You can’t visit Peru and not check out Machu Picchu. Getting there by hiking the Inca Trail is a popular option, but only up to 500 people can start the trail each day. I wanted to do this but you have to book it like 6 months in advance to secure a spot. Since I didn’t even know when I would reach Peru, this wasn’t an option for me.

So I decided to just take …

I’m not really that picky when it comes to choosing a hostel. But after almost 6 months on the road, I’ve stayed in enough hostels to notice little things that make the hostel experience better.

Here’s my list in no particular order:

1. Free towel

I travel with a tiny MSR Packtowl because I a full-sized towel just takes up too much space and I prefer to travel light. It works fine for me but …

I originally skipped Leon when I entered Nicaragua and headed straight to Granada as I thought it would be pretty similar to Granada. Then later on I found out that there’s this thing called “volcano boarding” that you can only do in Leon. It sounded pretty cool so I made a detour back to Leon after Isla de Ometepe to try it out.

It turned out that I actually liked Leon a little better than …

Ipiales was my last stop in Colombia. The city is very close to the border with Ecuador. There didn’t seem to be much to do here other than visiting the beautiful Santuario de Las Lajas.

I spent a couple of nights here as I arrived very late the first day, I just stayed at the hotel across the bus terminal. The second day I just walked around the city then visited the Las Lajas …

After a 6-hour bumpy van ride from Popayan, I finally reached San Agustin. San Agustin is known for its pre-Colombian archaelogical sites.

I already had a hostel in mind before I arrived in the village. But when I got off the bus, an owner of one of the hostels there was offering a really good price for a room, about a third of what I would’ve paid at the other hostel. I decided to take …