousands and thousands of raindrops bouncing leaves back and forth. Given the already visually cluttered landscape, it was tougher to spot an animal moving through the jungle. You often hear an animal before you see it, but the surprisingly loud chorus of rain on all of these leaves made for quite the racket too. Brief lulls in the rain allowed us to hear bird calls and occasional rustling, but we didn’t see any coveted wildlife species.

So we instead focused on some of the smaller details of the forest.

By the end, we were so thoroughly soaked through, even with full rain jackets. But this initial hike was just a warm-up for the longer hike we had planned to do. So we stopped at the trailhead kiosk for a quick glance at the map, chatting with a couple hikers who had just returned from the trail. They told us that the trail was very muddy, and the view was still socked in. But we started off anyway, following a large bus tour group that had just gotten started too., and hoping that we’d see some of this mysterious wildlife.

I mean, look at all the super cool wildlife we might encounter:

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for us to encounter a few much-worse-than-we’ve-seen sections. The group ahead of us unsuccessfully attempted one major stretch and, by consensus, summarily canceled the entire tour right there in front of us.

By this point, we were already skeptical that we’d enjoy the remaining experience, so we headed back too, hoping to walk an adjacent road to another viewpoint and perhaps see something along the way. But once we walked a bit, that seemed unlikely too, and we finally called it, headed back to the car, and drove back to our hotel in La Fortuna. Jen did see this worm, though, which we joked was the only wildlife we had properly spotted. -S🇨🇷

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 15:55:16 -0700

There’s a resident sloth in the parking lot of our cheap hotel here in La Fortuna—pretty cool! But after several attempts, I’ve yet to get a quality shot. Either she’s in shade and silhouetted against a bright cloudy sky, or I pull out my good camera and the lens immediately fogs over. Gah! -S🇨🇷

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:39:46 -0700

We had dinner at the local brewpub here in La Fortuna last night. Beer was ok, food was pretty good. Spent much of our time chatting with a British couple seated next to us. They’re on their third month on this trip, having just finished a few weeks of volunteering at a sea turtle sanctuary. -S🇨🇷

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 08:11:09 -0700

Some shots (and gifs) from La Paz Waterfall. -S🇨🇷

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:54:38 -0700

The views along the drive in central Costa Rica were great! -J 🇨🇷