One of my great passions in life (behind my family) is traveling and surfing. I discovered at 17 years old that you can visit beautiful locations for a fraction of what you spend to stay at “resorts”. Here are my travels up to this point:

– Puerto Rico

– California (three times)

– Costa Rica

– Mexico

– Nicaragua (two times)

– Fiji

I have loved every place that I have visited, however the one place that I truely enjoy is Nicaragua. I have been there twice and plan to go back many times in the future. When I travel I look for many things. I usually want waves, to get away from cell phones, e-mail, TV and any type of schedule. I try not to go to any area that is too much of a tourist destination. I would prefer to just visit a place that has very few people in general. I also try to travel on a tight budget most of my trips usually cost less than 1000 dollars for a week to ten days including airfare, lodging and food.

Nicaragua provides all of those things for me. When I arrive there the place I stay is about a 3 – 4 hour ride from the Managua airport. There is usually a local guy waiting to pick me up and drive me there (this is cheaper than renting a car) since when I arrive I can walk to anything that I need. I also travel with a small group of friends to share the memories (and cost). The first hour of travel is bumpy paved roads and the occasional police checkpoint. After that you will be on dirt roads headed towards the coast for the next 2 – 3 hours. There is lots of bumps and potholes along the way but the journey makes the destination all the more enjoyable. We stay in a small compound and rent a house for the next week. Three meals a day are available if you want for about 3 dollars per person and the beach is a 5 minute walk from our front door. You can access the Internet if you want but I usually choose not to since my goal is to escape. I won’t get into it too much here but I must also say that the waves are phenomenal.

I look forward to my next trip there sometime soon.

My wife was there last time I went and shot a ton of pictures so here is a link to them:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilliemichet/sets/72157606765484402/