Welcome!

Hey Everyone (or, more likely, Mom)!

Thanks for checking out my blog - the Backpacking Hippo. I decided to start this blog to chronicle my travels, keep everybody who loves me (and, really, who doesn't) up to date on my life over these next few months and, for those of you who will be in South America, to stay in touch and hopefully meet up somewhere!

If any of you are wondering why I think anybody cares about what I have say, so much so that I felt compelled to start a blog, it's really quite simple. I don't like mass emails. We've all received them before from friends who are traveling, studying abroad or going through some other comparable life-changing experience, and, let's be honest, nobody likes to read those. So, while I didn't want to force myself down your throats, I figured I should still give you the wonderful opportunity to keep up with me. 

Here is just a quick rundown of my plan (I'll admit, there's not much there):

Tomorrow, January 4th, I am flying to San Jose, Costa Rica where I will spend all of January studying spanish at Intercultura Spanish School (first two weeks in Heredia, last two weeks in Playa Samara). After a brief return to the USA, I'll be flying to Quito, Ecuador on February 11th. The only other thing currently booked is my return flight, on April 30th, from Buenos Aires. That gives me 2.5 months to get from Point A to Point B. I plan to climb Macchu Picchu, hang out in Cusco, Peru and Santiago, Chile. I'm not really sure where else I'll wind up but, to be fair, that's sort of the point.

Finally, some instructions. If you do want to receive this via email you can subscribe to the RSS feed. I only know how to set it up for Mac users, so if you are on a PC (shame on you), I hope you can figure it out. On a Mac: Go into the 'Mail' program and click into the preferences screen. Under the RSS header, make 'Mail' your default RSS reader. Next, there is a link on the bottom of this page that says 'Posts (Atom)'. Click on that link and follow the instructions within Mail. Now you'll receive my posts straight to your email. NOTE: This only works on the latest versions of Mac Mail. If you have an older version you will not be able to subscribe by email! So sorry - both Mac and PC users can still track the RSS feed through your web browser, however. Lastly, if any of you use Gmail, you can add Backpacking Hippo to your webclips (under settings), so that when I post something new it appears within your Gmail inbox. 

There will be more to come but, in the meantime, I miss all of you dearly and can't wait to be in touch from the road! Please feel free to comment - I want to hear from you almost as much as you want to hear from me.