After a long silence, I’m reporting from my childhood bedroom (the corner still available, that is). On the floor, between the desk and the bed, there’s a 3000-piece jigsaw puzzle in the making, with little piles of pieces divided by shape, color, or theme. Along the wall leading to the door, there’s the yoga mat I don’t bother to roll up anymore, a step bench borrowed from the gym, and a couple of boxes of stuff I have to go through and decide the fate of. On my desk: almost 800 polaroids, plus colors, pens, ribbons, scissors, glue, and all the things required for basic scrapbooking. Finally, a dozen notebooks/journals/agendas that serve different purposes (but do they?).

Long story short: I’m drowning.

In things I like, but still drowning.

The physical mess, despite being my default setting, is a sign. A sign that inside the thin-ish body and mild attitude you see from the outside, there’s a wrecking ball demolishing every coherent thought process. It sounds dramatic, I know, but the chaos is real. I try to mentally put tasks in order before getting out of bed in the morning, but my head spins so fast that all I manage is to delay the start of my day.

What do you do when everything feels important but also too much?

I set three main quests for this year:

1. Finish writing my book.
2. Buy (and start camperizing) a van for full-time and long-term living.
3. Walk a 1,200+ km pilgrimage in Japan.

But then there’s climate activism with all its workshops; creative hobbies like puzzling and scrapbooking; Matilda the Turtle’s blog and newsletter; this Substack; the physical preparation for the pilgrimage; spending time with family; seeing friends and my partner. Oh, and there’s work. And book clubs and additional workshops, and all the courses I keep signing up for, hoping - eventually - to feel like a capable human. And distractions. And emotions. And the state of the world. [Cue Alicia Keys singing “this world is on fireeeee…”]

Quality over quantity, they say. Pick your battles, they say.

But what if everything feels like the most important thing in the world at the same time? What if only one thing is too boring and ten is too overwhelming, but there’s no possible in-between? I believe in all my projects at any given time.

My modus operandi doesn’t really work in my favor either. Instead of bringing one pawn home to safety at a time, I move them slooooowly and more or less evenly, working on everything in bits and pieces. Result: everything moves forward and nothing ever gets done. Except for the occasional obsession, I’m like a puzzle that’s never finished. No sense of accomplishment, just an endless work in progress. Not to mention all the time wasted in switching tasks, figuring out priorities, or fighting the next random distraction of the week. [From learning how to do the splits to starting a new book journal to a 40-hour crash course on finance for dummies, you name it.]

I don’t take for granted the privilege of having so many choices and I know these are “first-world” complaints. They do affect how I live, though, and my self-worth. Right now, my book takes a step forward and two steps back. I still don’t own a vehicle. I have been in the same place for almost two months without concrete travel plans. I’ve been hiding from my friends, most likely out of shame. I barely have any climate workshops lined up for facilitation. It’s hard not to see this tortoise body with a hare mind situation as a failure.

I know my squirrel-on-skates-brained people can relate. I see you! I wish I had a handy five-step formula to quiet the mind and guarantee a prolific, creative and happy life, but I don’t. So I’m turning this into an experiment: send me your fun, colorful, whimsical, unorthodox tips. I’ll try them and report back. :)

Once again, thanks for reading a useless rant that offers no solutions. It’s very kind of you!

Stay safe and kind until next time,

Federica

I have been living in a castle in Normandy for the past month and a half. An actual CASTLE! I wish I could say this was my childhood dream come true, but as a kid I wanted to be the yellow Power Ranger, not a princess… and that’s why I was in one of the (old) servants’ rooms on the top floor and quite happy about it. :)

To whoever asked about the experience, I’ve only been able to describe it as nice and amazing and fun, dull words that don’t really explain anything. My lack of eloquence is due to a mix of still processing the whole thing, overwhelm, and a certain degree of jealousy that makes me want to keep the memories to myself.

This letter is not even supposed to be about the castle… Don’t get me wrong: living in a castle is pretty cool. I loved reading or chatting by the crackling fire in the evening and going on walks to the river in the morning — those rare times I didn’t get lost on dead-end trails or distracted by mysterious toilets or overgrown tennis courts. I loved sliding around in my socks on the creaky hardwood floors and running up and down the spiral “dizzy” staircase. I loved peeking out of my attic window to see the pink and purple sky over the flooded marsh. I loved watching the yellow leaves flicker on the trees, still hanging on for dear life in a tremulous applause, instead of working or writing. I loved how the quiet around me kept my sensory overload at bay: no longer stuck in a loop of annoying noises, my brain felt like it could breathe.

Yet, funnily enough, the castle was not my reason for being at the castle. I did not google “how to live in a castle in France” (as someone else epically did). I went there to see some of my favourite women, who happened to be meeting in a French castle for a couple of weeks. Can your favourite people be online friends? Despite the stigma I still feel about this when I try to explain the concept of online communities, the answer is YES, YES THEY CAN. Most of them I had only met virtually, and it was still like hugging old friends. When the bonds are strong, they can stretch great distances.

We worked and we played, but mostly we were there for each other. We (I) have been learning how to lean on others and ask for help, we (I) have been trying to push beyond self-doubt and open up about vulnerable topics. From cold dips in the cold sea, screaming like a broken siren, to my Halloween sheep dress-up covered in cotton, I tapped into a version of myself that felt a bit more like me. And my heart felt like it could breathe.

On the other side of the toxic women-vs-women comparison, there are compassion and empathy. Sisterhood is still massively underrated in this world.
[I also found TWO other women obsessed with F1 as much as me, so — literally — who needs men anymore. #jokingnotjoking]

Then, when a last-minute spot opened up for the November Writers Haven, I “accidentally” stayed an extra month. I was a bit anxious. I’m not exactly an “it’s all about the people” person when I travel, because social interactions cost me a lot and I don’t have the energy to go about finding “my people” by trial and error anymore. In other words, I mostly want to be with people I already like, and I can only tolerate a tiny amount of strangers at a time. This was a gamble. Worst case scenario, I withdraw into my room and get a shit-ton of writing done, I thought.
That didn’t happen, because the next group had some amazing women as well.

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I didn’t click with everyone immediately; with some I didn’t click at all. But letting my guard down with a coven of them was really rewarding. There was an amount of weirdness and neurospiciness (in the best way!) that made being unconventional feel less isolating. We didn’t ask “what do you do?”, but “who are you?”. We didn’t ask “what’s your plan?”, but “what’s your purpose?”. We all had very (very!) different stories, and yet in the end, it all boiled down to a shared desire to be accepted and seen in our life choices and without judgment.

We had workshops and mastermind sessions, we shared our writing projects and our secret talents; we set intentions for the new moon and burnt the old in a bonfire; we sang karaoke and learnt TikTok dances, we escorted spiders outside and freed the trees from vines; we laughed hard and cried even harder.

I’m very good at isolating myself and I feel comfortable on my own. This, however, led me to believe I was this “hyper-independent, strong woman” who could do it all and figure it all out on my own. It turns out —SHOCKER!!— that I can’t. I was starving for meaningful, human, real-life interactions and didn’t even realize how badly.

The Château became the dreamy personification of my need for this authentic, sisterly, in-person connection. I —the least touchy-feely person ever— was leaving FREE HUGS around the castle! I, the introvert, was never in my room, and not (only) because of the 80 steps to get there each time. I read somewhere that the right friendships should require very little social battery, and to a certain extent I think it’s true.

Apparently, I’m not an island. Maybe I am a penguin: often perceived as a solitary creature waddling across more or less icy landscapes, I need to travel, feed, nest, and winter in a carefully chosen group. [Clumsiness and lack of coordination are further proof, and if I could slide my way around I totally would, but I digress.] While I’m not saying that all women are penguins, I do believe that no woman is an island. We just have to find our village in a world that still wants us divided, weak and silent.

Thank you for being on this journey with me!
Until the next adventure,

Federica

PS. Genuine (no affiliate) recommendations:
- For everyone: check out Chateau Coliving if you work remotely. It’s an enriching experience. For my fellow writers, there’s a new writing-themed month coming up in February :)
- For women: if you need a supportive online community, come hang out with us in The Lab. It’s the best thing that happened to me in the past 8 years (not joking).

Imagine being a newborn. Delicate body, grey glossy eyes, only able to see shadows and glimpses of light. You’re surrounded by a handful of newborn siblings like you; mum nowhere to be seen. You crawl out into a dim world, dotted with light. Instinct is your only source of knowledge. You have to crawl ten, twenty, fifty metres on the cool sand, following what you hope is the moon’s reflection on what you hope is the water. You move slowly on your tiny flippers. There are other lights, you get confused, where are you going? You feel the water on your skin, recognize that’s where you belong. Elated, you keep going, you’re almost there, until a crashing wave ruthlessly pushes you back, tumbling. You’ll have to walk those hard-earned metres again, and again, until you’re finally in the water. You have a split second to learn how to swim and surface for air, to figure out where you are going and how to survive in the deep, vast ocean. You don’t know it, but only one in a thousand babies makes it to adulthood. And you keep at it, maybe with curiosity and enthusiasm, maybe with fear; maybe you wanted to stay warm in your cocoon a little longer. Maybe you don’t want to go alone, maybe you do. Either way, congratulations on surviving your first hour as a sea turtle hatchling!

This letter comes from sunny Sal Island, in Cape Verde, an archipelago off the west coast of Africa. I’ve been here for a month, volunteering with turtles for a conservation NGO called Projeto Biodiversidade (Project Biodiversity). We work with mama turtles and baby turtles, in the nesting and hatching programs respectively, to monitor their activities and give them the best chance of survival.

We live in a camp on the beach, ten people in each of the three big, bare, white tents, with our inflatable mats and mosquito nets. We have a wooden stilted structure that serves as a kitchen, bathroom, dining area and storage room. On the sides are the laundry lines full of sandy t-shirts and towels, the shower box and the shower buckets, the volleyball net, and a shaded space where we vegetate during the day like zombies during a heatwave.

By now, I have given up on any attempt to take the sand off my body. We live, breathe, eat, think, sleep in the sand, so it has filled every nook and cranny, from the soles of my feet to my soul.

Life is simple here. We work at night and sleep (or try to) during the day. We are solar-powered, so electricity and WiFi are limited and weather-dependent. We have two buckets of water per person per week for the shower, and access to town once a week. We go to bed with sandy feet, and when it rains everything gets flooded. It may not sound enticing, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but it puts things into perspective.

When productivity as a cog of society is not a metric of our worth, time becomes a meaningless construct. When there’s only sand and water around, you don’t really need the thousands of useless objects the algorithm wants you to buy. There’s space to read, write, sleep, connect, chat, play, draw, sleep again, stare at the ocean, reflect, get bored.

You can’t be anywhere but here. When all expectations and overcomplications fade, all that’s left is you and your mind.

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We work at night in two shifts, from 19:30 to 1:30 and from 1:30 to around 7:30. Divided into pairs, we patrol our assigned stretch of the beach up and down, in the dark, monitoring turtle activity. We record all their tracks in a little battered notebook, before “essing” them to avoid double-counting. When we see a mama turtle crawling up the beach, we freeze, pretending to be rocks. Some come up and do a U-turn, others dig a little before deciding it’s not the right spot, and others finally nest. Once a turtle finishes digging the hole and starts plopping out the eggs, we can sneak behind her, tag and name her if she is “new”, measure her carapace, evaluate whether the nest is in a safe position or needs relocation, and wait for her to cover it all up.

It’s tiring, for turtles and humans alike. I’m not a night owl, so my body usually tries to shut down halfway through a shift. Sometimes I see full imaginary scenes: I confuse rocks with turtles, sticks with humans, red lights with eyes, in a delirium of shadows and non-existent whispers. Time is meaningless, once again, stretching and warping like playdough. And turtles don’t care about time anyway.

They are unpredictable and mysterious creatures, turtles. So elegant in the water, on land they clumsily drag their heavy bodies around the dunes for a minute or an hour, unbothered. I mean, who would want to rush the process of choosing their nesting ground? Their decision can increase (or doom) the hatchlings’ chances of survival; the stakes are high. With them, for them, we practice slowing down as well.

We watch them adorably raise their back flippers when they’re about to lay an egg. We feel on our skin the lashes of their sand-whipping while they camouflage the nest. We laugh when they topple one over another. We try to understand them, holding onto our human need to be in control, but ultimately, all we can do is be patient spectators of their rhythms.

We think we’re saving them, but maybe they are the ones saving us. Or at least teaching us, with their lessons on time, patience, resilience, fragility, and service to the ecosystems around them.

It may seem like a stretch to some, but what we do as humans influences turtles. The trash and waste we create end up in the rivers and the oceans, the fossil fuels we use to power our lives cause temperature rise and ocean acidification, the diet we choose may support overfishing practices, and so on… everything is connected. This applies to all biodiversity, so you can pick your favourite animal if turtles are not your jam.

We don’t have to be perfect, but we need to understand that we don’t exist in a vacuum. We could start simply approaching the change with curiosity and slowing down, just like turtles.

Until the next letter,

Federica

PS. Find out more about Project Biodiversity here.
The title I mentioned stealing at the beginning is from this book.

[The letter you’re about to read was a tough one to write and a tougher one to publish. I wrote it 3 months ago when the facts happened, but I couldn’t get myself to share it. I polished it in the last few days, but I decided to keep the present tense to honour what I was experiencing in the moment.]

Kingston, June 2025

It’s 2 am in my hostel bed, and I haven’t been able to sleep. These past three weeks in Jamaica have been emotionally exhausting, and it’s the first time I can’t wait to leave a country.

When I’m in a new place, I love long walks: it’s a free way to get the pulse of a city or town. Since day one, it was clear that, in Jamaica, that would be impossible. Every man I passed on the street had a “hi, baby/gorgeous/beautiful/sexy/enter adjective” for me, followed by some question or phone number request. Men on the opposite sidewalk would straight up shout at me, cars would stop to offer - insistently and repeatedly - free rides to god knows where. As a person who thrives in invisibility, this was nothing short of a nightmare.

For three days in the last week, I tried to make my way to the beach, some 2 km away from my accommodation, and turned back defeated and exhausted. On the fourth day, I was determined and got almost there, when a man ran after me and stopped me. “You’re staying at Judy’s, aren’t you? I’m the gardener, been working for Sue for 4 years, I saw you there. Going to the beach? I’ll show you a good spot.” The guy kept talking, and I followed.

He works for this reliable lady. If I walk behind him, I’ll avoid everyone else’s harassment for a little bit, I thought.

He stopped to get me an unsolicited juice and a traditional snack, said I didn’t owe him any money. I should have walked away then and there, because nothing is free in Jamaica if you’re a foreigner. On the one hand, I don’t blame them. If rich white people came with their money, fencing off the beaches of my childhood and putting a prohibitive price tag on every piece of nature in my country, I’d be pissed too. On the other hand, I wish there were a tiny opening and a bit of respect toward those of us who try to connect and understand the humans behind the toxic tourism industry.

I didn’t walk away and gave the guy the benefit of the doubt. I said thank you and sipped my juice, sitting on the beach while we chatted a bit more.
“Let’s go for a quick swim, then I’ll leave you to your walk”, he said.
By this point, I was craving my own space, so 5 minutes in the water seemed a decent trade-off. Wrong, again.

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It took him 30 seconds to wrap me in what he defined as a “cuddle” from behind. Taken aback, I broke free. “Wo, wo, wo, no touching,” I said. I knew he wouldn’t understand the boundary just for respect’s sake, so I told him about having a long-lasting partner, whom I loved and had no intention to betray under any circumstances. The affable attitude was gone in a heartbeat. “Why you like that? I treated you well. This is only a cuddle. What happens in Jamaica stays in Jamaica.”
The idea that maybe I didn’t like him didn’t even cross his mind. I explained, a bit agitated by now, that that wasn’t the point. I didn’t want to. “It’s only a cuddle, you don’t need to be scared”, he insisted. His arms were again wrapped around me and this time he wouldn’t let go, rubbing himself on my legs. I tried, for a few seconds, to fight it, but soon enough I zoned out, rigid as a stick. I waited in silence, focused on keeping his hands away from any part of my body other than my belly. It might have been “just” a very tight hug, but for someone who’s not a fan of physical touch, it still felt like a serious violation. Some people strolled on the beach, but I couldn’t scream or call or draw any attention. As soon as he loosened the grip, I was out of the water.

“I treat clients right. Some people come for smoke, some for sex and party, I give what they want. But you’re a straight girl, I respect that”. That rubbing felt nothing like respect to me, but no snarky remark came out of my mouth. I didn’t humor him when he started asking questions about my sex habits with my partner, while boasting that he could go morning, afternoon, and night. He kept walking beside me while I headed toward a crowded stretch of the beach. “Will you be coming back to Jamaica?” he pressed on. “Maybe”, I offered, while my head screamed hell no. Giving the truth to someone who doesn’t want to hear it would be a waste of time and energy, and by that point I only wanted to cry anyway. We reached the louder establishments, and he signed off with a kiss attempt. I dodged and kept walking.
“Hope to see you again!”
On my dead body, I whispered to myself.

I wish I could say this experience was a first, but in hindsight, this one wasn’t even that bad. It just opened a Pandora’s box of anger and shame I wasn’t looking forward to facing. Once, I was in a room with a man, consensually, until it wasn’t consensual anymore. Another time, a guy stole my credit card, got me drunk with my own money, touched me in the middle of the street while “walking me home”, gave back the card with some 500 dollars missing, and disappeared. And other minor episodes here and there of men of all ages and origins following me or attempting to kiss or touch me. At the venerable age of 36, I should have learned how to react by now.
And yet, here we are.

I’ve been scammed by taxi drivers and money exchangers, overcharged by street vendors, and I still tend to trust whoever pretends to be nice to me. Sometimes I joke about the fact that, with my unawareness of social cues and helpless naivety, it’s a surprise I’m even alive. Maybe it’s not a joke at all, just reality. I’ve kept all these failures to myself until now, enshrined in shame. I still feel the shame in my bones so deeply that I blush on my own at the thought of any of these episodes. I’ve also been robbed at gunpoint once, and funnily enough, that’s the only time I have been able to tell the tale and move on, probably because it’s the only one I genuinely felt like it wasn’t my fault.

Rationally, I know that, even if I could have been smarter on multiple occasions, none of this was my fault. If a friend came to me with these stories - and I’m sure many, if not all of them, have lived through some kind of abuse or harassment - I wouldn’t think for a second to blame her. I know that my shame comes from what society has conditioned me to believe my whole life, and yet I can’t just decide “not to be ashamed anymore” with a snap of my fingers. It takes time and hard work. The fact that I - and millions of other women everywhere - have to do this work because men have been taught to feel entitled to our bodies and lives and can’t take no for an answer is infuriating. That men had the power to ruin my entire experience in a whole country is infuriating.

I don’t have a perfect conclusion for this letter. I didn’t write it to gain sympathy, nor as a call for women to speak up. Speaking up is hard and, sadly, often feels pointless. I suppose I just wanted to crack the shiny glass of the picture-perfect life of solo female travelers, to shed some light on the scars that don’t make it to social media very often. I hope men (and some women too) begin to reflect on how gender shapes our travel experiences—and consider what role they can play in changing the narrative. I’m tired of influencers claiming that the risks are the same and encouraging “fearless and authentic adventures” at all costs. I’m also tired of men who stay silent within their circles, acting as if this isn’t their problem. Not contributing to abuse isn’t enough, it’s simply the baseline of human decency.

Thanks for staying with me through this rollercoaster of a letter.
I promise the next one will be more uplifting.

With rage and shame,
Federica

PS. Sorry to my family and friends who will find out about this on the internet. I wasn’t ready to share. And thanks to the people who held space for a version of this piece when I didn’t know what to do with it, you know who you are.

How are you doing? I hope you’re getting enough rest these days.

This is my last letter from the Dominican Republic, as new projects are coming.

I’m sitting on the giant couch of the giant apartment we rented as a group for the week in Santo Domingo. The 7 am sunlight floods the room through the - you guessed it - giant windows that take up the entire street-facing wall. The house is still, so I put some calming music in my ears and attempt some deep breaths. Today is the final day of the Reef Check EcoDiver course I’m taking, and we’re conducting the official reef monitoring dives. It’s our exam, and the data we collect will be entered into the official Reef Check system.

Reef Check is a citizen science program in which recreational (or professional) divers can get certified to collect specific and standardized coral reef data during dives to monitor the reef’s health. I enrolled in the course as soon as I met the minimum requirements, because I was excited to be diving with a purpose and learning along the way. [It was also a gift from my partner F., shout-out to him so he doesn’t get offended.]

As soon as I started tackling the theory a few weeks ago, however, I realized how out of my depth I was (pun intended). I had to learn to recognize different families of fish and invertebrates, types of corals and various diseases, the different classifications of substrate, and so on.

What do you mean that color is not a good reference to identify fish and I have to look at their mouth, shape and tail instead? And algae are counted in different categories depending on their length? And coral bleaching is white, but stony coral tissue loss is also white, and the white plague disease is also white, and the white band disease is white?! How am I supposed to know the difference?

I was overwhelmed. So I did the only thing I could think of to reduce my feeling of inadequacy: I practiced every day. I would walk to Bayahibe’s quiet and deserted beach at 7 am and spend an hour in the water, staring at rocks and sponges, algae and sea urchins.

At first, I could not recognize a single thing. It was frustrating and uncomfortably eye-opening. As a person born in a seaside town, how could I not recognize a single fish? My childhood summers were largely spent at the beach and in the water. Indeed, the Adriatic Sea is not exactly like the Caribbean Blue, but still… I was dismayed by the lack of knowledge and curiosity of my childhood/teenage/adult years.

When did we become so disconnected from the nature that feeds and protects us?

As I kept up my routine, things slowly began to shift. I started to notice the little butterfly fish, always in pairs, and the schools of surgeons with their yellow spot; the differences between sediment and sand, and the urchins hiding in the darker nooks. I counted the coral’s little polyps: are they hexagonal or octagonal? Is the gorgonia healthy, or does it have aspergillosis? I wasn’t distracted only by the big and colorful anymore, the sighting of every living being - no matter how small, grey or ugly - came as a reward in this personal and educational treasure hunt. Drifting on the water surface, looking at marine life, felt like a wonderful way to be useless to capitalism, at least for a few hours every day.

When did observing something new every day lose its magic? When did productivity become the measure of my self-worth?

When the rest of the group joined me in the Dominican Republic, I still could not recognize coral diseases for the life of me, and I was still getting plenty of things wrong, but I was looking at the ocean with new eyes. Nobody could take that from me, though my inner critic did its best to try.

So here I am, up before everyone else, trying to calm my heart rate down. The group - teachers and classmates alike - is truly delightful, but I’m still not comfortable crying in front of everyone for no apparent reason. I have to keep it together and act “normal”. The thing is, after yesterday’s practice dives, my lack of experience compared to everybody else is painfully evident. I know it’s silly to compare my grand total of 30 dives to people who have 200, 3000 or 6000 dives: it’s like putting a third-grade kid in a class of university students. I also know this is an incredible learning opportunity for me, and yet all my brain has to offer is: “Why are you even here?”.

Later, when we arrive at the dive site, I can’t even put my weights on my weight belt properly. I just want to hide and cry. Why can’t I live a formative experience with the calm and excitement it deserves?

On the first dive, I am sent down first with P. to lay down the metered transect for the measurements. Then we move on to monitoring our first 50 metres, looking for invertebrates. Zigzagging upside down to scour every cranny and nook takes effort for me, but under her experienced guidance, I manage to do it. When we get to our second 50 metres, where we’re supposed to write down the substrate type every 50 cm, I start feeling light-headed and have a hard time recognizing even the basics. P. patiently corrects me (even if she’s technically taking the course too), but I still feel ashamed of all my mistakes. Soon after, I realize that I’m almost out of air - hence probably the lightheadedness - and we rush up to 5m for our safety stop before resurfacing. Being anxious underwater doesn’t really help efficient air consumption, so by stressing out, I only made my dive shorter. Such a bummer.

On the second dive, I’m on my own, monitoring a full 100 metres transect. This time, I get to 80% of it before being called back up for safety. It’s an improvement, but I’m still slightly disappointed. Once again, nobody is reproaching me for anything: I’m my harshest (and only) critic. The atmosphere on shore is filled with a joyous sense of accomplishment, as we stuff our faces with the scrumptious lunch that doña Josefina has laid out for us on the beachfront. We are all Reef Check EcoDivers now, ready to multiply our positive impact in our small way.

Yet, I already know I’ll take this course again. Not because I hated being the last kid in the class (although I did), not even because I loved my instructors (although I did, very much), but because I lived the experience from a place of fear. I was so focused on not making a fool of myself that all the curiosity and sense of wonder I had felt on my daily snorkeling practices on my own were gone. Corals humbled and amazed me with their complexity; they deserve my real, undivided attention. So I’ll keep studying and diving and marvelling in front of the nuances of marine life, to be back stronger (hopefully) to do my part.

If you’re still here, thank you. If you’re a diver and want to dive with a purpose, consider the Reef Check EcoDiver certification. There are branches all over the world. If you’re not a diver, but corals and the ocean fascinate you (and they should, considering that the ocean provides half of the oxygen you breathe), you can adopt a coral star by donating to Corales de Paz. You can also follow Corales de Paz, Ankay Conservation, and Buceo Ecologico RD on Instagram to see cool restoration projects in action on this side of the world.

With love and bubbles,

Federica

Today’s letter has been inspired by the Bayahibe-La Romana guagua (local term for the bus), a minivan of about 25 visible seats and 5-6 hidden ones, with thick curtains, loud music and no air conditioning. The supermarket here in the village has insane prices (hello, 7-euro mozzarellas!), so I go to the city once every 10 days on a grocery trip. Today, on my way back, squeezed against the window with all my bags stacked like Tetris blocks, I felt a weird sense of belonging and accomplishment. I had finally managed to decode the transportation system.

It may seem silly, but learning how to navigate the local public transportation network can make or break a destination for me. Even when I can afford it, I’m not a fan of taxis or Ubers and the like: entering a stranger’s car feels sketchy and uncomfortable, especially when drivers are chatty and I’m forced to make conversation. So yes, I need to know how to get around on my own.

Now, you may be thinking: “Girl, are you dumb? How hard can it be? It’s a bus!”. Overall, I agree that the system has to be roughly the same everywhere: a door may be missing, you might have to sit on someone else’s lap, but, as a general rule of thumb, a bus is a bus. It usually entails buying a ticket beforehand, waiting for the vehicle at a designated stop, pushing a button to request a stop if necessary, getting out of the thing. Done.

However, my friend, let’s not jump to conclusions too fast: the bus experience can be unexpectedly nuanced depending on your location.

Since landing in Latin America in 2018 (and the Caribbean islands more recently), the learning curve has been steep. Not only for the general lack of uniformity, but also because in every country you have to learn from scratch. It’s like the first day in a new school, over and over again.

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Let me give you a quick breakdown, hoping not to bore you to death.

When it comes to public transportation, the Latin and Caribbean culture is 70% minivans, 25% route taxis/shared taxis, 4% what we’d consider “official” buses and 1% all alternative things (like the one in this photo).

Minivans

It’s raining Virgin Marys

Minivans come in different sizes and shapes: they can range from minibuses with tacky curtains, all the way to minivans identical to the ones used by robbers and kidnappers in movies. In most countries, the driver is either the owner or the manager of the vehicle, which means they always drive the same one and therefore get to customize their space, much like truck drivers do. This usually translates to stickers invoking God’s mercy on the back, along with the names of the household’s kids, an array of photos, images of the Virgin Mary on the dashboard, furry clutch sticks, and the list goes on. Background music is also included in the experience and fits the driver’s taste at deafening volumes, from salsa to carranga, from reggae to reggaeton, from the Mass on Santa Barbara Stereo to gospel songs I used to sing in choir when I was 9, the limit is your imagination. The only rule is: make it as loud as you can. [I got off the bus at a random stop once because the music almost gave me a panic attack.]

The route

If you think the route should be a paramount piece of information on a bus, think again. Displaying the route is not a given. If you’re lucky, it is indeed displayed in front, and all is well. If you’re not, there’s an assistant hanging out of the - always open - door who shouts the destination repeatedly at 3x speed, which defies a bit the purpose, since if you want more passengers, they should probably understand what you’re saying. In the worst-case scenario, no info is given and you have no clue where the vehicle is going. If you don’t ask quickly enough, you’ll find yourself sitting inside the van with equal probabilities of being headed to Hell, Neverland or Narnia, who knows. As a person who reacts slowly to life, this is a source of anxiety, and to avoid it I sometimes pretend not to be waiting for the bus at all.

The “bus stop” concept

Another thing I struggle with is getting off the bus at the desired spot. The concept of “bus stop” doesn’t really exist: you just stand on the side of the road and the van will screech to a halt for you wherever you are, be it on a dangerous winding road, on the top of a hill, at a busy crossroad, who cares. And if there’s someone else 10 metres ahead, they’ll do the same for them. People are used to this and won’t budge until the bus stops right in front of their feet.

Detours are also a widely accepted common practice: drivers will take their family members home through side streets, stop to buy food, pick up laundry or run whatever errand they were sent on. You’re more of a guest than a paying customer on their bus, so better not to be in a hurry. Some drivers also like to engage in neck-breaking competitions to steal passengers from one another. Better sorry than safe. And if we die, we die together.

And how do you get off the bus, you may ask? Buttons to request a stop are not a thing. All you do is shout at the driver whenever and wherever. The way of asking varies from the Colombian “Me regala una paradita?” (Can you gift me a little stop?) to the Dominican “Déjame” (Leave me), to the laconic Barbadian “Bus stop, driver”, to a more concise Back door! or Here!. Not gonna lie, even after 7 years, I still have major problems with this. When I’m sitting further back, I can’t bring myself to do it (textbook social anxiety). More often than not, I’ll get off whenever another person requests a stop reasonably close to my destination and I’ll walk the extra distance.

Payment

Payment is another one that makes me feel dumb every time. The choice is really between paying when you get on or when you get off, cash only, but if you pick the wrong one, the driver will usually shoot you a judgmental look that says, “Haven’t you ever been on a bus before?”, which my soul finds extremely mortifying.

The other 30% of the pie: the best and the worst options

• My favourites are the 4x4 jeeps that act like buses for particularly tricky gravel roads. Five people fit in the cab, the rest sit on benches in the pickup area and, when full, extra passengers are allowed to stand behind, holding on for their lives. I always aim for the standing spots. [See video below.]

• I did not do well in places where route taxis (aka shared taxis with a fixed route) replace minivans or buses. In Tobago, they were just regular cars with no signs, and, to this day, I’m still trying to figure out how local people knew which cars to hail and where they were going. I later discovered that cars with the same destination would congregate in the same parking lot, but this information wasn’t mentioned anywhere, so the only way to find out was to ask multiple people and cross-check data until you found the one you were looking for. So much detective work for a public service.

Takeaways (?)

If you’re still here, my respects and my apologies. I didn’t know I had so much to say about buses (and I haven’t even touched upon long-distance ones!).

I don’t have a particularly clever reflection about how life is like a bus ride (messy, unnerving, stinky and loud?). Still, I do think it’s a humbling and empowering tool when visiting a new place. It reminds me not to take the basics for granted and not to judge other people for not knowing the “obvious”. It forces me to ask questions and rely on others at first - you won’t find ANY of these buses on the internet - and that’s incredibly uncomfortable. I hate (HATE!) asking for help, so this is a tiring and disagreeable phase every single time, but also a good practice of stretching outside of my comfort zone. And then, once I manage to figure it out, it becomes such an empowering experience: not only can I find my way around now without looking like a lost puppy to be taken advantage of, but I can also help the next brave and confused traveler.

These days, everyone looks for authentic experiences in far-away destinations from their private shuttles, when all it takes is trying to live in a place like a regular person would, even if it’s not Instagrammable. It takes courage to be the new kid on the block, so let’s honour for a second the patchwork of little moments of bravery that re-teach us the basics over and over again.

Thanks for sticking with me till the end and don’t hesitate to share your crazy bus experiences, we all have at least one :)

With kindness and a bit of mortification,

Federica

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Dear Earthling,

I hope you’re doing well, wherever you are in the world and despite the dystopic world we’re living in.

I’m writing this letter today from the small coastal town of Bayahibe, Dominican Republic. After a couple of frenzied months, I’ve decided to rent an apartment here until the end of July. It’s simple and quiet, 10 minutes away from the beach, with a little terrace facing the swimming pool and an unbeatable view of the bum of the condo’s inflatable orca. Slowing down has been a bliss: now that I finally have a little time to sit with my thoughts, the words have been flowing.

Last year, I “completed” the adventure I’m most proud of: a three-year Pan-American journey in my very basic minivan. It was challenging and magical, but it also left a void in me, and the big dream of doing something similar again on an even bigger scale. A full year came and went, and even though I’ve been traveling here and there, it didn’t feel the same. I’m a full-time on-the-road kind of person, I kept thinking, and there I was taking short trips and having a stable home base. I felt trapped.

The frustration got so strong that I started planning an island-hopping journey through the Caribbean at a neck-breaking speed (that would involve a shitload of money and way too many flights for my liking or the planet’s). I was basically a headless chicken running around after being freed from a cage. I left in early May on a short flight from Colombia to Aruba.

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It didn’t even take 48 hours for me to start waking up in the middle of the night with anxiety, and getting out of bed in the morning with decision paralysis that consumed all my thoughts. I couldn’t figure out how to plan my day between sightseeing and work, and I felt overwhelmed by having to book flights/ferries, hotels, activities, etc., every few days. I longed for my minivan era, when I could just decide on the spot how far to go on any given day and had my comfy bed with me at all times.

Travel is one of my reasons for living, and this unexpected anxiety felt like the ground gave way under my feet. Have I become incapable of traveling all of a sudden? Do I need to hang up my adventurer’s cap and start going on organized tours that don’t require me to do anything other than show up at breakfast on time? Maybe I need to start raising my prices —accommodation is getting more and more expensive and, with age, my tolerance to hostel beds is decreasing exponentially.

The original 25 or so islands I had wanted to visit dropped to ten and ultimately to eight, and I’m trying to be alright with it. I traded the disappointment for some peace of mind, and the FOMO for slower mornings looking out of a window with a cup of tea.

Maybe I just have to accept that my needs are changing. Maybe I don’t want to hop around like crazy anymore. Maybe I need to discover a new place by picking one location and staying put for a longer period of time. Maybe the minivan 2.0 as my stable home in an unstable life needs to happen faster than expected. Most certainly, I need to stop judging myself for these adjustments instead of feeling broken. I can still be an adventurer, maybe just a gentler one.

Right now, my “travel life” looks like this. What about you? Has anything shifted in your life over time that’s been hard to accept? I read you.

With kindness,

Federica

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Until half an hour ago, I wasn’t planning on opening a Substack. I was working on my book, and the next thing I know, I’m writing my Substack bio. I’m sure my scattered brain followed a logic for that specific jump, I’ll just never know what it was.

What I do know is that the trip I’m on right now has been harder than usual, and I’ve been feeling a bit lonely in my struggle. Sadness or discomfort are not acceptable feelings when you’re on a beautiful island on everyone’s bucket list.

Show, don’t feel.

Then I realized that the travel space online doesn’t really have a place for feelings. With very few exceptions, what I find these days in the magical world wide web are either perfect photos and reels on Instagram (I refuse to enter the black hole of TikTok, I’m a millennial) or marketing/informational blogs telling me what to do and where to go. There are trends, buzzwords, AI, and the bottomless well of YouTube. It’s all a big stage: show, don’t feel.

So, where is the space for processing life on the road in real time? Where is the space for reflections, descriptions for the sake of descriptions, and spur-of-the-moment reactions?

Write to Survive*

That space, for me, is usually a diary, or a random piece of paper or a Google Doc I’ll most certainly lose soon after. So I thought: maybe if I keep my reflections here, just maybe, I won’t lose them so easily. If I keep them here, in the open, maybe it won’t feel so lonely. And maybe someone, somewhere, somehow, will relate. The relief of being understood is massively underestimated.

I don’t know if this is an exercise in ego, a practice in honesty, or a sudden need to be seen as my real self behind all the everyday masking. Putting my personality through a strainer can be exhausting sometimes. Sometimes I even feel like I’m filtering myself in front of myself because I’m ashamed of myself. Kind of meta, I know.

*[If you got the reference, 100 points to you! If not, we’re still cool.]

Get to the point, please?

Letters from the Road is, very imaginatively, the letterbox I’ll put my letters from the road in. Recipient: whoever wants to read them. Just like the old paper letters we used to send as kids (if you’re my age at least), they will contain thoughts, descriptions, feelings, reflections about places I’m seeing, situations I get myself into, details that caught my attention, and random musings. If you don’t know me, I gravitate at the intersection of travel, writing, maps, environmentalism, books, anxiety, and turtles. So you can expect those topics to come up in one way or another.

I probably shouldn’t be starting another writing project right now. I have a book to write, on top of a blog, a newsletter and social media stuff nobody pays me for, and the occasional pitch to travel publications in the hope of getting some extra work. Even looking for more clients would be a better investment of my time, considering how slow business has been. And yet I’m here, because when something is nagging me, I can’t get anything productive done anyway. So I might as well make it a conversation with y’all. It will be more fun this way.

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