The ultimate guide to Workaway: house and board in exchange for a few hours of work

Ten years ago, at 23, I wanted to travel fast, cover lots of ground and tick boxes. Go and never stop until I got there. The older I become, the slower I want to travel. As a travelling couple, we like to linger in one place for a bit longer, soak up the local atmosphere, get to know the environment, the people. Embark on some hikes, get some writing done. But travelling is expensive, at least that’s the common idea. That’s where Workaway comes into the picture. Workaway is the perfect way for cheapskates to travel long-term.

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Beer in Belize: “No working during drinking hours”

Musician Frank Zappa famously said that “you can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.” In his memory, I embarked on a quest to find the best beer in each of the Central American countries we visited. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it. Right?

First up: Belize.

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Dangriga, Belize: things you should and shouldn’t do in Belize’s cultural capital

First of all, before anyone gets any big ideas about the concept of cultural capital: Dangriga is no Paris, Rome or even Mol. It mainly got its status as the hub for Belize’s contingent of Garifuna.

But even though Dangriga does not feature highly on most tourists’ lists of places to visit in Belize, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in this scruffy seaside town.

Here are the five things you should and one you definitely shouldn’t do in Dangriga:

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Five things we learned about the Maya in Central America

Who doesn’t know the game in which one person says a word and the other one completes with the first thing that pops into your head? I have no idea about the purpose of the game, except to prove that you have a dirty mind. Until a year ago, if you’d asked me to play and threw the word ‘Maya’ at me, I’d probably have replied ‘the bee’.

What about you? Be honest. Unless you’ve visited Central America or have a degree in history, you likely don’t know much about the Maya. Continue Reading →