Ride shotgun with Vanamos, a Northern Virginia family of four, as we drive our Volkswagen Westfalia camper van to Mexico and Central America, to find answers to the questions that keep us awake at night: Is Mexico as lawless as the media portrays? Do teenagers ever smile? Will a 1985 VW Vanagon make it from Virginia to Panama and back? If you're new and want to start the adventure from the beginning, go here.
I learned to read a long time ago. But somewhere along the path of life I fell out of the habit of reading for pleasure. Then along came the “LIttle Free Library” . . .
Belly-dancing peacocks, wife-size storks, red-butted warblers, and pink-feathered flamingos - take flight with the Vanamos family as they explore the wild world of birds . . .
Would you pay fifty cents for a bag of beans? You would if you lived in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico . . .
It was an eventful few weeks for the Vanamos clan. Wesley left Mexico permanently, while R, Coconut, J, and I became permanent residents . . .
How do you feel when your life’s work (if your life only counted back four years) was about to be put to public scrutiny . . .
Follow us on our 72 hour odyssey from Central Mexico to Laredo, Texas to get jabbed with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine . . . only hours before the Center for Disease Control puts a pause on further administration of the shot . . .
Are we still singing a happy tune after three years living in San Miguel de Allende . . .
We love to travel, but sometimes the things that we expect to see aren’t the things that we remember the most.
The Spanish conquistadores didn’t just bring pain and suffering to the conquered. They also brought Catholicism. And along with it, the construction of many, many churches.
I drove 6,000 miles across the US this summer and formed a few opinions. You don’t have to agree with any of them, but maybe they will entertain you . . .
We had already spent ninety days quarantining from Covid, so another seven days in a car driving to the US would be a piece of cake.
Gone are the days of carefree travel across Mexico and Central America when all we had to worry about were armed robberies and hitting a feral chicken that had pecked its way onto the road . . .
Taking a walk around the Guadalupe neighborhood in San Miguel de Allende revealed more about art than just colorful murals painted on the walls . . .
When you think of Africa, do you think of motorcycles, minarets, and minbars? Neither did I . . .