Belize Playlist 2013

Every trip I go on, I feel as though it isn’t complete without the perfect music. But the perfect music changes for every trip. In Ireland, it could be Mumford and Sons and Katie Herzig and in Guatemala it could be Fun. or Explosions In The Sky. It honestly depends on my mood. (For a full length post on what makes me make my music choices, go here.)

So, this year will be my second time back to Belize but my first time exploring some of the ruins that we haven’t had the chance to venture to yet. I’m excited for new opportunities and even more excited to revisit some of the places I thought I had grown so familiar with.

I bring an Ipod Shuffle with me because I like to load and re-load my music pretty frequently. I don’t need hundreds and hundreds of songs on my player. They’re only $49 so if it gets lost or stolen, while heartbreaking, it won’t break your bank or wreak havoc on your budget.

For this trip, I’ve been feeling pretty mellow with some South American influences and definitely some more upbeat tunes. Here’s what my Belize 2013 Playlist looks like!

Buffalicious.

Buffs are awesome. I’m just gonna put that out there.

They’re literally so useful and they’ve saved my sanity more times than I can count. While in Belize, I stayed in rooms that had thatch roofs. Now, I had heard that there MIGHT be thatch spiders and thatch cockroaches but we probably wouldn’t see any. Wrong.

Every night, I felt like I had to sleep with one eye open because I would stare above me in horror at the palm sized spiders weaving in and out between the cracks in the thatch. The cockroaches would scurry on the wood beams and disappear into the black darkness above me. It was terrifying.

That’s where my buff would come in. I would sleep with it covering my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, everything. I didn’t want any creepy crawlies thinking any of my orifices were a good place to take a rest. No thanks.

I actually own two different buffs. One is from the TV show Survivor that my parents got me when I was about 11 and I had never really had any uses for it until I started traveling. My other one I recently purchased because it’s a little more appropriate and plain-looking. You can get it here. It’s a green pattern but both are exactly the same size, same material, same thickness.

Since I’m leaving in three weeks, I’ve started making packing lists in my head and buffs are definitely at the top of them.

Ear Pain on Long Flights? Me too.

I’ve always had terrible ear problems; I’ve had tubes in my ears, too many ear infections to count and I blew my eardrum on a transcontinental flight last summer (no bueno). Needless to say, as much as I truly love flying, I hate my ears on flights.

On my most recent trip to Costa Rica, I was wasting time in the airport and saw a small package that offered relief for built up pressure on long plane rides. I figured I would give it a try and boy howdy am I glad I did.

You put them in your ears 10 minutes before take off and take them out once you’ve reached altitude then you put them back in on the descent and take them out as soon as you land.

I can safely say I had no pain the entire flight. Not only that, but they are noise cancelling so the crying baby two rows behind you who is feeling your pain (literally) is nothing but a soft whisper. Fabulous.

I use Conair EarPlanes and love them.

HIGHLY recommended.