10 Things to Do While In Colombia

10. Eat more than 50 different types of Crepes at Crepes and Waffles. If you love crepes (sweet or savory), you will find yourself making multiple stops at Crepes and Waffles, one of the best food chains in Colombia. Hands down, the Colombians beat the French and Belgians at their own game...

9. Take a scuba diving course in Taganga, on the northern coast. At 500k pesos ($250) to get your open water certification, Colombia is one of the cheapest places to get your diving certification. It's not as scary after the first two dives...If anyone is interested in coming along, I may go back in the coming months and do my advance or even dive master certifications. I recommend Vida Marina.

8. Stay at Casa Felipe, Taganga, and enjoy paying $15 for a private room or $8 for a bed (if you don't mind sharing a room) and eat one of the best meals in Colombia. Casa Felipe is where travelers end up spending several weeks of many months in Colombia. While most plan to be in Colombia for 2-3 weeks, they end up staying for several months.


7. Dance the night away and perfect your salsa skills in Cali or the Zona Rosa in Bogota. If you like to salsa, bachata, merengue, raggaeton...whatever...Colombia is hot.

6. Drink Agua Diente with lemon juice or Medillin Rhum, just not alone...


5. Take a speed boat from Cartagena to Playa Blanca and sleep on the beach in a hammock for 1 or 2 nights, watch the sun rise and set and eat grilled fish in plantains for lunch and dinner...All for under $20 a night. But you can't be afraid of the dark...


4. Visit Cartagena to see the beautifully preserved colonial walled city that is a UNESCO heritage sight and as a launching pad to other sites on the Caribbean coast. Go at night and during the day...it is beautiful regardless.



3. For the more intrepid, go to Ciudad Perdida, the Lost City, if you do not fear wandering around the jungle on a five day treck and mosquito bites, you will discover the home of indigenous people who lived there more than 600 years ago...

2. Go to Tyrona Park, one of the most beautiful and very well preserved parks on the beach with hundreds of Animal Species or forget the animals and relax on the beach.


1. Get yourself invited home for a meal with someone to get a sense of how people live and experience a culture that really values family and friends...and its not just lip service folks. In 2006, Colombians were rated in the top 5, as one of the happiest people on earth in the Happy Planet Index. While most may not have the material possessions we have in more "economically developed" societies...they have held on to the basics.

For more pics go to this facebook link.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=app_2305272732#/photos.php?id=104087

A World To Discover!

After years of traveling and countless postcards sent, it has become apparent that blogging is a more effective way to share my journeys to far flung and often less traveled destinations. As a child, I fancied myself an explorer and spent hours watching Indiana Jones and reading National Geographic. As an adult equip with a degree in Anthropology, a love for what I call exploration travel and a disdain for the notion of watching the world on our t.v. sets. Perhaps you would like to get off your couch and join me on my journeys.

My recent trip to Colombia, where I met many travelers on around-the-world journeys or circumnavigating South America, I was inspired to bring this spirit of adventure and a deep understanding for the limitless possibilities of the natural world and the human spirit; back with me the U.S. Sadly, most Americans don't partake in my style of traveling, opting more for the overpriced all-inclusive plantation-like monstrocities that have overtaken the Caribbean.

My hope is to inspire everyone to re-awaken their spirit for adventure and just get up and go...See some of the places you used to dream of visiting and perhaps re-discover the essence of life, which for the rest of the world, is not material possessions and one's professional title.

I will take a retroactive approach and will provide a feature story to each country I have traveled, with pictures, a theme, anecdotes and recommendations for how you can do it too on a shoestring budget...


I will choose a different country or city I have traveled to based on overall interest. I also invite all of you to join in through your comments or if you would like to share. If you have great pictures of these places or stories of your wild antics (we are keeping it PG13+), I invite you to email them to me or post them directly on the blog ( I will give you access.) If you are interested in visiting a place not on this list, chances are I know someone who has been there...even Antarctica is fair game.

Life doesn't have to be dreadful, even though we are in a recession...


Colombia ( Next Up...easily on my top 5 favorite countries list)
Turkey
France (Paris)
Spain
Greece
Egypt
Lebanon
South Africa
Morocco
Haiti
Dominican Republic
Puerto Rico
Belgium
UK (London)