Thompsons vs the World

This place was more than just accommodation and definitely deserves a blog post to itself! There is a whole page in the Lonely Planet dedicated to Rafiki Safari Lodge , and from the first time I read it I knew this was something I wanted us to splurge on during our stay in Costa Rica. My Mum was also totally on-board with this plan, so we booked two nights here (which was as much as we could afford to be honest!). This really was a complete treat on our itinerary at £290 per night - a huge £170 a night more than the next most expensive spot on our Costa Rica trip. NB this was for two safari tents, as we were a group of five, so probably a bit less for a family of four as you would all fit in one tent! And boy was it worth it. Rafiki organised a private shuttle for us from Manuel Antonio (US$95 for the five of us), which took around an hour in total - most of it on an incredibly uneven, unpaved road that made be VERY glad that we hadn't opted to drive it (more on driving in Costa Ri...

This was our first stop on our Costa Rica adventure, after picking Granny up from the airport and spending one night in San Jose recovering from the travel. I'd gone for Manuel Antonio as I'd read that it was packed full of wildlife and glorious beaches, but also very accessible and easy to hike around for kids (and Grannies in their 70s!). Getting from San Jose to Manual Antonio The bus from San Jose took around 3hours (after I'd finally managed to figure out which bus company/bus station in San Jose ran buses to Manuel Antonio - there's no 'central' bus service in Costa Rica, just a series of smaller companies that all operate different routes. I used the guide on the Visit Costa Rica website here to figure out which route/company we needed. The bus tickets cost £42.97 in total (this was for 5 of us now we have a Granny in tow!). Where we stayed We stayed on the road between Quepos and Manuel Antonio village, at Pura Natura Lodge. There's loads of accommo...

  Costa Rica was right at the top - the very top - of my list when we started thinking about this trip. The combination of wildlife and beaches sounded like the perfect destination, plus it's relatively small in size so journey times between sights/places are relatively quick (our longest journey was about 5 hours in the end), and it's got a reputation as being a safe place to visit (much higher on my list of priorities now we're travelling with the boys!). My one concern was cost - it's not cheap, and much more expensive than the other countries in the surrounding region. After a long time planning, I figured out that we could stretch the budget to a few weeks in Costa Rica and manage to do all the main activities/sights we wanted to include as long as we made sure we scrimped on eating out/daily costs as much as possible.  And as an added bonus, my Mum decided to join us for 2.5 weeks of the trip, as Costa Rica was high up on her bucket list too. Plus, Mum is like a w...

Just in case anyone fancies a trip to Mexico in the near future, I've rounded up all of our accommodation and included links and some basic info on each place. We booked pretty much everything through either booking.com or Airbnb.co.uk . When we used to travel as just a couple I was happy to wing it and find places to stay on arrival; the idea of doing this with two kids in tow did not fill me with joy. I booked most of our accommodation several months in advance once I'd figured out our route but I chose places that offered free cancellation right up until a week or so before arrival to give us some flexibility if our plans changed.  This is the massive advantage of booking.com and Airbnb - the ability to have places sorted but also have the freedom to switch things around if we needed to. I have also stressed for a long time about our budget and whether it would be sufficient for all the stuff we wanted to do so I found it much easier to have places booked and therefore a re...

  Just imagine my joy when I stumbled upon the dates for Hell and Heaven Open Air 2023 (Mexico's biggest metal festival) and realised it fell during our time in Mexico 🙌 Then in August, I can hardly even describe Griffin's joy when it was announced that his favourite band - the mighty Guns n Roses - were headlining. Along with Slipknot (a steady fave in our house with the adults) and Muse (not so bothered, but a massive band nonetheless).  Hell and Heaven Open Air takes place just outside Toluca, which is about an hour on the bus from Mexico City.  We booked ourselves a room via Airbnb which had a lovely little rooftop terrace/kitchen space with views over the mountains (great spot for a bit of homeschooling between the heavy metal!). I hadn't quite taken in to account the altitude before we arrived - Mexico City sits at 2400m above sea level (just below the 2500m threshold that usually triggers altitude sickness) and I'd kind of just assumed that Toluca would be simil...

One of my long held ambitions was to spend Day of the Dead in Mexico - specifically in Oaxaca, where I'd pored over the gorgeous pics of the festivities in the past. One of the main reasons we chose Mexico as a destination was because our Day of the Dead fell in to our travel dates (and once I'd realised that there was really no going back!). For years I've been fascinated by the whole concept of Day of the Dead (or Dia de los Muertos to give it it's proper name) - the idea that families come together to remember their loved ones and their ancestors and to celebrate their lives and their love for them has always seemed (to me anyway) to be a really interesting approach to death and remembrance. Getting to Oaxaca I looked at various different ways of getting to Oaxaca from Mexico City and after ruling out flying (too expensive) and driving (slightly terrifying) we ended up booking an ADO bus. We went for the pretty luxurious Platino service on the way there - the seats r...

Mexico City (or CDMX to the locals) has a reputation as a slightly crazy place, so it was a bit daunting planning a trip with the boys. One thing we've discovered so far in our few weeks of travel is that the boys (and us!) really need downtime every few days to just chill out. Being on the go constantly is hard work (even as an adult), and there is so much to take in when you're travelling to new places all the time that I think it can get a bit overwhelming at times. So spending a few days in a notoriously crazy busy city might not seem like the most obvious way to chill out, but we definitely needed a few days where we did a bit less. I was really relieved when we checked in to our Airbnb in CDMX and discovered that it was a) lovely and big, b) had a fab roof terrace space and c) was pitch black at night and REALLY quiet (despite being right in the centre). The apartment turned out to be really good value for CDMX at £60 a night - it was easy to walk to most of the museums a...