One is not always the loneliest number.

The first trip I took alone was when I was 20 years old. I had traveled around the United States with my family growing up, taking various Griswoldian road trips each summer, some in a Ford station wagon (complete with wood paneling), some in a Plymouth Horizon (gas crisis of the late 1970s), and some in a Chevy Citation (no idea). We saw numerous places, historical sites, and natural wonders across many states, but I had never taken a trip anywhere by myself.

When I was 20, and just completing my second year of college and my first year at Colorado State, I decided I was ready for an adventure. So I took a summer job at a camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. I was going to be a lifeguard and serve as a counselor in a bunk. I didn’t ask any friends to go. I didn’t ask my boyfriend to go. I didn’t have a clue as to what to expect – and that’s why I went.

To get to the Poconos, I first took a flight to Newark. From there I had to take a bus into New York City to catch another bus at Port Authority Bus Terminal. Let me add that this was my first real trip and my packing skills were even worse back then. I was using what now seems to me a ridiculously ginormous piece of luggage with wheels, although not the well-placed efficient wheels of today’s luggage. Oh no, this was before the brilliant engineering of wheelies – the wheeled upright pullman if you will – with lightweight styling, expandable compartments, retractable handles with ergonomic grips, and spinner wheels. My wheeled suitcase was a big rectangle (though soft-sided, which was pretty hip) with wheels on the bottom that were spaced in such a way that made the suitcase anything but upright. The handle with which to pull the ginormous suitcase was merely a strap. To make matters even worse, the minute I stepped out of the Newark airport, tugging my heavy suitcase behind me, the strap broke. So no strap. Giant suitcase. Heavy as a Plymouth Horizon. Awesome.

I got to Port Authority and I must admit I was very intimidated. This was New York City. I was a walking stereotype of a midwest girl coming to the big(est) city. I couldn’t get my suitcase up the escalator, that’s how heavy it was. (Who knew shorts and bathing suits weighed so much?) I had to ask some guy working in the bus station to help me carry my luggage to my gate. I was so happy to get the help that I think I gave him like $20. Then I found out I had eight hours until my bus for the Poconos left. Eight hours! So I waited, not leaving my spot on the floor at the gate for the bus. What was I going to do, go walk around Manhattan with the grey, soft-sided refrigerator? There was no locker big enough in the station to stow the behemoth. Plus, quite frankly, I was too scared to go out into that city by myself. I had no idea where anything was. For all I knew, Port Authority was in the worst part of town, far away from anything interesting. I knew nothing because I was just supposed to catch a bus. That’s it.

Waiting for this bus was the first time I learned that there are always interesting people you can meet when you are traveling alone. Take the strange, loquacious man who waited for the bus with me for a while. He started talking to me and eventually got around to the “So, what’s your sign” question. He wasn’t hitting on me; I think this guy was genuinely into astrology because when I told him “Sagittarius” he exuberantly exclaimed, “Really? My brother is a Sagittarius!” I think he might have been a little drunk.

On the bus ride, I met another person, this time a young woman around my age. We talked the whole way and were luckily getting off at the same small town stop. Her boyfriend was waiting for her there at the bus station that was closed because it was past midnight. There wasn’t anyone around except a group of people that seemed quite loud and rowdy. I had to use a payphone to call the camp for someone to come get me, and when I was done, my new friend and her boyfriend were still there. They said they wouldn’t leave until my ride got there. I was so grateful! I never saw her again, but I was glad I met her on my first solo adventure.

Once I was at camp, I met counselors from all over the U.S. and the world. I was immersed into the world of sleep-away camp for Jewish kids. I had only known one Jewish family my entire life, and here I was singing “Shabbat Shalom” at Friday night service, eating bagels and lox on Saturdays (okay, I didn’t really eat either of those), learning about bar and bat mitvahs, and keeping kosher. And it was so exciting and interesting to learn this stuff. Hebrew was cool!

The Poconos were rainy and humid and our letters from home were always soggy and limp, like wet potato chips. We drove on curvy roads, bordered by impenetrable woods, into town on our nights off to eat pizza and drink at the local watering hole. We developed crushes on the male counselors and listened to taunting camp songs the kids sang (loudly) when they saw us talking to boys. We protested the firing of two counselors who had mistakenly taken a couple of campers outside without rain gear, and stood in the rain chanting and yelling for their reinstatement while the owners of the camp told us to stop or we’d “give Uncle Bill a heart attack” (they rehired the counselors; Uncle Bill, the camp patriarch, did not have a heart attack).

We went to Philadelphia and New York City on our weekends off, exploring, getting lost, and eating BLTs to rebel against camp’s lack of pork. We teased and disciplined and counseled and stuck gum on the “gum tree” by the girls’ swimming pool. We ate more candy than Veruca Salt and Augustus Gloop combined, with no Willy Wonka to stop us. We laughed and sang and swam and ran and rode bikes and played sports and took field trips and learned all the little girls’ clapping games. We spent two months with these kids who were away from home the entire summer, and some of them didn’t handle it well at first. But we got to be close to them and with each other. We bawled our eyes out on the last day, when the kids left on buses or with their parents, and waved good-bye.

And I met Laurel from Parma, Ohio. I met Laurel the second day at camp, before the kids arrived. We talked and laughed until late that night, and the next day found out we were assigned to the same bunk. We screamed and jumped up and down like we had won the Showcase Showdown on the “Price is Right.” And that was it. A friendship began – and so it continues. Laurel is still one of my very best friends. We have kept in touch all this time. We talk almost every week.

If I had gone to camp with one of my friends from home, or if Laurel had, I cannot imagine we would’ve become such good friends. When you travel with someone else, you usually rely on that other person for most everything. When you go alone, you have to reach out if you don’t want to stay alone. Everyone at camp was in the same boat, alone and in a new, strange place. It’s often like that when I am traveling and meet other travelers: we’re all in the same boat. There are so many exciting, new things to see and do and you just naturally connect with the new people you are sharing it with. That was the most important thing I learned on that first adventure back when I was 20: if you go it alone, you could meet someone you’ll never forget.

One adventure leads to another ... Here Laurel (right) and I (left) are resting with her cousin Kelly (middle) during a fun day at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Ohio, the roller coaster capital of the world! We sounded like our 10-year-old campers when we went through the haunted house, screaming until we were hoarse (it was scary!). This photo was taken 19 years after our camp adventure in the Poconos.

Don’t be left in the cold.

 For some reason or other, there is a common misconception that all lands south of the U.S. border are hot and dry. Or hot and humid. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is true where you are going unless you know for sure that it’s true. Because I am here to tell you that there is plenty of chilly in Latin America, and I don’t mean the long, green, spicy things that are used in salsa. The chill I’m referring to happens especially in the higher altitudes and mostly when the sun is down. You need to be prepared for just how chilly these places can get, because they are definitely worth visiting. 

Before I went to Guatemala for four months, I asked my friend who had spent time in the same city (Xela) to tell me something I definitely should bring with me. She told me “a sleeping bag.” I said, “Really? A sleeping bag?” And she answered, “Oh yeah, it gets very cold there at night.” I couldn’t believe it, but I took her word for it and bought a sleeping bag at EMS, complete with compression sack so I could hook it to my backpack. Better travel advice I have yet to receive. Yes indeed, it did get cold there at night – often below freezing. I slept in this sleeping bag under the blankets that were on the bed in my host house, in a little cocoon of warmth. I very often wore sweat pants and a long sleeve shirt or two to bed. I sometimes even wore my stocking cap and gloves. I am a northerner who has experienced many a cold, snowy, blizzardy, icy winter in the U.S. But that does not mean I am accustomed to sleeping with a draft that leaves goose bumps on my goose bumps.

“Didn’t your host family have heat?” you ask. No. No one had heat. Additionally, most of the houses I have seen in Latin America, no matter what the climate, are very open. I don’t mean they have an open floor plan with high ceilings, large windows, and a lofty feel. I mean in some parts of the house, there is no ceiling at all or the walls don’t go up to the roof. My Guatemalan guest room was right next to the laundry area on the second floor of the house (very close to the pila I might add). Although my room was enclosed, the laundry area was basically open-air – there was a tin roof to keep out most of the rain, but the walls did not go up all the way, so there was quite a gap that provided all that cold night air a perfect way to enter and potentially turn me into a sleeping icicle. If I hadn’t had that sleeping bag, I would have shivered all night, every night. When my friend was staying in Xela, she first slept in a room that was much like the laundry area in my host house. She was basically sleeping outside. How do you say “bbrrrr” in Spanish?

I do have to say that during the day, Xela’s weather was beautiful. Sunny, nice and warm – but never hot. Once the sun went down, there was one particularly delicious way to warm up: hot chocolate. The hot chocolate in Xela was divine – thick and sweet, like a liquid candy bar (if you’re into that sort of thing, which I totally am). Nothing like a big mug of hot cocoa in a warm cafe to thaw out your insides a bit before walking back to your chilly home.

HOT CHOCOLATE ... GUATEMALAN STYLE. You can buy
a block of chocolate at the market to make hot cocoa. Just melt
it in a pot on the stove, add some water or milk and you are
ready for a whole lot of deliciousness! 

It is a good idea to research the climate you’re visiting for typical weather and temperatures. Not all of Latin America is hot. I have also experienced a surprising nighttime chill in parts of Mexico and Ecuador. I’m fairly confident there are many more places that are the same, and I’d hate to be left unawares, with no warm clothes or cozy sleeping bag. If you’re traveling to a higher altitude, be prepared for the chill that comes with it. And if you find yourself in Xela, don’t forget the hot chocolate! 

If the shoe fits (and feels good), wear it.

Today I was going to write a post with helpful hints on how to pack for a journey. Shortly after this idea, I realized that I cannot write helpful hints about this subject because I suck at packing. Sure, I get the work done when it needs doin’, but it is only after much over-thinking, pulling of hair, and going through clothes with the organizational skills of a tornado. The final product usually works for what I need, but somehow the number of items I unpack at my destination does not correspond with what they feel like on my back. It feels like I’m toting around half a kindergarten class, but surprisingly I have very few things. (I don't get that). So instead, I will merely make a suggestion of something to take that makes my life on the road more comfortable.

I believe strongly in the attributes of tennis shoes when traveling (or tennies or sneakers or trainers or runners or whatever you may call them). When I spent three months in Xela (Quetzaltenango), Guatemala, I wore nothing but tennis shoes. Here are some reasons why I didn’t wear sandals or flip-flops (or thongs):

• temperatures near freezing in the morning;
• it was the dry season, so the streets that were dirt were more like dust – lots and lots of dust, sometimes inches deep ... like snow, only dust;
• when it did rain, the streets were extremely flooded and muddy – lots and lots of mud ... like dust, only wet;
• the streets that weren’t dirt were cobblestone and the sidewalks were uneven, therefore fabulous terrain for twisting an ankle;
• and lastly, but not leastly, I walked an equivalent of at least two hours every day. Up hills; down hills; to my volunteer job; back home for lunch; down the hill to the center of town (El Centro) to recruit volunteers and run errands; then back up the hill to work for the afternoon; then back to El Centro for meetings, sessions with my Spanish tutor, or hanging out with friends; then back up the hill to my Guatemalan home.

All this in flip flops would’ve killed my feet and all those things attached to them.

I can understand a desire to bring hiking boots. For many of you, that is certainly a valid option. There are amazing hiking expeditions in most Latin American countries I’ve visited. Some up mountains, others up volcanoes, some for days across the highlands. But I don’t do that. The hiking I do, although at times quite challenging for me personally, does not usually necessitate hiking boots. Exception: I spent a couple weeks in the rainforest of Panamá and cannot imagine being there without hiking boots. Although they were actually more like sneaker-hikers, i.e. not “heavy-duty.” Second Exception: In Ecuador, I hiked in the rainforest for a day through plenty of mud and my actual heavy-duty hiking boots were covered by the end of the day. Tennis shoes would have been annihilated.

TRAVELIN' DOWN THOSE DUSTY ROADS ... Dirt (dust)
street in Xela, Guatemala. Those are Sarah's feet.

Rather than continue this back and forth discussion about the virtues of tennis shoes and/or hiking boots, let me just say that all I am suggesting is to take a shoe of some kind that is comfortable, sturdy and that fully envelopes your footsies. They don’t have to look like you’re going off to play doubles at the country club. But if you are going to do a lot of walking-- and you will be doing a lot of walking-- make sure you will be as comfortable as possible so you won’t miss out on all there is to see and do because of blisters, bunions, falling arches, bones spurs, and the like. Think about what you might be doing and choose your shoes accordingly. Visiting museums in Mexico City? Probably tennis shoes. Camping along the Inca trail to Machu Picchu? Probably hiking boots. But you know what works best for you. Just leave those flip-flops for the days you give you and your feet a break.

If it can be washed in a sink, bring it.

If you are planning to travel in Latin America for a couple of weeks or more, there is typically no reason to bring stilettos. Nor is there a reason to bring a cocktail dress. Many of you fancy pants out there will need to bring your idea of “dressing up” down a notch and your idea of “casual wear” down two notches. Even if you have plans to attend a fancy gala in Panama City, or a quinceñera in Antigua, or a wedding in Caracas along the way, there is no reason to take up that much space in your backpack. You are a traveler and travelers do not wear such things. Fancy is not an adjective to describe a traveler; a tourist maybe, but not a traveler. As a traveler, you will become more creative in how you mix and match your clothing, and much more tolerant of the mixes you come up with. Normally I would not wear a bright green t-shirt with hot pink lettering with a pair of army green cargo pants and a coral sweater. But in Guatemala, I was like “Hey, this works!” This does not mean you cannot be stylish. Traveling women can be quite stylish (I am not one of those women, but I have seen them and have even taken pictures of them). But stylish won’t amount to a hill of frijoles if what you’re wearing is all stinky and wrinkly, now will it? So let’s talk laundry.

Pack things you can conceivably wash by hand in your hostel, hotel or guesthouse sink or shower. You may not necessarily have to do this all the time, but it makes your life easier if that is possible. I have spent many traveling days in Central America hauling around dirty laundry, searching for a pila. A pila (pee-la) is an awesomely utilitarian laundry sink that is deep, with a built-in “washboard” on the other side that you can use to scrub your clothes. I think every house I have ever been in in Latin America has had a pila. It is a staple and if I ever have a house, I want a pila! I watched my host mother in Xela, Guatemala scrub the heck out her family’s clothes, bedding, towels, even the curtains and drapes, with soap up to her elbows. Her scrubbing could be heard all around the house. They had a washing machine, but she never used it. She didn’t think it made the clothes clean enough. But she let me use it for a few quetzales a load. Sometimes I only had a few things to wash and used the pila. Out on the road, it was all about the pila.

If you think you’re going to be drying your clothes in a big, industrial size dryer, you will be missing out on the beauty of line drying which is all the rage in Latin America. Granted, line drying is not quite as beautiful (or fast) in the tropics. The humidity hangs on the line as heavy as a pair of wet corduroys (a pair of pants you would not want to wear in the tropics, by the way). It still works fine, but not as quickly as on a roof terrace in the highlands of Guatemala, at least during the dry season. There are sometimes laundromats that have electric dryers like most people use in the U.S., but it’s just not the same.

I have also washed clothes in a machine that when visiting me for a week, my mother recognized as the same model her grandmother had used in her house. It was a machine, yes. But the kind where you add water to the basin with a hose, then add soap, then let it churn, then drain the water, then add more to rinse, then drain again, and finally, use an old-fashioned wringer (the kind with the rollers and crank you turn with your Laura Ingalls Wilder arm) to squeeze out the water. I actually thought the process was pretty cool. I used it in a small guesthouse in Guanajuato, Mexico, where the sun always shined and moisture in the air was non-existent (as was evident by my scaly skin and twice-daily application of lotion all over my scaly body). Dry air meant dry clothes on the line in about ten minutes. Go energy savings!

So no matter how you may be able to wash your clothes as you travel, it is just easier if you have clothes that are hand washable and can be dried on a line.  You will adapt quickly to dressing a little (or a lot) more casually than you might at home. And you will adapt to using the pila.

CASUAL WEAR AND COMFORTABLE SHOES ON DISPLAY. Here I am with wonderful friends I met through my volunteer work in Xela, Guatemala: Hanna from Sweden (left) and Sarah from Canada (center). We were visiting the

Mam ruins of Zaculeu near Huehuetenango, Guatemala. They are stylish travelers (told you I had photos). I am simply

casual and wearing the previously mentioned bright green t-shirt with hot pink lettering. We are all wearing comfy shoes. Our footsies were grateful.