lindsay traveling

Friday. Last night in Oaxaca . Enjoy a bittersweet last night out with a few of my favorite new friends. One of them is particularly impressed at how laid back and easy going I am about traveling to Cuba. Me, laid back and easy going? You know this doesn't end well. Saturday. Arrive in Mexico City. Visit a friend from Spanish school at his girlfriend's French bakery (yum). After some wandering, spend the rest of the evening eating and drinking and reading at a great restaurant on a great roundabout. Spend about 30 minutes researching how to get into Cuba, which obviously I should have done earlier. After some last minute jitters and messages to friends, rest easy knowing everything will be fine because they won't stamp my passport. Sunday. They stamped my passport. Commence in-airport freakout. No idea what to do or what might happen, or how to find out what to do or what might happen. Repeatedly replay the interaction with the immigration officer in my hea...

After exploring Oaxaca for four weeks so far (plus four days last year), I don't claim to be an expert. But I've found a handful of places that I absolutely love! If you find yourself in Oaxaca, I highly recommend you check out... Restaurants and Bars Calabacitas Tiernas is a charming little hole in the wall. Always vegetarian, often even vegan, the four-course menu del dia is a steal at 90 pesos. Instead of relying on rice, beans, and tortillas to satisfy us vegetarians, Calabacitas Tiernas stuffs their dishes to the brim with fresh produce. Each course is much more fruit and veg than it is filler, and all of it is both delicious and disinfected. My favorite combination! Biche Pobre was recommended by locals, and is a little light on tourists due to its location slightly outside the city center. The restaurant has two stories filled with plenty of tables, but even still, a line out the door is commonplace. My chilaquiles were delicious -- although that's ki...

I fell in love with Oaxaca the first time I visited, so it was an easy choice for 5 weeks of language school. Now, one week in, I know I made the right decision! I've settled into an awesome routine... Breakfast and coffee in my cute apartment (usually while scrambling to finish my homework), then a 30 minute walk to school. 9:00-1:00, class with a genuinely skilled educator and a handful of new friends. 1:00-3:00, wander around until I find a (relatively) indulgent restaurant for a leisurely lunch. 3:00-4:00, "intercambio," conversational language exchange with a super interesting woman from Oaxaca. 4:00-6:00, cooking class (in Spanish) with a friendly and talented woman who even lets us eat the yummy food afterward! After that, too full for dinner and too brain-fried for much more Spanish, I've either been going out with classmates and/or locals, or going straight home to rest my brain. I'm having a great time, and hopefully I'm even learning ...

How do you prepare for a big trip?  I've made about fifteen different lists, mental and otherwise, and would love to share what I've learned!  Let's get all this logistical stuff out of the way quickly and painlessly so we can all get on to the real fun!! T-6 Months 1. Make sure your passport is current. Your passport probably needs to be valid for a few months after you return home.  Look up the rules for your destinations, and renew your passport if necessary.  Some travelers even choose to request a second passport so they're not without one when mailing in the other for a visa.  Speaking of visas, if you are renewing your passport, now's a great time to stock up on passport photos, as many visas will require them. 2. Investigate visas. Different countries have very different visa requirements.  Sometimes you don't need one, or can buy one easily at the airport.  Other times you need to mail your passport in months in advance. ...

I was so honored when the authors of Once in a Lifetime Journey offered me the opportunity to write a guest post for their blog. They are doing a series on moments that restored travelers' faith in humanity. I wrote the following piece for the series. You can see my feature here . I started getting nervous in Chicago.  I had traveled before, but rarely by myself.  And never without some sort of in-country contact.  So as I waited for my connecting flight, I got nervous. And then the flight attendant told me that my checked bag was not on the plane.  “Nervous” became an understatement.  My backpack hadn’t made it, she said.  Ground crew is off duty in the middle of the night, she said.  Ground crew always keeps the same schedule -- that bag never could have made it onto that flight, she said.  Thanks a lot, Travelocity. I flew anxiously all night, then ran around Antigua in a panic when I forgot the location of my bus connection. ...

I've been lucky enough to stay in a lot of really good hostels.  They had all the usual perks: lockers, book exchanges, plenty of restrooms, convenient locations, cleanliness, and (knock on wood!) a delightful lack of bed bugs.  But there are a few that stand out in my mind as truly great hostels, and those have taught me what to look for when I consider new ones.  What do they have that the others don't? Lake Atitlan, Guatemala 1. Awesome common space. The best hostels I've found don't just have a common area -- they have a really great common area.  It's beautiful, comfortable, and just the right size. But it's also strategically planned so that it's easy to make friends.  The common area is located right near the main entrance, so it feels natural to connect with people who are just arriving.  The seating in the common area is positioned for group interaction.  Everything about it feels open and inclusive. In my not-so-favorite hostels, ...

I get so much more out of my travel when I have the chance to read about each place before and during my visit.  Setting the stage with historical and political context, getting excited about the mood and culture of the place, feeling a connection through personal stories, whatever!  I lean toward nonfiction, especially if it reflects my passions (social justice, Christianity, and food, to name a few), but I love the occasional page turner beach read too. Can you help me make my travel reading list??  I'd love to hear about anything that would be fun to read in any of the regions I'm planning to visit!  My hope is that this becomes a living document that changes with all your feedback! (Of course, if I'm asking you for your recommendations, I may as well return the favor -- I included but crossed out the books I've already read that I'd recommend you read in these places!  For more of my book recommendations, here I am on goodreads !) In or near Oaxaca,...

My apartment is covered, and I'm in the middle of buying my round the world ticket!!!  Eeeeee!!!  I figure that means now's as good a time as any to update the blog! I gave up trying to cram in every place in the world I've ever wanted to visit.  Instead I've just been piecing together the places I know I want to visit on this trip, and figuring I'll leave the in-between stuff a little more spontaneous.  I'm so so so excited about my skeleton so far! 1. Spanish school in Oaxaca, Mexico 2. Cuba!  No particular plans, but hopefully lots of dancing and lots of eating! 3. Helping with health education in Santa Cruz, Bolivia 4. Bolivia's Salt Flats 5. Argentina!  Hopefully something city-ish in Buenos Aires , and something farm-ish in Mendoza 6. New Zealand - ? - maybe farming? 7. The classic Australia camper van road trip -- Melbourne, Sydney, obviously scuba dive the Great Barrier Reef... 8. Layovers in Perth and Singapore because why not (man...

Last Wednesday, after waiting for weeks for sabbatical news to show up in my mailbox, I was lucky enough to find out from a friend at work instead -- I got it!! It was surreal, it was exciting, my heart raced, and I was sure I wanted to do it. Well, like 80% sure. But I gave myself a week to sift through my reaction, and realized that I absolutely 100% want to do it.  I'll get to do so many things I've always wanted to do, and the timing in my life couldn't be more perfect. So, after a deep breath and a sad goodbye to my 11th grade students, I mailed in my acceptance! I also picked the brains of about 17 of my friends from about 15 different countries and officially registered on WWOOF Argentina, WWOOF Spain, WWOOF Portugal, and Work Away. It's happening!!! As luck would have it, I also had the opportunity at work to say to a 15 year old boy, in all professionalism and seriousness, "no, I am not asking you to measure your penis." Now I am officially...