If you’re looking for things to do in Manizales, Colombia, a trip to nearby Recinto del Pensamiento nature preserve is easily accessible by public bus, making it a great day trip to escape the hustle and bustle of this mountainous Colombian city.
Photos: Recinto del Pensamiento — Manizales, Colombia
6 parks worth visiting in Medellín, Colombia
Nestled between the sloping hillsides of Valle de Aburrá (Aburrá Valley) in central Colombia, Medellín is a breathtakingly gorgeous and boisterous city. Home of the Paisa, as people from the region are known, they’re said to be Colombia’s proudest residents — something we learned fresh of the plane when I asked our cab driver where he was from. “!Soy Piasa!” he said, puffing out his chest with a big grin.
Colombia’s second largest city, there’s something for everyone crammed into the narrow valley, barrios trailing up it’s steep-sloping fringes. From nightlife in Zona Rosa and Poblado, a touristy neighborhood on the southside, to the ultra-modern shopping malls scattered throughout the city, you’ll be hard-pressed not to find whatever you set out for.
But sandwiched between it’s bustling thoroughfares, and nestled in the tree-covered hillsides nearby, Medellín is also home to a laundry list of large parks, natural areas, and green space, making it possible to easily escape the torrent citylife below with just a short walk or ride on the Metro Cable (sky bucket transit).
Here are some of the best parks to visit in Medellin, Colombia:
His and Her Gear Lists: Surviving Six Months in South America
My wife and I are spending the next six months trekking across South America. We’re flying to Medellin, Colombia on Oct. 5 and plan to return to the United States sometime in March-ish.
Last year we spent a month backpacking across Europe, and before heading out we compiled our gear list online. It’s incredibly helpful (to me, at least) to make such lists ahead of time and fine-tune things before setting off with your life crammed into a backpack. I’ll be lugging all this crap for the next several months, after all.
Peaches’ Birthday Bash at Sweetwater Creek State Park
Peaches the Pitbull just turned 10! To celebrate her tenth-of-a-century anniversary we took a trip to Sweetwater Creek State Park, one of my personal all-time favorite recreational havens just west of Atlanta (and Peaches’ too!).
Six months in South America
Here we go again. My wife and I just quit our jobs. We’re heading to South America.
30 miles to Shuckstack: A journey thru the Great Smoky Mountains
The sky opens up with a light rain as we head out out on the Lost Cove Trail around Fontana Lake. This short stretch of dirt will connect us with the Eagle Creek Trail, which we’ll follow into the remote stretches of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was 90-something degrees when we left the valley surrounding Knoxville, but here’s it’s pleasantly hovering in the mid-70s. I can’t complain.
On its face, a 30-mile hike in three days seems like a piece of cake. Equally divided, that’s only 10 miles daily–but as we’re about to find out, legs of this trip aren’t equal, campsites are sporadic, and there’s 5,000-feet of near-vertical mountain between us and the finish line.
Penguin Pursuit: A search for the tuxedo birds of South America
Life, love, and the pursuit of penguins:
All my life I have tried to find what exactly it is that makes me happy. What I really care about. What makes me smile. What I enjoy more than sleeping my life away. (I really like to sleep.)
Over the years I’ve come to realize that happiness is not something you can find. It’s a way of thinking. Happiness is not circumstantial, it’s a decision you make to see the good in what you are given. It’s a choice.
However, love is not always a choice. You don’t get to decide who or what it is that you love. Love is just what makes you happy whether you choose to be or not. It’s an uncontrollable feeling of joy.
Two things I’ve found that I really love are 1) experiencing other people’s culture and way of life, and 2) animals! To have the privilege of observing someone else’s world, and being able to interact with them is just so amazing to me. Not only other people’s way of life, but different types of animals in their own habitats as well. Can you imagine getting to see a penguin colony up close and personal?! AHHHH! In my dreams! Well, it doesn’t have to be just a dream — for me or for you!
Adventures in sound: Big Ears 2016
You don’t always have to travel to some far-flung destination to experience something new and adventurous. Sometimes those experiences find you, and this past weekend was one of those times. The Big Ears Festival transformed downtown Knoxville into an otherworldly soundscape.
The path to Chaos Crags at Lassen Volcanic National Park #TBT
After moving to Redding, California in September 2013, this hike to Chaos Crags in Lassen Volcanic National Park offered my wife and I our first real dose the stunning beauty Northern California is known for. According to this old Word document I found, we undertook this hike in late October, 2013, a couple of years before I launched this little travel blog. So here it is, my first and possibly only #TBT (Throw Back Thursday) post of a hike from yesteryear:
Scenes from Carnaval in Barranquilla, Colombia
Barranquilla is an industrial behemoth of a town on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, somewhat off the beaten path for tourists most of the year — that is, except for each February, when the annual Carnaval parade and festivities attract thousands from around Colombia and abroad.
Call it luck, but we happened to be spending the week in Cartagena nearby during this year’s throw down. We hoped a bus with a couple of friends we made at our hostel and set out for a day in the mix. I couldn’t bring myself to pay the 150,000 price tag (about $47 U.S.) for a seat in the bleachers to watch the parade, but we did spend hours roaming the streets, met some good people, and soaked it all in. I also managed to get pickpocket of my iPhone. On my birthday, no less. But otherwise it was a great time and quite a unique experience.
Barranquilla’s Carnaval dates back at least 100 years, they say, and has even been declared some sort of cultural masterpiece by UNESCO. Pretty cool, eh? It also happens to be on of the largest Carnaval celebrations in the world, and if you ever have the chance to attend I wouldn’t pass it it. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from the street scenes: