“How much does travelling in Central America cost?” is a common question asked by anyone preparing to visit the region. Depending on your style of travel, the costs can vary widely. A luxury hotel can cost you hundreds of dollars per night whereas camping will usually cost less than $5 a night. Some activities can set you back quite a bit too, but thankfully for the budget traveller, Central America is a very affordable place to spend your time surfing, snorkeling, or just plain lounging on the beach.
My 4 months began with a flight to Cancun and ended with sailing trip out of Panama. Along the way I came across Mayan ruins, gorgeous beaches, excellent waves, colonial towns, volcanoes, islands, and so much more. The region has so many places to see and activities to do that 4 months was seriously not enough. And had I stayed longer, my cost basis would’ve been even lower.
Looking back, I spent quite a bit more than I expected to but I also ate like a king. $1530 is not bad in the grand scheme of things, but it’s definitely very easy to spend closer to 1100 or 1200 per month in this part of the world… unless you eat as much as I do. Or spend a lot of time in Belize or Costa Rica, the most expensive countries in the region. But even for people with gluttonous appetites Central America is still a real budget traveller’s paradise and full of experiences that you won’t forget.
Where in Central America have you been dreaming about going to? If you thought you couldn’t afford it, do you think you can now?
Wow, great information, this gives me a thought about the price. I know for sure that you enjoyed your trip.
I am planning a trip to central america in November, on a budget, and posts like these are helpful for planning how long I can afford to stay in each place.
We are planning a 15 week trip through Central America starting in Mexico and going all the way through and sailing from Panama into Colombia for the final two weeks. I was wondering if you had any advice, recommendations or travel itinerary we may find helpful?
While in between studying for Speed School today, I was considering a chess puzzle when I suddenly realized how physical distance - as opposed to "chess distance" - applies to the game.
If one considers a 3x3 section of the board, say bounded by (a1,a3,c3,c1), and one considers a rook check given at a one-square distance, meaning say Rb3 Kb1 is the setup, the king can attack the rook within one move by either Ka2 or Kc2.
However, consider the bishop check where Ba3 Kc1 is the setup. In that case, the bishop is physically farther from the king - instead of just 2.0 units as with the rook check, the bishop is 2*sqrt(2) squares away! This farther physical distance - even though the check is still "one square between" the king and bishop - forbids the king from making a sideways motion that threatens the bishop in one move. Hence Kc2 or Kb1 or both equally useless in attacking the bishop.
Further extending this analysis, if Nb3 checks the Kc1, we can see that the knight is just physically close enough at sqrt(5) squares for the king to attack by both avenues: Kc2 or Kb2!
Of course one might note that in the bishop case King cannot go to Kb2 because that square is checked by the bishop to begin with - but it is precisely the physical distance that gives the king only the check square to attack the bishop along - where as with the rook -- the more powerful piece! -- the king can more easily attack due to physical distance!
Bobby Amback shot back with: "I always thought that given a choice on how to deliver a mate. The mate delivered with minimal space excluding adjacent squares was the best insult. This of course is second to delivering mate with the lowest ranking piece with the pawn being the greatest insult. Is this similar to the slam dunk?"
In math there is something called a "metric space". The notion of "distance" is allowed to be more general than the usual Euclidean distance, sqrt (x^2 +y^2). In this case the JL's "chess distance" is different than the Euclidean distance. Is it a metric space? We will need to define a metric space.
But first, let us define "chess distance" as the minimum number of king moves to "reach" a destination (in this case for the king to capture (rather than just attack) the attacking piece as in JL's examples). In the case of the bishop attack, the Euclidean distance was 2*sqrt(2) as JL noted. The chess distance was 3, if check is to be avoided along the way. If no check avoidance, the distance is 2 along the same diagonal. It would seem for consistency, the chess distance should either always use the no check rule or not. Since the check is a somewhat artificial consideration geometrically, we will use the non check avoidance distance. So, is this chess distance a metric space ? (we might later ask about the no check distance).
We have points with coordinates and a distance function D, defining the distance between any 2 points, D(x,y), with x and y as points (not the usual x and y coordinates in this case). Each point has a pair of coordinates.
D(x,z) =< D(x,y) +D(y,z), where D is the distance function (implicit in the above chess examples) and x, y and z are three sets of coordinates.
What is the D function for the chess distance between 2 arbitrary points (chess squares)? From all this, is "chess distance" a metric space ?