It has been 4 years since I have been backpacking. Or budget traveling, or flashpacking, or long traveling, or whatever made up terminology you prefer. Covid was of course the big cause of this, but there were also a hundred minor emergencies that sucked money from the travel fund, as well as significant time spent in a rewarding and fun but not very lucrative job. But there was also the effort of making sure that this trip was done right. After all, this was the one I had been training for.

The exact plans of this trip changed frequently, but three things always remained constant. It had to involve South America, I had to come back at least conversational in Spanish, and it had to be my longest trip yet. So for the last 4 years I have been researching Latin American countries, building a base knowledge of Spanish, and saving as much money as possible. And now the moment toward which I have been striving has arrived, and I am woefully unprepared.

I am of course not alone. I write these blog posts in the first person because I’m narcissistic, but also because they are my thoughts and my ideas and my incoherent ramblings. But as I have been for the past five and half years, I am here also blessed to be accompanied by my amazing partner Megan, who would be terrified of what lies in store if she knew just how unprepared I am.

This is the first trip that I have done a significant amount of research on. Usually I just pick a destination and then figure the rest out as I go. And while the details and timelines and exact destinations and places to stay and how to get to them and what to do while there may not be worked out, I still know more about what I want out of this trip than any I have taken before. 4 years gives a lot of time to research. Research the most interesting countries, best food, best places to stay, best places to learn Spanish, most interesting festivals, safest places to visit, easiest places to visit. And all of that research and planning and everything else has resulted in me writing this blog from El Salvador, because it was the cheapest place to fly into. It always comes down to the budget.

Something else happened to me while waiting and researching and saving for four years to take this trip. I developed what I’m going to call the Fear. The Fear is amorphous, it takes many forms and is not tied to a particular fear. It started as fear that the trip would never happen, that the combination of Covid preventing travel for two years with increased responsibilities both financial and social would make long term travel a thing of my past. But as more pieces of the trip began to align it took on a new form. The fear of being too old. I have over the past few years had my first couple of health issues. And by health issues I mean “my body which once was an unstoppable force of recuperative ability because I was 25 now sometimes aches after three straight days of being drunk.” I had to learn such valuable lessons as “drinking eleven cups of coffee a day may cause heart burn,” and “Eating $25 worth of Taco Bell while drunk upsets my tummy,” and “not seeing the sun for 3 weeks straight makes me sad.” But while these are deftly serious issues, what they really illustrated was that my body requires just a little more managing than it used to. And traveling the way we do is anything but easy on the body. Between squeezing into bus seats that are sometimes literally too small for me to sit down, and sleeping on bunk beds with one pillow in a room with 7 other people and no air conditioning, and hauling a 30 pound backpack a mile and half to the hostel because I don’t want to pay for a cab, backpacking can be taxing on the body. And my body is extracting a heavier tax with each passing year.

There is also the social aspect of being too old. When I embarked on my first backpacking trip, I was 29 years old, and frequently found myself to be the oldest person in the hostel. Now a naturally youthful¹ demeanor kept me from feeling out of place too often, but there were occasionally some minor words of surprise when my age came up. Three years later traveling through SE Asia where the average backpacker seemed to have just turned 18² didn’t help. Fast forward to today, just a month and half shy of 36 and the Fear whispers to me: “are you the creepy old guy in the hostel?” And I wonder if it is right.

The Fear found an unexpected ally last year when I discovered Reddit. It’s not that I was unaware of Reddit, but more that I had never seriously engaged with it. But as my research inquiries became more and more specific, more and more often I found myself in various travel related Reddit threads. And while Reddit can be a useful tool, just like the overwhelming trend towards negativity in online restaurant reviews, Reddit is more often than not a place for fear mongering. It is a place where searching Cartagena, Colombia kicks back 40 posts about being robbed, because no one goes on the internet to say “I had a good day today in Cartagena.” Where asking for vaccine recommendations turns up an in depth description of what it is like to die from rabies. Where asking for advice on coping with altitude sickness prompts someone to beg you to cancel your flight so you don’t die of asphyxiation immediately upon landing. “It’s too much for the body to handle!” which is weird considering the number of people they let fly directly in each day. But like your retired father who watches fox news, consuming panic and fear constantly while doing research only causes you to panic and fear. Despite the fact that you have traveled abroad 9 different times, including to countries and places people claimed were dangerous or scary (Mexico City, Nicaragua, Panama City, Vietnam, Cambodia). The Fear is persistent, and it eats away at your better judgment.

But I had to go. Even if the Fear was right about everything, I had to find out. I had to find out if I could still travel, if I could still backpack, and enjoy it. So we booked tickets, and almost as if to test myself, our first stop would be El Salvador, the location of particularly gruesome civil war that I had written about extensively in college. A place that the last time I was in Central America people kept mentioning avoiding because of a bus hijacking that had occurred³. The Fear would get its chance early.

We arrived three hours early for our flight from Dallas Ft. Worth Airport to El Salvador International Airport, which was about 2 hours too early. After spending 10 minutes in security we head immediately for the bar because budget traveling doesn’t apply to airport days. We drink $9 mediocre beers and decide to eat since we won’t get another chance for several hours. While drinking beer three a strange number keeps trying to call me, I ignore it about 6 times before finally answering only to hear a man with a heavy accent say “Ronald your flight is leaving NOW.” So we book it to gate, where an impatient and slightly agitated agent scans our tickets, then down the ramp where an impatient and slightly agitated flight attendant directs us to our seats, where another impatient and slightly agitated flight attendant tells me to stop trying to force my bag into the overhead and take something out please. We get sorted and seated, and leave the United States at last.

In transit the Fear creeps back in. How are we getting from the airport to the hostel. Sure there may be Uber, but I didn’t check in advance, and there is no guarantee that I will be able to find wifi. If I have to take a cab, which cab? Are there official tourist cabs like in Costa Rica? Are some cabs scams like in Vietnam? And how much should it cost? Do I haggle in advance like in Panama? Will there be a meter? Reddit is particularly fearful of taxis. I am unprepared.

We land and our greeted first by a Papa John’s advertisement, then by the Salvadorian department of tourism welcome sign. We also receive one other welcome greeting from AT&T. In the biggest upset of my life, AT&T tells me that virtually all of Latin America⁴ is covered by my phone plan at no additional charge. I not only have wifi, I have data! And El Salvador has Uber, which we utilize to get to our hostel, Hostal Cumbres del Volcan Flor Blanca, a highly rated place that while quite pretty, has little in the way of atmosphere or the general hostel vibe when we arrive. We have a private room to ease into hostel life, with a shared balcony, two beds, and no Air Conditioning, but its comfortable enough and the extra bed allows us an extra pillow each. Besides I have a more pressing issue: hunger.

We begin the march to the petrol station where we have been told we can acquire food, beer, and whatever else. And on these dark streets in this new place where I have yet to get a feel for the people or neighborhood or city in general, the Fear returns. Every stranger on every corner is waiting to rob me, every entryway holding an ambush. The walk takes 18 minutes according to google maps, 2 hours according to my anxious brain. But arrive at the petrol station without incident, where I learn just how unprepared I am for this trip as multiple people try to talk to me in Spanish, a language I have been studying off and on but mostly on for six years, and I understand none of them. I successfully order a hot dog, more from pointing than speaking. I take my order ticket to the food counter and the lady asks me several questions I do not understand. I mix in several “no entiendo’s” with several simple “no’s” until finally the one person in the whole place who speaks a little English tells me “she needs to know your name for the order.” I give it to her, but rightfully suspecting I am simply too dumb to be trusted to understand my own name, she simply brings my hot dog to me when it is done⁵. We head back to hostel, having been helped by multiple people. The hot dog is delicious.

1Read: Youthful

2Especially in Thailand

3 a story that changed so often I increasingly suspect it was as much urban legend as actual event

4Sorry French Guinan

5 to give well deserved credit, Megan predicted this would happen as soon as we sat down to wait