By Andreia Andreia can usually be found searching for cheap flights for herself or JFC members. Her favourite activity is lounging in the sun in her hometown, Porto, with her cat and a book. And, maybe a glass of wine or two.

Living in Portugal, almost every social event and gathering revolves around food. Regardless of the time of day, if you have someone over, you’ll serve them tapas, lunch, or dinner (or maybe all three!). From tremoços to enchidos, seafood to pastries ( pastel de nata included), or olives to bread, there’s always something to munch on.

Food was an essential part of my childhood, growing up in Porto. At three, my grandmother (a farmer) would take me to the farm and watch me play in the crops. We’d patiently wait for passion fruit vines to ripen and crack them open to stain our clothes and mouths. When I turned six, on my first day of school, my grandmother took me with a bag of fresh produce, a tray of eggs, and a vase of flowers to give to my teacher.

Sounds pretty typical of many people who grow up in Portugal. Except for one tiny thing: I’m a super picky eater. It all started just after I turned one, when I suddenly stopped eating. Avoiding most soups, saying no to veggies, frowning at fish dishes, setting beans aside… You name it, I’ve probably got a story about refusing it.

As I've gotten older, travelling has encouraged me even more to get out of my comfort zone and enjoy more of what the food world has to offer.

In the first few trips I took as a young adult, the hype was all about fast-food. I had my first Meatball Sub in Edinburgh, while running late to catch a flight back home. A few years later, I’d have my first Domino’s slice in Edinburgh as well, which became the best pizza I’d ever tried up until then. Somewhere in Malta, and even though I’m not a fan of cinnamon, I tried Cinnabon rolls, and I wasn’t disappointed! I visited McDonald’s everywhere I went (and still do) but, as I started to travel more often, I began trusting local restaurants and food stalls more and more.

So, I want to take you on that journey with me. And if you’re a fellow picky eater, I hope it inspires you to try something new.

Cancún: tacos, tamales and burritos

In early 2019, I booked a ticket to Cancún as a first stop on a four-month Central and South American trip. When the departure date was approaching, I started to panic about food. I had very little experience with spicy food (except for our classic francesinha), and no clue about what Mexican dishes tasted like. I went to a local restaurant that served tacos and burritos to try to get a taste (no pun intended) of what was to come, and I liked the Taco Bell-style hard-shell tortillas, filled with a very Portuguese version of pico de gallo. Little did I know that I’d soon be eating food that would put this to shame.

I was staying in Puerto Morelos for a couple of nights before heading to Playa del Carmen. The first night, having arrived late in the evening, I ordered some tacos, with fries on the side in case they were too spicy.

They were spicy, but small and perfectly filled. Different sauces and salsas were spread around in little plastic containers, and I tried them all as I dipped the tortillas, drizzled with lime on top. I was instantly hooked. This mythical food, that I’d mostly heard of through Kim Possible episodes, was soooo tasty!

I went to bed feeling happy, full, and glad I’d travelled to this place. The next morning, there were more tacos being served for breakfast in the common area, with all kinds of fillings for the neighbours to pick from. I gladly engaged in some broken-Spanish conversation with the locals, putting my best Portunhol to use, and had a few bites before heading straight to bed again, still jet-lagged and tired.

Tacos for breakfast in Puerto Morelos

For dinner on the second night in Puerto Morelos, I went out with Remi and Gabriela, other guests from the Airbnb, for some tamales. They knew a food stall that apparently served the best ones in town, so we headed there, walking through several bars, restaurants, and other street vendors selling local goodies.

I’d never seen tamales in my life, but my new roomies had assured me they were tasty, and I trusted them to order for me. This would become a habit of mine during my travels—I find that having other people choose what I eat takes the pressure off me choosing.

When the lady unfolded the wrapping paper to reveal the cooked husk shaped up like corn, I went back to one of my childhood memories. During harvest season, we used to make dolls out of corn husks during the traditional desfolhada. All those times suddenly became part of a bigger thing, and unfolding those tamales felt more meaningful to me. Removing the husk revealed the sweet masa dough, used to wrap shredded meat and cheese for the filling.

Despite my emotional connection to them, I didn’t have any more tamales, since I was hooked on all those tacos sold by the locals. Burritos were also a game changer for me—back then, I hated beans, but after my first taste of a burrito, I lived off them for the rest of the time I was in the country.

Tamales in Puerto Morelos

The plastic plates with pico de gallo leftovers and squeezed lime became part of my daily routine. I learned to appreciate the spice, gradually increasing in intensity as I got more comfortable with it. At that point, I was trying everything that looked like it shouldn’t be spicy but was, even off the supermarket shelves–sweets, drinks, popcorn. Nowadays, I try to recreate that Mexican chilli at home, and I always try jalapeño-filled recipes.

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By Olivia Flight Finder Olivia is a San Diego native, splitting her time between there and Seattle. When she’s not at her local coffee shop writing about slow travel, you’ll find her hiking or road tripping along the West Coast.

The Mojave Desert is a strange place. It’s huge in a way that dwarfs every SoCal city and suburb and takes on a life of its own. It’s got a very specific vibe to it, a sense that it isn’t beholden to laws or societal standards. It’s the kind of place where a water park can stand abandoned for decades.

Originally built in the 1950s and called Lake Dolores, this water park was intended as a roadside stop off the I-15 between LA and Vegas. It saw some success in the 70s and early 80s, before business tanked and the park was sold and renamed Rock-a-Hoola in 1990. Failing again (partly due to a lawsuit), it was sold to a third owner in 2001 and renamed Discovery Park. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it failed a third time and closed for good in 2004.

Google Maps calls the place Rock-a-Hoola and notes that it’s “Open 24 Hours,” which is an odd way to say “abandoned in the state it was in 20 years ago and no one bothers to supervise it.”

Anywhere else in California, and the place would have been gated up, condemned, demolished, sold, or charging fees for commercial photography. But out in the desert, it’s allowed to exist on its own terms. I made it a mission to find and visit it.

Google Maps gave me directions right up to the edge of the park, so I assumed this would be an easy task. What I didn’t expect was that the roads it was directing me down don’t quite exist. After exiting the highway, you quickly turn down a dirt path marked only by bike tracks.

My nearly-30-year-old car almost immediately got stuck in the loose sand, so I did my best to park it out of the way (as if anyone else would be coming down this patch of desert) and took off on foot. I crested a hill and about a quarter mile away I could see a cluster of structures covered in chipped paint.

Walking up to the park, it’s clear that local kids have made it a haven. The walls are splattered with phrases like “TYLER WAS HERE” and “KELSIE + RYAN ❤️” and “MAMBA FOREVER.” While most of the buildings are technically still standing (minus the one that’s been reduced to ash), they’re not exactly stable: the drywall has been ripped from every surface, wiring pulled from the walls, plumbing torn out, patches of flooring burned and blackened, and every square inch covered in graffiti. Disintegrating cans of beer and mini bottles litter the floor. It’s the kind of hangout every edgy teen wishes they had.

Despite the damage, you can still see the ghost of the water park that once was. Most of the plastic slides are absent, but their metal supports poke out of the hillside. What presumably used to be a lazy river is now marked with bike tire skids and skateboard tracks.

I explored for a while, reading the graffiti, peering down collapsing hallways, climbing pool stairs that haven’t seen water in decades, and being grateful that I’m up-to-date on my tetanus shots. Climbing the ladder that used to lead up to the waterslide, I found myself staring off into the open desert in one direction, and towards the whir of the freeway in the other.

It seems odd that a rare piece of infrastructure in the empty desert would be abandoned, but I guess there’s no shortage of land out here. There’s talk that businesses might renovate and try again, but the start date came and went three years ago, and there’s not a single sign of that effort anywhere around the park. After three failed attempts, the county might do better to just let this one go. And I hope they do — I think this monument to desert anarchy is worth more than another water park.

And so there it will remain, until either the kids go full “Lord of the Flies” and burn it all down, investors get their mitts on it, or the place just gets swallowed up by the Mojave sand. We’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s a firm favourite if ever I saw one—winter sun! We’ve got a few ideas up our sleeves over here, but first I want to hear from you, readers!

Where should Dave spend January 2025? We’re looking for a bit of sunshine, some opportunities to get active and swim, and a great environment for taking it easy for a few weeks. Send us your ideas by hitting ‘Reply’, and we’ll share our favourites next week.

All the important (or silly, or strange) travel news from across the web this week.

• With heatwaves and wildfires becoming annual events around the world, cooler destinations are seeing an increase in popularity for summer travels.
• If you’re heading Down Under this year, be prepared to duck for the new colonies of “megabats”. Eek!
• Pilgrims have long had plenty of choice for where to start the Camino de Santiago, but did you know that you know Ireland is one of those options?.
• And finally, a little determination and an eagle eye is all it takes to get anxious skiers down the slopes of Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico, where Martinis are hidden in wooden boxes on trees along the runs.
  It all started back in the late 1950s, when a woman taking a skiing lesson was struggling to make it all the way down. All it took was downing a dry Martini (at the behest of her instructor!) to overcome her fears and ski perfectly to the bottom. Now the area is dotted with liquid courage stations to make sure nobody gets too shaken up. Cheers to that!