It’s 2014 and a year and a half have passed since I finished my great Pan-American journey, returned from my beloved Costa Rica and settled in Berlin. But like any good love story, this can’t just be over. It cries for a sequel.

Back in January, I was chatting with my friend D. from H. one night. He has mastered the art of finding the cheapest possible deal for… just about anything, really. I once witnessed him bringing a specific vacuum cleaner back from the US in his suitcase – just because that particular model was significantly more expensive in Germany. Anyway, that night D., knowing how much I love Latin America, pointed out some extremely cheap flights he found to various Central American countries. I’d never seen anything like it before. 277 Euros for a return flight from Frankfurt to Panama?

For real? 277,86€

Only few seats left. A decision had to me made right away! Pro: I really want to go and I’ll never find a cheaper ticket. Con: I don’t really have the money anyway. So, the answer was clear: I’m going, of course. I decided to go for the entire month of April, which is the last month of the dry season, during which I want to visit Panama and Costa Rica. This is one of the moments where I love being a freelancer and not having to ask a boss for permission to go on vacation. Also, I took this trip as a motivation to work hard, and it seems it worked to some degree, although I didn’t manage to finish every project in time and left a few clients slightly unsatisfied.

I hope you are going to join me on this trip again as I plan to blog frequently throughout the month.

Greyhound Discovery Pass

I’m on the Greyhound bus from Boston to New York. My time on the East Coast is coming to an end. It’s about time, I still have the rest of the continent ahead of me. In a few days I will be going to Chicago and from there to Knoxville, Tennessee again (yes, I know!). I plan to stay there for a week and then somehow make my way to the West coast. While my initial idea was to take the Northern Route and end up in Vancouver, I have pretty much scrapped that plan. I decided I had my share of cold shitty weather. Time for some sun.
While I still don’t know which route to take to get to California, I had to make a decision of how to get there. Since part of my mission is not to use flights to advance my route it was clear that I’d go by car, bus or train. After comparing prices for a bit I found the Greyhound Discovery Pass the cheapest and most convenient solution. For the price of $560 I can hop on any Greyhound bus in the United States or Canada for the next two months.