Backpacking Panama

September 2016 – Panama

Ever flown stand bye with a one way ticket to a foreign country? Well neither had I until a couple months ago. Knowing I had a bit of time off, give or take a month, before starting my new job, I spent roughly 48 hours planning a backpacking trip that didn’t have a destination or time frame established. In fact, it wasn’t until around 5:00 the night before I actually chose Panama as my starting point, and other than that I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

One part anxious, a bit nervous, and a whole lot of excitement, I’d be “American” style exaggerating if I told you that I had more than four hours of sleep the night before I left. In fact, it was roughly 12:30 by the time I got to bed with the alarm set to go off at 3:45. Even though I was flying stand bye, with no set schedule, no exact place to be, or anything with the slightest similarity to a plan, the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck at the DFW airport while on cloud 9 with a “once in a lifetime” style trip in front of me. So I made damn well sure to be on the first flight out of DFW at 5:15 am headed to Houston.

You want to get your nerves going? Figure out how to be the only guy wearing shorts in the Panama City airport with a bright orange backpack that screams “first timer!” I don’t know if it was just because I was out of my element, or because I was over 2,000 miles from a friend / relative, but getting off a plane in a foreign country where you can hardly speak the language is exhilarating and pants watering all at the same time.

There is much more that I plan on adding, but for now, I will leave you with the places my adventure led me to and some of the amazing scenery I encountered.