Deciding to travel
All throughout my young adult life, there has been an ever growing thought that has plagued my mind, and the minds of likely all of you reading this right now….. “What will I do after school?” During high school this thought rested in the back of my mind, knowing the threat was not imminent. During community college it began to creep out of its hibernation. After transferring to University, it became an ever present fixture in my psyche. As I watched my peers around me fulfilling internships, graduating, starting full time careers, and generally seeming like they had everything figured out, I felt that I needed to do the same. I attended career fairs, applied for internships, and even went through a number of followup interviews for them, but all efforts ended up fruitless.
Feeling as if I was in dire need of a change, another thought occurred to me,
“As soon as I enter the workforce and begin a career, I am stuck in that career for the rest of my life”.
Well…. maybe not the rest of my life, but unless I quit whatever job I end up in, I lose the freedom to spend prolonged periods of time as I see fit. With that new notion looming over me, I came up with an alternate route I could pursue, traveling the world. Since I was in middle school I have worked different jobs in order to save up money, and thanks to being blessed with two amazing parents who funded my education, I have managed to remain debt free and accumulate enough money to travel for a bit without worrying about immediately having a source of income.
Hearing of the Gringo Trail
That being said, I started exploring options of where I could travel while simultaneously stretching my budget as far as possible, and heard about the “Gringo Trail”. Despite its name, the Gringo Trail doesn’t describe a literal trail(like the Appalachian Trail or Inca Trail), but rather a loose route that backpackers and budget travelers from around the world take through Latin America. The trail spans 2 continents, 14 countries, 4 different time zones, or 5,343 miles as the crow flies, so it’s safe to say that completing the entire trek would be a massive undertaking. Additionally, at the point where the two continents merge, the journey is halted by the foreboding Darien Gap, a dense jungle with no roads of any kind that makes up the entirety of the Panama-Colombia border.
Difficulty of the Darien Gap
On top of the jungle’s terrain being arduous to traverse, with heavy storms and flash floods only increasing its difficulty, there are also many bandits, thieves, and rapists that target and take advantage of the over half a million migrants(520,000 in 2023) that now cross every year. These migrants put their lives on the line, as well as the lives of their families and children, all in efforts to escape the turmoils of their home countries and search for new beginnings in the land of opportunity. Having the advantage of being a U.S. citizen, my options are more open, as I can bypass the treacherous jungle by boat, ferry, or plane, and avoid the perils of the land-based route that is the Darien Gap.
Even with these safer options available, I have decided that for now I will only be attempting to visit the countries that make up the North American stretch of the Gringo Trail, as airfare to their South American counterparts is much more expensive.
Starting in Mexico(…or not)
My initial plan was to fly into Cancun Mexico(cheapest airfare), work my way down the Yucatan Peninsula to the border town of Chetumal, and begin my Central American journey in Belize. But this plan was quickly thwarted during a conversation with an employee at the resort I recently visited in Tulum Mexico(check out Mexico related posts). Upon explaining to him the route I had in mind, he immediately strongly advised me against it, telling me that as of now(2024), the entire border in the Quintana Roo state of Mexico that divides the country from its neighbors, Guatemala and Belize, is extremely dangerous due to a very strong cartel and narcos presence. The last thing that he told me is that if I were his son, he would not want me to attempt to cross that border, and that stuck with me enough to rearrange my initial plans I had set.
Where the journey truly begins
Since starting in Cancun was out of the picture, I began doing extensive research as to where else I could fly into without breaking the bank, and settled on Guatemala City. Guatemala city, often referred to as simply Guate, is supposedly not a safe area of Guatemala by any means, with the majority of the country’s gang activity being concentrated in that area. That being the case, I’ve decided to fly into Guate before immediately taking a shuttle from the airport to the nearby town of Antigua, a place where my father actually visited for an extended period of time after he graduated from college some 30 years ago. After talking to my Dad about his past travels, I confirmed that Guatemala will be an excellent place to begin my adventure.
So here I am, with a one way ticket to Guatemala in hand, nerves rising every minute, excitement growing even more, and with a mind open to invite any experiences the future may bring. Follow this blog to hear about my adventures, the lessons I learn, cultures I observe, and people I meet along the way.