This has always been one of my favorite quotes! Since November, 2004 we have been experiencing a "number of things" in this world, and we’d like to share our experiences with you. We are Linda and Al Card and we live aboard our sailboat, Carina.

On November 29, 2004 we left Fort Myers Beach, Florida for extended cruising aboard Carina. We had no plan, other than to reach Isla Mujeres, Mexico, which we did five days later. We chose to go to the Yucatan Peninsula because of an interest in the Mayan culture and a desire to see Central America. It is now April, 2008, and in these three and a half years we have visited many places in Central America.

Traveling is always a wonderful experience for me- and I mean full of wonder! It is also always stressful, which in turn is exhausting. Al and I sometimes wonder at the end of a travel day why we are so worn out, and then we remind ourselves that when traveling every day is filled with endless decisions...where exactly are we going?, how do we get there?, where will we stay?, where will we eat?, what do we want to do when we get there?, etc., etc. Then tag on the additional stressors of communicating in a foreign language, converting dollars to the local currency, and trying to read inadequate road signs to coordinate them with inaccurate maps! Then, deal with border crossings with immigration and customs in each different country, spending most of the two or three hour-long process simply waiting around in the stifling heat for somebody to stamp something! And the truth is I love to travel!! Al jokes about keeping me in check whenever we are out and about and pass a bus terminal! Like the old country dog, just drop the tailgate and I’ll load up...ready to go anywhere! We frequently remind ourselves how very fortunate we are to be able to do what we are doing.

One of the things we’ve realized in our travels is that places are often not what we expect. We use travel guides (Lonely Planet’s our favorite), as well as on line info, recommendations from others, and local literature to learn about places we plan to visit. From all of this input, each of us forms a mental picture of what we expect to find when we visit a place for the first time. Sometimes what we find when we arrive is totally different than what we imagined and anticipated- for better or for worse! Some locales turn out to be delightful surprises, others surprising disappointments. Then there’s the food. As our dear friend Sandy aboard Namasté aptly put it, "you order what you want, eat what you get, and pay what they tell you." Period. Enough said!

So join us here as we share some of our adventures and insights with you. We’ve taken hundreds of photos, and what’s the point of that if you don’t look at them and share them with others? Enjoy!