Back in Jamaica (and How to Save on Travel)

We are back on the rock!

Saturday morning we landed in Jamaica, exactly 7 months after completing our service with Peace Corps. This time around, we’re taking the opportunity to experience Jamaica on our own terms (read: with a car and no longer getting approvals or reporting whereabouts to Peace Corps). 

Being back in Jamaica is wonderful and strange. We still don’t really know how we feel about it. This country is complex and our relationship with the island is complicated, too. I liken it to returning to your alma mater. It’s a place of great nostalgia, as well as stress, and most strikingly: you don’t really “belong” there as you once did.

We aren’t Peace Corps Volunteers. But we aren’t tourists, either.

So what are we?

Well, the reason we came back is two-fold. One, we wanted to see our friends and family- both Peace Corps and Jamaican. It’s nice to visit before all of the Volunteers we know have moved on. So we’re taking this first week to drive around the island and see people.

The second reason we came back is to explore an opportunity to start a travel coordination business. Not that we would be doing travel in Jamaica, but one of our expat friends in Jamaica has generously offered to help us get going. More about that later!

And speaking of travel, the Frequent Flyer Master Guide (which we used to earn enough miles for our France and Jamaica trips this year) is on sale this weekend through Monday night. Use discount code “pumpkin” on this or any other Unconventional Guide for 15% off.

It’s sort of ironic that our last post was about how you’re not really saving money on a sale, and now we’re promoting a sale. For us, it’s more important to put your money where your values are. We don’t value having more “things” but we do value experiences. Personally, this Guide was totally worth the small investment because I learned invaluable tricks to earn air miles for free travel (4 round-trip international tickets to be exact!).