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GENERAL UPDATE:
Dear Fellow Travel Enthusiasts,
Welcome to the 18th installment of the Roamers' Report!
This is the final update email during our travels. I will likely send one more after we've arrived home summing up the experience with the perspective of a month or so back home.
As I write this we are on the eve of our flight back to The States where we'll spend a couple of days in our former home of Los Angeles before flying to Santa Rosa and our home.
Our last month was spent in Panama which turned out to be a delight in so many ways even though it was never on our bucket list of travel destinations and didn't even appear in the itinerary conversation until a month or two before we arrived.
We got incredibly lucky (well, it was also Francesca's travel agent skills) to find an amazing house and host from the People Like Us home exchange organization that we belong to. The owners, Janet and John, were completely lovely hosts and made all three of their Panama properties available to us. Their main house, called La Panura, was a huge compound located in the remote mountain village of Sant Fe - about 5 hours from Panama City, where we spent our time doing some hikes, cooling off in the many natural swimming holes in the area, but mostly just chilling at the house, doing puzzles, playing Rummy, reading and cooking.
They also had a small cabin in an even more remote mountain village called El Salto that was accessible via a 2 hour hike mostly uphill. The cabin had no electricity so we had to read and play games by candle and LED lights. Only Ryan and I made the hike, but we're glad we did as we enjoyed the spectacular waterfalls in the area and the local cooking of Esther, the wife of Janet and John's cabin caretaker.
The final property was a quaint casita in the sleepy fishing village of Calovebora on the Carribean coast, about 1.5 hours from the main property. This undiscoverd (by tourists anyway) area boasts long stretches of pristine beaches and a shallow ocean front that had decent sized, but relatively gentle, waves that the kids frolicked in for hours. This was a truly local experience where the only restaurants were appointment only and spanish language only.
Our final few days were spent in Panama City where we toured the Old Town and visited the amazing Panama Canal.
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WHERE WE'VE BEEN AND WHERE WE ARE:
(An overview of the countries and cities we've been since the last newsletter and an update on where we are currently)
Here are some pics
Ait Ben Haddou, Ouarzazate
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(Hopefully humorous stories about real events that happened to us on our trip)
TRAVEL STORIES:
Intro
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HOMESCHOOL UPDATE:
(Many of you may not care about the home schooling portion of this, but since it's ostensibly the reason we are doing this, I will provide a brief update during these Newsletters.)
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BLOG POSTS:
(Blog Posts Published since the last newsletter - in case you missed them on social media)
Romania: Halloween in Dracula's Castle!
TRUTH SERUM:
(A dose of truth about some of the things that did not go according to plan or worries that we've had about the trip)
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CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS
Here are our Cultural Observations post for countries we have visited for at least one month. A caveat as you read these, they are not all "cultural" in the typical sense of the word and none are meant to be taken in a negative light, but merely just some observations from an observant family of travelers.
TRIP STATS:
(I'm a little reluctant about this section because this trip is supposed to be more about quality and experience than sheer quantity, but I find stats like this interesting nonetheless)
I am getting a bit more comfortable with keeping the trip stats. As time goes by and the stats grow, it is getting fun to track the various cities we've been to and the modes of transport we've taken, etc.
Here is a quick list of countries we've been to so far on this trip. They are places we have stayed overnight for at least one night. The bold ones are places we've lived in for an extended period of time (over 3 weeks).
United States
United Kingdom
Greece
Croatia
Bosnia and Hercegovina
Slovenia
Austria
Italy
Spain
Portugal
Morocco
Romania
Thailand
Philippines
Taiwan
Hong Kong
Vietnam
Indonesia
Nepal
Here is the link to the full trip stats page.
Thanks for joining us on our journey. I have tried to keep to my self imposed routine of sending a Roamers' Report every 2 weeks, but it hasn't always worked out that way. But I do post more regularly on social media (mostly FB, but some Instagram too) so if you want more real time updates please follow our Five Tickets to Roam FB page .
Regards,
The Roamers - Dan, Francesca, Ryan, Austen & Finley
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