I had come from a country where Kate Moss, thigh gaps and visible rib cages were all the rage. And I was a woman in my early twenties so unsurprisingly my beauty standards were a bit fucked. And I had just landed in Central America. In the land where big booties, juicy thighs and sensuality were the catch of the day. It felt like a fucking revolution!
I feel like every woman has a bit of a complicated relationship with their body. From a young age it feels like everyone around us is telling us how to feel about our own bodies.
We are told that in nearly every way possible that our body is wrong…..
Solo female travel has always been slightly taboo.
And Latin America has always stuck out to me as one of those place you just don’t go alone as a woman. I remember being 18 and I was thinking about travelling to Latin America so I asked a friend who had recently come back from South America. He said to me, explicitly, Latin America is not a place for a woman alone. That well and truly threw a big old bucket of water over the fire that was a dream trip to Peru for a while.
Fast forward a couple of years and there I was living in Nicaragua alone working with a charity after well and truly saying fuck it, I’m not going to wait for someone to do this with me, I’m doing it, even if it means I’m going at it alone!