When you go backpacking in El Salvador you are not quite sure what to expect and most likely, you will stay in places you will never have heard of. The latest surprise gem was Santa Ana. Quite simply this is a spectacular and proud town in the countryside of El Salvador. Not too busy to…
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Do you believe the hype about San Pedro Sula in Honduras? You’d be a fool not to, the statistics speak for themselves. As far as backpacking in Honduras is concerned, San Pedro Sula is usually the city to avoid. Gang warfare rules supreme here. Year after year the murder statistics are huge, and except for massacres…
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I completed a hat trick of “San Cristobals” when I took my backpack to the cool city of San Cristobal de las Casas recently. I’d already visited San Cristobal in Bolivia in 2010 and the one in venomous Venezuela in 2011. But the Mexican city of the same name knocked the previous brace into touch.…
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“Hey Xela, stars about to fall so what do you say, Xela” – Noel Gallagher, lyrics altered slightly (Lyla) Quetzaltenango (Xela) is a decent backpacking beast. Factually it is Guatemala’s second biggest city. Though quite where these half a million odd locals actually are could baffle you. We arrived across the border from Ciudad Cuauhtemoc…
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Throw Belem into anyone’s dreams of backpacking in Brazil and you might get the “where is that?” response. I don’t blame them for asking that. But when you get beneath the surface of a city like Belem you get to know its charm and you realise – these are cool places and you might not…
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It’s been seven years since I went backpacking in the USA and while I have fond memories of touring Los Angeles and New York on the cheap, it’s the realisation that the world is huge and we may never be there again. Here’s a sure fire top 5 things to do in Atlantic City in New…
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Oaxaca de Juarez comes as a pleasant surprise as you bus your way south of Mexico City. In the wake of a lot of air disasters, it was a wise move to use buses in Mexico and we had quite a few before heading to Guatemala. We arrived by bus into Oaxaca and decided on…
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Macau is an enigma. Colonised by the Portuguese, owned by China and influenced by the big bad world of gambling. As a backpacker, I’ve passed through the city/country/colony a couple of times and always had a great time. I never really covered a personal top 5 on here though, so here goes… 1. Grand Lisboa…
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Most overland backpackers to the Guyanas will pass through the French Guyana riverside town of St. Laurent Du Maroni. For us we used it as our stepping stone to Suriname but still spent a day and night to check out the ‘delights’ of the town. In all honesty apart from the coolness and uniqueness of…
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Guyana is not the most obvious country on a backpacking tour of South America, and admittedly it is a slightly harder one to access than Brazil, Argentina etc. However these are the places I enjoy the most – less touristy, more raw and normally very inspiring. Georgetown is the capital of Guyana and is a…
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