Tag Archives for " La Ventana "

What Living on $20 a Day Looks Like

kuta lombok beach bar

[Photo: Across the street from my Bungalow in Lombok]

One of the biggest surprises about long-term travel is just how cheap it can be.

In my second year of college I’ll never forget the price-sheet my dad brought back from Utila, Honduras. To this very day you can still get a room on the water for $5 a night and a meal for $2.

Before leaving home I’d heard things like this but it’s hard to believe until you see it first-hand:Continue reading >>

The Top 10 Spartan Travel Adventures of 2012

kitesurfing-la-ventana

It’s amazing what’s possible when you free up your time and the need to be in a single location.

My wildest dreams couldn’t have predicted the outcome of 2012. The original plan (launched in August 2011) was 15-18 months of travel, circling the globe while mixing in a bunch of adventure sports.

What actually happened was a frantic potpourri of world travel, randomly divergent adventures, and moderately successful online business shenanigans.

The adventure starts when everything goes wrong. -Yvon Chouinard

While the plan itself was fluid, the framework certainly wasn’t: back in 2011 I deliberately opened up my time (and bank account) to make these adventures possible. It turned out that everything was easier and less expensive than I thought it would be, and I’ve repeatedly tried to convince my friends that they too–if they choose–can do something like this.

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Off to Kiteboarding Mecca La Ventana this Week

 la-ventana-kiteboarding.

Tomorrow we’ll be driving from Central California to the tip of Baja Mexico: about 1,500 miles of desert, sagebrush, and endless Negra Modelos.

Destination: La Ventana, a massive sandy bay on the sea of Cortez with absolutely ridiculous kiteboarding conditions.

La Ventana is a of freak of nature in a geographical sense: Every day at about 1pm all hell breaks loose as winds sweep off the Sea of Cortez right into the lower part of the bay. For 4-5 hours the scene resembles a natural disaster that collided with a kite-flying convention. Then, as if someone flipped a switch, the wind shuts off. You can laze on the beach and watch the moon come up over perfectly flat water.Continue reading >>