As the wanderlust trainer, there are two key things needed, traveling and training. This will be the first piece of my preparation to Mexico, which is my first self-planned trip out of the United States. After reading this, maybe you have some ideas on how to better than such a trip.
Well how did the idea of backpacking through Mexico come about? Rather spontaneous I must say. I moved to Texas in June 2014 almost a month after graduating to do my internship to confirm my degree. My internship was at the University of Texas in the Athletic Performance Center with their staff. The idea to go to Texas came in the coming months after realizing Mexico was, well right there. As I looked on my mobile map, I said to myself “wow San Antonio is only an hour away!” – scrolled further down – “wow Mexico only looks like it’s a few hours away! Weekend excursion?!” It didn’t take much research for me to realize taking a weekend drive across the border to spend time in northern Mexico wasn’t the safest idea I ever came up with. I later told a friend of mine who likes to travel in July about going to Mexico and she then suggested a few cities to go see. And what do you know, a few days later while making a pizza delivery (a man’s has to pay the bills) I saw a sign about ~$300 flights to Mexico City. At that moment my fate was sealed.
Using my friends suggestion, the places to be seen were Mexico City, Oaxaca, Palenque, Tikal (Guatamala), and Belize City (Belize, I added that). Throughout July and August those delivery tips were getting stored in my drawer, then in early September I sealed my fate…I booked my ticket! At that moment I knew this was happening, you have to just go for it and do it!
When embarking on such adventures and doing something unpredictable (I have no idea what to expect in Mexico) you have to just dive in (pay for it) and don’t look back! In such situations it is very easy to freeze up, hesitate, and watch time and opportunity zoom right past you. This can create a very unhealthy cloud of regret. From there I purchased a language program for Spanish and proceeded into the depths of graduate school which postponed any trip planning until after midterms. The more annoying struggles of planning were looming nearby, picking cities is the easy part..