Blogs

5 Tips to Poorly Run Your Latin American Hostel

These five tips are all too commonly applied in Latin American budget hostels. Follow all of them and you’ll still probably get plenty of guests if your prices are cheap enough and you're in the right location.

context is everything

There are times when as soon as the words are out of your mouth, you realize that out of context, they would sound truly hilarious, ridiculous, perverted, or just plain weird. When traveling, these situations occur most frequently...Here are a few to get started, more later.

Sick in Santa

Andrea's parents told me a story before they left about how Dad took ill one trip to Cartagena after indulging in unknowingly tainted foods. I didn't make it that far.

Te odio. Te odio.

We spent the end of December, beginning of January traveling about northern Colombia. It all started here in Bucamaranga, the capital of the departamento Santander. Lonely Planet says there is "not much to do here" and "the only real reason to stop here is to break up an overland journey". They are correct.

bus, troles, bus

The day started with waking up to the owner of our hostel arguing with a guest. "You not stay tonight. Period." A group had rented out the entire place. While we'd "reserved" our room the night before just in case we wanted to stay, we figured we might as well pack and be ready...

the worst bus ride ever?

Planning in advance, we bought our tickets 8 hours before departure time. After stashing our bags at the equipment check, we headed out sightseeing around Medellin. Our last day of "vacation", we were returning to Bogota the following morning. Except for a few bumps, our trip was an enjoyable success. Here is one of said bumps.

bar hopping in Medellín: a photo blog

Medellín has gone from being known as one of the most dangerous cities in the world, the “drug capital”, and the “murder capital”, to being one of the safest cities in Latin American in a ridiculously short time. Today it’s one of the most popular and heavily hyped cities in Colombia among tourists. Four and half months in Bogota and all we ever heard from other travelers was of the magical land called “Medellín”. So our first night there, we decided to put the town to the test with a night of bar hopping.

gringo dancing

So they say,"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."Yeah, screw that, I'm going to anyway. My glass house is insured. And by that, I mean I have permission to write this. Today's stone throwing will be directed at dancing, and more specifically Brendon's unique dancing "style".

the tourist train

Last weekend, we took a day trip on an old steam train from Bogota to a few surrounding towns and also paid a visit to the Catedral de Sal in Zipaquirá. A popular weekend outing for locals and tourists alike, the "Turistren" consists of a trip through several small towns outside of Bogota on either an old restored steam or diesel locomotive, depending on the day you go.

growing

Growing older is only fun up until a certain age. As kids we quite enjoy it, why not? Regalos, cake, friends, clowns, etc. But even as we enter our teenage years we have learning how to drive, later curfews, and graduating from high school to look forward to. Past that, its 18, becoming a real adult and then...breaking the teenage barrier of 20.