Hola!

Ready to join my Latin American adventure?

Hey hey hey! I’m Lozzy, a late-twenties British gallivanter who’s just a little obsessed with all that Latin America has to offer. I want to first say thanks so much for visiting my small corner of the internet; I hope you’ll find it informative, aesthetically-pleasing and maybe even a teeny bit funny.

During my travels in Latin America, I’ve worked my butt off to compile bitesize country summaries, destination guides, 2-week itineraries, best of LatAm listicles and general tips for travel to help you on your own adventures whilst also keeping you mildly entertained.

I hope my posts help you whether you’re planning a 2-week holiday to a certain country or if you have the opportunity to travel full-time.

Before you travel to this region, you definitely need to have a read of my South America backpacking must-knows for all the hints and tips.

I got a bit bored of travel blogs being positive about everything ALL OF THE TIME, so if something was shit, trust that I will tell you.

How do I know enough to write about these things?

Well, I’d like to think my 26 months (so far!) of backpacking around LatAm hopefully qualify me to be your guiding hand.

Some bloggers like to play up that they spent longer in a place and got to know it better than they really did, so for transparency’s sake here’s how my time has been split across countries, from longest to shortest:

Colombia: 9 months

Brazil: 3 months

Guatemala: 2 months

Costa Rica: 2 months

Ecuador: 6 weeks

Argentina: 5 weeks

Uruguay: 1 month

Chile: 1 month

Peru: 1 month

Bolivia: 1 month

Panama: 1 month

Nicaragua: 1 month

Mexico: 3 weeks

Belize: 2 weeks

Honduras: 1 week

Paraguay: 1 week

Where has been my favourite place in Latin America?

Well as you can probably tell from the amount of time I spent there, Colombia is hands down my favourite country, closely followed by Brazil – honestly, the only barrier to Brazil getting the top spot was my own low level of Portuguese holding me back from getting the same immersive experience, though knowing Spanish did at least boost my understanding and I could certainly get by.

In terms of things I’ve seen, Lençóis Maranheses (Brazil), Quebrada Las Gachas de Guadalupe (Colombia) and the San Blas Islands (Panama) all need a mention.

You can check out a round-up of top 14 experiences in 2 years in Latin America here.

How have I funded my travels?

I have a whole post on how I funded my travels here, but in short, when I left the UK, I had around £8000 in savings (at the time around $11k USD), which lasted me for the first 9 months or so of travelling.

However, this wasn’t finite, as I was able to continue my career as a brand strategy consultant here and there whilst I travelled – but just as a freelancer, so although I do have some small direct clients, I generally only hop on projects when consultancies can’t resource them in-house. This means that I tend to work for 2 or 3 really intense weeks, then not at all for a couple of months. Ideal for a slow travel lifestyle!

At risk of sounding über-Millennial, I’m a big fan of building multiple streams of income. I also have a photography business, which has given me all sorts of work from portraiture to stock photography and even a commission for AirBnB Magazine who did a feature on Bogotá. This has also opened doors for free stays in some pretty swanky places in return for images of their hotel. Travel has been the perfect opportunity to hone my skill every single day, and it’s been awesome watching my style completely transform over the last couple of years.

Check out the must-haves for travel photography here.

And while you might think that blogging is an easy route to income, only after about 18 months and a huuuuuuuge amount of work and tears (yes, really) did I start making enough from this blog in a month to buy a meal for two. Coronavirus then completely knocked that back, but I kept on trekking!

Writing is an insatiable passion of mine, plus I love to help others with their travel plans, so you’ll find me writing no matter the income potential.

Wait, who’s Andy?!

All over this blog, you’ll find mentions of Andy, my ex-travel bud and ex-boyfriend. Andy and I travelled side-by-side for over 2 years, and now that we’re no longer together I don’t really feel a need to go back and edit him out of my experiences around Latin America.

Erasing him feels pretty petty, and I don’t have the desire nor the energy to do so.

Much of this blog was written from the perspective of a travel couple, and it would be misleading to rewrite it as if it was a solo experience.

You can read about the impact of our break-up whilst travelling here; tough at first but everything’s worked out very well 🙂 I think his mum is still my blog’s biggest fan (hi Mand!).

What does ‘Cuppa to Copa’ mean?

If you don’t already know, ‘cuppa’ is the British abbreviation for cup of tea, and ‘copa’ is the term lots of Spanish-speakers use for an alcoholic drink in a glass – normally wine, cocktails or spirit-mixers.

When I first embarked on my journey, I really did think I’d have to swap one for the other, but then Britishness took over and I managed to arrange for a near-constant supply of Yorkshire teabags during my travels 😉

So that’s me! Got a burning question about Latin America, long-term travel or living a digital nomad lifestyle? Please never hesitate to get in touch, I love to help 🙂

Not sure where to start? I recommend this bitesize country guide first: Find the best country for you to visit in Latin America.