Next Wednesday, July 31, 2024, marks exactly 10 years since my first ever post on this blog. On that day, I was one month out from departing US soil for a journey that took me around the world over 15 months, from Reykjavik to Tokyo, and back home again. It was my dream trip—that I fully realized with my own planning and my own travel hacked budget.

Since then, I’ve worked full-time jobs in New York and Florida while documenting continued international travels to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and Central America and domestic travels to AZ, LA, MA, and UT. I committed to a blog post a week for the first 2.5 years of the blog. For the last 7.5 years, I’ve stayed 100% consistent in posting every other week to this blog, even through COVID-19 when travel opportunities became primarily localized to Miami and other parts of Florida.

10 years is a lot of time. I really can’t believe it’s been that long since I took that 15-month trip around the world. I think often about returning to some of the places I visited, especially New Zealand or to visit family again in Germany. Perhaps I will sometime soon! But life shifts. Five years ago, I moved to Miami marking an important change in lifestyle, career, travel, and more. Now, after 5 years living here, a new shift is coming. While there will hopefully be other news to share sometime soon, there is one big announcement I’d like to make on this 10 year anniversary of the blog. It begins with a reintroduction to me, your blog author.

So hi. This is me, and this is what is next…

2 Comments

This post kicks off what will be a few very brief stories about my trip back to Mexico for 7 days in late April-early May of this year.

My friends, Ellen and Tori, invited me to join them for a few just across the water on the mainland in Playa Del Carmen a few months after we met in Cozumel. I turned it into a week-long stay, including a few days on my own to try diving the world’s second largest barrier reef again.

This ended up being an extremely low cost trip at around $900 for 7 days. This was not only because of the generosity of my travel friends but also because I applied my usual, low-budget approach to my experience.

And I still didn’t sacrifice on doing what I wanted which included: roof top pool bars, a visit to the famous Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, a boat ride to see flamingos, four dives to the sea floor, swimming in crystal clear cenotes, and so much more!

Comment