Draft Summer Itinerary

Katie D.

June 18, 2011 - 9:12 PM

Plans are shaping up! The academic year has wound down, and all my attention is focused on the adventures yet to come. With each moment, I am focusing more and more on the adventures which begin midnight on Monday, and will conclude the last weekend of August. I'm working constantly working to get everything packed and organized, and to line up all my plans so that liftoff means leaving all my cares behind.

I have a somewhat unorthodox travel style.

I love to feel useful, wherever I am. I am so excited for my internship and the work I will do in Honduras this summer. I will be grounded in the work I am undertaking, and hope to experience a sense of home within my host organization. The primary goal of my internship is to be useful and to make some kind of difference with my time. But the other goals are just as important: to learn, to meet people, to see a different side of life, to gain new skills, and to experience the reality of a city. I do not want to live as a tourist. I want to finish each day and feel like something useful has been done.

That being said, I also need a vacation. So I've scheduled a five-day commute before settling into my new home in Tegucigalpa. I will arrive in San Jose, Costa Rica, on Tuesday at noon. I'm due in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for work on the 27th. That leaves me some real time to see some new places, and to be on the road. I love to be on the road.

But, as I said, my travels are often a bit unconventional. So, although my stay in Honduras is completely arranged, and my work is completely lined up, I have no idea where I will stay on Tuesday night. I have not read the guidebooks (at least not for Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Honduras I've studied at length). I didn't even consider making plans until yesterday, when a middle-aged friend asked "where you stay on Tuesday?" and I said "in Costa Rica." When pressed, I finally understood the question. "I don't know where I'm staying in the city. I'll worry about that when I get to it."

I am not a naive traveler. I know there are many risks, and that preparation can make a huge difference in the experience. I am careful in many ways: I am aware of my surroundings, current on my immunizations, and maintain a list of contacts and emergency info. But preparation means different things to different people. I have experienced the enormous benefit to arriving in a bus station or airport without a plan, and watching an itinerary unfold beneath my feet. I have been directed some extraordinary sites and activities by locals. I have missed some classic tourist destinations to be escorted through off-brand museums with phenomenal art. I have talked with locals in coffee shops, met ex-pats for dinner, and have made the brief friendship of countless fellow travelers. I have experienced the community of the traveler, and the way a strange new place can bring people together.

I have also been preparing for this trip for years. Although I have not read the guidebook, I do know how to ask for directions. I know how to be polite and joyful and grateful. I know how to look confident when lost, and how to ask for help when the situation demands it. And I know that I can often rely on the kindness of strangers.

So, the itinerary. Tuesday night I'll be in Costa Rica. On Wednesday morning I'll get on a bus and head north, reaching Granada, Nicaragua sometime in the afternoon. Here I meet my first stranger: a friend of a friend who lives part-time in Nicaragua. He won't be home next week, so I will spend three or four days in his home, wandering the colonial streets and perhaps exploring Lago Nicaragua at my leisure. On Saturday or Sunday I will arrive in Tegucigalpa. On Monday I start to work. On August 1st, my mom meets me in Costa Rica for a week of adventure. At the end of August, I fly home by way of El Salvador.

Written out like that, it all looks very simple. I'm jaunting off the continent for a chance to meet new people and see new sites. Hopefully I'll hike, birdwatch, zip line, dance, eat, and learn something new. I'll be useful at work, and relaxed on the road. I'll meet new people, who will transform from strangers to friends.

Bring me that road!

Afoot and lighthearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune-I myself am good fortune;
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Strong and content, I travel the open road.

The earth-that is sufficient...

Walt Whitman "Song of the Open Road"
Leaves of Grass, 1900