Traveling with Todd and Erin: Just for everybody or is it simply for everyone?

It's been a week since I've been back and I wanted to do a quick reflection on my time traveling with Todd and Erin. I had backpacked around countries before I went to Nicaragua, so I had an inkling of what I was in for. Even so, what occurred surpassed my wildest expectations and I have Todd and Erin to thank for that. What one needs to keep in mind when traveling with the dynamic duo is that you are not visiting a country, you are experiencing it.

Visiting a country can be nice. You usually stay in a decent hotel, with air conditioning, setting up your base camp as you venture forth for day trips amongst the city and it's natives. If you are really planning ahead, and especially if you don't know the language, you might hire a guide or a driver to take you to points of interest or to see oddities you might not otherwise see in the Plaza or the local Hy-Vee. The food you eat might be of local cuisine but it's quality, both in preparation and in taste, is beyond reproach. After your travels you might pick up a few traditional souvenirs at one of the markets publicized by your hotel and head on home with a bevy of pictures to memorialize your trip. It's nice. It's quaint. It's sanitary.

Experiencing a country is quite different. It requires you to put yourself in situations that are uncomfortable or unfamiliar and to often do so without the aid of a safety net. Your only guide is a dog-eared book of places that in all likelihood no longer exist. It requires flexibility as plans may change at a moments notice and you need to change with them or the Lord only knows where you are sleeping that night. It also means sleeping in a room with eight other people who are all trying to reap the sweet relief from the nights heat from the one working fan in the whole room. It means eating food from a lady who is selling her wares on the street and whose health license is a bar of soap and a bowl of water she keeps off to the side. It means wandering paths others don't, not because they can't, but because they have the good sense to look at a map before they start walking. It means trusting yourself to make good decisions and to persevere even if you make the wrong one. All in all it means finding out who you really are, what you're really made of, and having one hell of a story to tell when you return.

Visiting is nice. Experiencing is better. Thanks Todd and Erin for helping me experience Nicaragua. I owe you a box of Cheez-its.