In addition to “Ballad of a Traveling Buddha” (see below), I’ve got two more pieces going live today to usher in ’07. The first is my appearance in Rolf Potts’ “Traveling Light” column for Yahoo News; I represent Central America by recommending Nicaragua’s La Isla de Ometepe as one of “Eight great overseas destinations for 2007.”
My short piece for Rolf is proudly printed alongside travel writing heavyweights like Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler and Guidebook Guru Joe Cummings (who I met in Chiang Mai, Thailand last year). Enjoy the piece, then get yourself down to Nicaragua! If you’re not convinced, read on:
“Introducing Nicaragua,” published in Travel with a Challenge, an online travel resource for “mature travelers,” is co-authored with Randy Wood and based on the primary message of “being prepared” that we push in our book, Living Abroad In Nicaragua. From the article:
Asking the question “Is Nicaragua Right for Me?†is only the first step, whether for a few weeks, months, years, or life. Of course, any extended stay in Nicaragua means a bold and major lifestyle change. It would be wrong — and dangerously misguided — to expect living in Nicaragua to be at all similar to more traditional warm weather retreats like Florida, for example. Claims that Nicaragua is “the new Costa Rica†are equally fallacious. There are as many challenges as there are opportunities, and the process of determining whether Nicaragua is right for you should not be taken lightly.