A Life of Travel: Why You Need to Visit Roatan...and Why I Just Partied in Memphis

As mentioned last time, from Belize, we flew to Roatan, Honduras. We ended up staying on that beautiful island for 10 days, and it quickly became one of my favorite locations in all of Central America. While on Roatan, we also celebrated Georgiana's birthday and her 100th country visited, making the trip even more special. It was all so rewarding.

 

First, we stayed in West Bay, with its idyllic beach stretching for about 1 mile and warm, clear waters luring us in for swim after swim throughout the day. The vibe was relaxed, people were friendly and the food was excellent.

 

Three times we walked north right along the coast for 1.5 hours until we reached the small town of West End. Once in West End we would check out the local artist collections, waterfront cafes such as Cafe de Palo and of course, the Roatan Chocolate Factory, with its splendid array of freshly made desserts.

 

During our stay, we also took a full day boat excursion to Cayos Cochinos, a group of remote islands about 1 hour boat ride away from Roatan. Think tropical paradise in every direction, some of the best snorkeling you've ever seen anywhere in the world, tiny islands that could barely fit 50 people, empty white sand beaches and...NO OTHER TOURISTS AROUND. Seriously, no other tourists apart from the 8 people on our boat...the entire day!

 

I highly recommend this activity if you're ever on Roatan - the one we booked from Las Rocas Dive Resort includes the boat journey, snorkeling in 3-4 locations, visiting several islands and beaches and a local lunch. It was an awesome day out.

 

On another day, I rented a car for $30 USD and we drove around the island. We went to the wonderful animal sanctuary Daniel Johnson's Monkey and Sloth Hangout where we learned about and played with sleepy sloths and wacky capuchin monkeys (one of my favorite travel photos ever).

 

We then visited the educational Garifuna Cultural Center in the village of Punta Gorda, aimed at spreading awareness of the Garifuna culture (the Garifuna people are a people of mixed African and indigenous descent that originated on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent). Next up was lunch at a small local eatery we found, which involved devouring a huge bowl of divine Machuca, a traditional Garifuna seafood soup. It was so very tasty and quickly became one of my favorite foods, for real.

 

The entire Roatan experience certainly made me wonder if I should spend more time in this destination!

 

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Last Thursday I went to Memphis. I was a speaker at the TravelCon conference, a conference that focuses on travel media.

 

Memphis is quite a fascinating little city. It was my first time there.

 

My four days were spent hanging out with some of the other OGs of the travel blogging world, friends and colleagues that I don't get to see often. We ate very well with all of that great Southern food, partied here and there (maybe a little more than that) and took in some of the sights too.

 

We paraded down the lively, historic Beale Street behind our own private brass band, ate barbecue at Cozy Corner (a true local favorite that tourists didn't seem to know about) and had a deeply moving visit to the Civil Rights Museum (located inside the motel where Martin Luther King Jr was slain - definitely a place you need to visit when here).

 

We walked all over the city and occasionally took a ride on a historic tram, we hung out eating and drinking at the famous Gus's Fried Chicken until way past closing time, we watched a gorgeous sunset over the Mississippi River and listened to live music at Carolina Watershed.

 

The people of Memphis were as laid-back, friendly and sweet as could be...everywhere I went. Every conversation I had took the words 'polite' and 'kind' to an entirely new level.

 

And the conference was a success as well. I was very happy with my talk which I did alongside my friend Alex from AlexinWanderland.com (our talk was about running tours). The networking was useful too as I connected with so many new and interesting people.

 

Of course, as I write this here at the Memphis Airport before I fly away, I'm super tired, extremely foggy and in desperate need of vegetables (cities known for BBQ are light on veggies!).

But it was all, 100% worth it!

 

 

 

 

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