A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

The start of any journey begins with excitement, sadness, and a whole lot of anxiety. Embarking on my year (or more) long journey of traveling the world has never given me a more blissful feeling or panic attack in my life. I knew I was ready for it and had been mentally preparing myself for this since I came back from my first trip to Costa Rica in February. But it never fully hit me that I was leaving home and everything I had grown up in or known until that final day when I was packing up all my belongings and saying goodbye to my childhood home that I had never spent more than a month away from.

My decision to make this journey was surprisingly easy; now I won't go into all the details that played into this because honestly, that would probably have to start from when I was a child, but let's just say, it took a lot of growth, and strength on my own part to make the decision to do this trek of a trip.

My flights to Costa Rica were fairly simple, easy, and honestly fun. My final destination once I arrived in Costa Rica was Santa Teresa, a small town in Puntarenas Province in the Central Pacific part of CR. I took a 1 am flight from SFO with a layover in Houston, which I do not recommend unless you fall asleep easily on flights.

Once I arrived in Costa Rica, customs and immigration were fairly simple. Unlike the first time, I came through, when I was in a full panic mode having almost no information to give them about my hostel or flight.

The fun part was my final flight to Santa Teresa; most people would find a shuttle or a taxi, which would be a 5-6 drive over and well over $150 if you're by yourself. I ended up finding a company called Costa Rica Green Airways, which has small airplanes that take you to certain parts of Costa Rica from San Jose Airport. A quick 20-minute fly over Costa Rica, with views I don't even know how to describe.

After I arrived at Tambor Airport (a regional airport), it was just a 40-minute taxi drive to Santa Teresa. Most of the people on the flight were also going to Santa Teresa, so we were able to easily get a taxi to take and split up the cost, running around $20 a person compared to $80. I made two new friends on the ride over, a couple from Toronto, Canada. The girl had visited Costa Rica when she was in high school and wanted to take her boyfriend to all the places she had been. Two incredibly nice people, we bonded over our love of food and travel.

Getting to Santa Teresa around 4 pm on April 13th (yes, my travels started at 10 pm the night before on April 12th), I checked into my hostel La Posada, a surf camp hostel five minutes from the beach. It felt as though I had never left those three months earlier, and coming home from a long trip. Although I have never been to Santa Teresa before, the atmosphere and people were just the same.

So there you have it, people, Day 1 of my international travels was nothing special, but everything about it was special to me.

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