[This post has been adapted from a contest entry I wrote for ExpatsBlog. There are so many things I wish I had known before moving to Roatan... I hope this helps future expats!]My expat home is a little tropical island in the Caribbean off the eastern coast of Honduras. Just two hours from Texas by air, Roatan is easily accessible and is steadily gaining status as a scuba diving mecca and beach-lovers paradise. After a surge in popularity due to a House Hunters International show featuring ...
Roatan Month 21 Roundup
21 months on a rock!You can always see all my monthly roundups by clicking on the 'roundup' tag below... but here they all are in order: Month 20, Month 19, Month 18, Month 17, Month 16, Month 15, Month 14, Month 13, Month 12, Month 11, Month 10, Month 9, Month 8, Month 7, Month 6,Month 5, Month 4, Month 3, Month 2 and finally little old Month 1. Sometimes when you type 'month' that many times it looks really weird.1. Gratuitous diving photo:I have officially run out of diving photos of ...
Roatan Review: Serenity Day Spa
The last part of my stay at West Bay Lodge (which also included Celeste's Island Cuisine) was the part I was most looking forward to - getting to check out Serenity Day Spa (speaker alert). I visited during a stressful time and I just wanted to relax.This spa is full service and right on site at the lodge. I find the worst thing after a relaxing spa day is going out in the cold and driving your car home, so I absolutely loved getting a late appointment in the ...
What the Hell Happened?
"What the hell happened? Where are you?"I have heard this a bit over the last few weeks. After I went off on a tired and teary rant about how I just wasn't having any fun here anymore, I sort of disappeared, as I tend to do any time I get overwhelmed. I just shut down and watch Netflix or read books all night and check in on Facebook sometimes, and that's about it. I had a lot of long conversations with family, friends and even strangers about what my next move was going to ...
Roatan Review: Celeste’s Island Cuisine
The first time I heard of Celeste's Island Cuisine was not long after I had moved to Roatan. Quite a few people raved about it, but with my West Bay Beach excursions limited (like...uh... twice in two years) I hadn't had a chance to check it out. During my recent stay at West Bay Lodge I had no excuse not to, since this was the on-site restaurant! It was a rainy, gray day as I made my way down to the cheerful little restaurant.The decor is really laid-back and true to ...
5 Days In The Bahamas (and That Time I Averted an Underwater Disaster)
(I don't know what happened to this post from last year, but it never went live! I figured better late than never, right... I often get put into the 'travel' blog category even though I'm more of an expat than a traveler. So here's a post from my travels!)What can you do with just five days in the Bahamas? Actually, a lot!I made a quick trip to Nassau in the Bahamas last year when I was in Florida to try and get a visitor B1/B2 visa for the US so that I could work on foreign yachts that ...
Roatan Review: West Bay Lodge
After a stressful few months around here, I was so ready to take a holiday. But I couldn't take much time off work, so I was thrilled when the perfect solution fell in my lap - a mini-getaway to the gorgeous beach-side village of West Bay, and a stay at West Bay Lodge (speaker alert...steel drum music will start playing!)I don't spend much time in West Bay, as it mostly consists of large all-inclusive resorts and hordes of cruise shippers on call days...not really my thing. I hadn't even ...
Roatan Month 20 Roundup
Twenty months on Roatan! And yes, this roundup IS coming to you from Roatan. I received an incredible amount of feedback, comments, suggestions and advice after my post about trying to decide if I should stay here or not. Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment or email me! I took some time off, went diving, went snorkeling, hung out on the beach and tried to chill out a bit which helped to clear my head a lot.People have been asking and asking what my plan is and ...
Rika in Roatan will now be Rika in Russia!
Well guys, I had such a huge response to my last post about trying to decide if I should stay on Roatan or not that it helped push me out of a rut and onto my next adventure:I'm moving in two weeks to the tiny Russian town of Kashin to work on a farm in exchange for room & board! I'll be mucking out stalls, planting seeds, threshing, helping take care of the animals and also teaching the farm owner's kids elementary school math at night. No electricity, no internet, no ...
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
First off, you all are super cool for helping me cross the 100,000 view threshold this week! When I started this blog two years ago, I never thought it would be seen 100,000 times. Internet high fives for everyone!As I hinted to in the last roundup post, I am currently trying to make a decision about whether or not I am going to stay on Roatan. This is something that's been on my mind for the last few months, and I think something that every expat struggles with at some point. When do you ...