 on this is probably gonna be crazy. The lighting is already crazy because there's like no lighting in this hotel room, which is great for me in the evenings because I do not like light, but it's not great for filming, but I also know it's really echoey. So like we'll keep this intro to a minimum, but oh my gosh, I'm in Costa Rica on my first travel trip that I've ever hosted. And today is day one of the itinerary. Our friends, our fellow travelers have been arriving throughout the day and I've met some of them for the first time and they're all so lovely. I've just got about the last group to arrive. So I'm like, keep checking my phone because I want to miss them arriving. But yeah, today we are going out for a welcome dinner and then the fun begins and we're traveling around some of the Caribbean beaches side of Costa Rica. And it still doesn't feel real. It still feels incredibly surreal. I'm so sorry to be, yeah, seriously, but this is the dream. I can't really believe this is happening. I'm so grateful and like that this is my life and I get to go to Costa Rica with some of you guys. And those of you watching can watch this vlog and be with us by kerosene as well. We've got so much fun stuff lined up like kayaking, snorkeling. We've got a night walk with the spiders and sloths and tree frogs and monkeys and bats come out, which I'm very excited for. And I'm just excited to spend a week with these amazing, lovely people. So yeah, we've got a welcome dinner tonight. And then we set off bright and early tomorrow morning to make it to our first proper start. Brun San Jose, the capital city for the start and end. This is my first time in Central America. And I am just so excited. I've been having so much fun meeting everyone. I've had lunch with some people today, but the trip really begins now with this welcome dinner. So I'm going to take you along. I'm going to try and find a balance between vlogging the trip and being present with the guys as well. I'm sure it'll be fine once we start going. But I am just, I'm just so excited for this opportunity, for this holiday with everyone. I can't believe it. So I'll bring you guys along with us throughout the trip. And shall we just get into it? We're in Costa Rica. I never thought I'd get to go to Costa Rica in my life and I'm here. What is going on? Okay, I'm going to go to the dinner with everyone now. Asuna bed, I'm so excited. Good morning. So it is the next day. It's our first full proper day of the tour. The dinner last night was amazing. It was a great meeting everyone. Everyone was pretty tired because they had a long day of travelling. But it was so great meeting everyone. And it was actually one of our travellers' birthdays. We got a little cake for her. But yeah, today we're travelling off to Torteguero. And the trip really begins today. And I'm just so excited. We've got quite a journey, but I'm very excited. And then yeah, we've got loads of fun stuff kind of today in Torteguero. I'm so excited to... It's like kind of jungly. So I will see you there. But let's get going. We're crazy. Guys, this is absolutely insane. We have got to Torteguero. We've got to our hotel room. We've already seen Halamunkies. We've already seen Macaws. And guys, we've seen a crocodile. It's absolutely crazy. But we're going for a walking tour around the town now. I realise I've probably done a terrible job of explaining, if you don't know, what travel trip is. So basically the other people on this trip with me is some of you guys. Hello subscribers that have come on the trip with me. The group is already amazing. I'm loving getting to know everyone. But yeah, we've got two exciting activities the rest of today. We've got a walking tour around the town, which we're going to go to now. And then we have got a night tour where we're going to see all the animals that come out at night in the jungle. How many people are scared? Me too. I was really, really scared. I'm so excited. I don't know how much that will be able to film because obviously it's going to be very dark. But yeah, we're going to go to the town now, which I'm very excited for. And I'll take you along with us. But this trip is already insane. Also, I'm going to look a mess for the rest of the video because it is so hot and humid. It's crazy. I've just had a shower and I already feel disgusting. But it's great. I love the heat. But I'm just going to look a mess. And I'm accepting that and you need to accept that too. Anyway, so let's go to the town. One of the most incredible days of my life. I'm being deadly serious. The highlight for me was we saw the sloth. Did you guys see the sloth? Oh my God. I almost cried. He was so cute. I've never seen a sloth before. Actually, one of the travelers, Hannah, had met a girl earlier in the holiday who had been here two months and not seen a sloth. So I'd given up. We saw 10,000 sloths yesterday. We saw the one in the day. And then we had the night walk tour, which I didn't film a ton of. I've got some clips that you've probably seen. But I didn't film a ton of because obviously it was hella dark. It was night time. But we saw loads of sloths. We saw iguanas. There was one point where we saw baby turtles on the beach. We only got to see them briefly because obviously not supposed to shine light on them because they get confused. But there was actually four crawling on my feet at one point. We were trying to leave because we didn't want to disturb them. But they were just like they were so cute. They were so cute. It was so special. It was such a wonderful day. I like can't believe what a wonderful day it was. And I was talking to Chelsea, another one of the travelers, and we were saying we cannot believe that yesterday was one day. Like so much happened. But today we've got another gem packed day. We have got a boat tour this morning, and then we've got Kaya King and another guided jungle walk this evening. We're literally in the jungle in this hotel. This is crazy. We can hear all kinds of bugs and monkeys and birds in the night. But you'll be chilling in the pool and there'll just be a monkey in the trees right next to you. Just monkey. Chill in. Just chill in. But yeah, yesterday was just incredible guys. It was incredible. It was incredible. I cannot believe this is my life. What the hell? So yeah, I'm going to go ahead to breakfast. Then we've got activities. But this is just making me even more excited for my grease trip as well. If you don't know, I've got another trove of trip coming up, which is my grease trip next year in October. And this is making me even more excited for that because yesterday was literally one of the best days of my life. Anyways, I'll see you soon. We're going to go have a very exciting day again. And I, yeah, I cannot wait to see what we're going to see today. Heroics, guys, what the hell? What the hell? What the hell? This is like the most amazing experience of my life. Oh my god. Okay, so it's our last morning in Tortegara. Can you hear all those sounds? It's crazy. Actually, last we had the boat tour yesterday morning. We came back and chilled by the pool for kayaking in the past. Usually it's like beach. This is more like in the rivers and the canals around here. And it was challenging. It was challenging, but we had a great time, but we all got mucky afterwards. And then we just had dinner and chilled by the pool. I've come inside because people kept walking past and I don't like filming. It was so awkward just me standing there and then walking past and me like being silent. I saw some of the nice outside. What was I saying? Yes. Okay, we went kayaking. It was crazy. It was a great experience, but then we were all dirty. So we all came back and showered, had dinner, and then we all chilled by the pool for a couple of hours, like playing games. It was so fun. It was such a fun time. So I hope we do that a bit more in the rest of the trip. But yeah, so today we are just traveling to our next location. But yeah, the kayaking, pretty insane kayaking we've ever done. It was a moment. That's why there's like no footage of it. We were like, we are not filming this. We are just surviving. It was great. It was amazing. But yeah, and like going through, we managed to go through like smaller canals that like the bigger boats we've been on wouldn't be able to fit through. And it was just perhaps the most insane experience of my life. Like I'm like, how am I here? What am I doing? Anyways, but I did want to give you a little bit of a book review because I finished where there was fire, which is one of our book club picks. We've got two book conflicts. I suppose we'll be discussing them tomorrow. I still got rid of the other one, but it's quite short. And I finished this one and we've all hated it. I think we're all going to give it like two stars. I'm giving it two stars. It's set in Costa Rica in 1968 and I think in like 1995. Yeah. And it's partly a family saga following these generations who have kind of fallen out of contact with each other and like the tensions between them. And it's partly also a commentary on exploitation of workers by America and other countries and American influence and international exploitation and how that intertwines with what happened to the family, right? And I understand that the two are by the end of the book like so intertwined that like you can't have one without the other in the book. But I just feel like it was trying to do these two things simultaneously. And so it did neither of them well. You know, I don't know. I feel like I wasn't really invested in the family saga and their tensions and their relationships. And there wasn't a lot of information about the other aspect of the book. I was also hella bored. I fell asleep on the plane. Listen to the audio wreck. And I think we've all been bored. I just didn't like the writing style. The writing style was like a little bit like it would it kind of say like gross things for no reason. Do you know what I mean? Bodily things. It was all bodily things. And I was like, what is going on? Like, I don't know. I feel about this. There's a lot of weird aspects to it. But so few weird aspects of the whole book wasn't weird. But you just have a line where you'd be like, okay. Oh, Jesus, gross. But anyways, yeah, I gave it two stars. It's got great reviews on the back, but I just didn't feel connected to it in any way. And I don't think any of us have. But you know, I like what it's trying to do. But it didn't succeed for me. Anyways, we are going to go travel to our next place today. So I don't know what we'll do. We'll get there in the afternoon. So I don't know what the plans were. I haven't got any scheduled activities, but we'll probably all hang out. So yeah, I'll see you when I see you. I don't know how much trouble you'll get done today because we have got a lot of traveling as well. But I'll see you around. Bye. Yeah, she's forgotten that bit. You can. You can. You can. You can. You can. Good morning. I look a mess because I need to sweat my hair. But we're going to the beach today. So I'm going to wash my health. But yeah, we're going for the beach. It's a very pretty beach for like a beach day. Look at our room, by the way. It's got a hammock outside. What the hell? Anyways, we're heading to the beach. So I'll see you when we get there. Next morning, I didn't have time to record in the morning because we had to get packed up. I just read I didn't actually film inside the room at this hotel, which is a shame because it was so beautiful. But we were just so busy having fun that I didn't get a chance to film. Anyways, we had to get packed up and travel back to San Jose. But instead of going straight back to San Jose, we actually decided to visit the nearby Jaggy Rescue Center, which had loads of rescue animals. So I'll let the clips roll of us visiting the rescue center. But it was amazing. We saw so many animals here. I'm trying to find a place in this hotel room where I can sit the camera down. I'm just going to sit on the toilet and put the chat to you, okay? Because we're on a rush. I've spoken to you. The audio is pretty bad in here as well. But I'm just going to chat to you quickly. So yesterday we went to the beach. I saw you before we went to that. Then we went to a really nice restaurant for lunch nearby. And then we all chilled out for colours in the afternoon. Went out for dinner together. And then we spent the whole evening playing games together. Every evening we've been hanging out and playing games together. We're doing so much fun. We played just one. We played a lot of pool as well at the last hotel because it had a pool table. I think you go, yeah, you saw that. And then we've travelled. Oh no, this morning you saw we went to an animal rescue centre and we saw so many amazing animals. We got chased by a parrot. Got to think of a beet. We saw monkeys, sloths, like cats. Big cats. Small, big cats. To go to our farewell dinner now. I cannot believe how quickly this trip has gone. And I don't know how well I've been vlogging because it has been pretty crazy. It's been pretty full on. I've just had the best time and this group is all amazing people. So, yeah, we've got our farewell dinner. But yeah, yesterday was an amazing day. Beach, the lunch was amazing at bread and chocolate. The dinner was really nice and hanging out. Hanging out the evening has been the highlight for me because we've all just been chatting and like laughing. It's been so much fun. We've had such a great time. I feel like the group has bonded really well and everyone's getting along great and I just want to be friends with them forever. I just think everyone's getting along so well. So, yeah, it's our last dinner together tonight. And then some people fly it tomorrow in the morning and then there's a few of us who are getting, we're flying the next day and there's a few other people on our flight. So we get to hang out with a few people a little bit longer. But tonight is kind of the final night of the trip and we're going to a bookshop briefly and then we're going to head to dinner. And yeah, I'm excited. Apparently it's really good. Just like Argentinian restaurant. Maybe there'll be like a steak-esque dish. It's very excited. But yes, I thought I'd just check in with you quickly before we rush off again because we literally just got to the hotel from traveling. And now we're off out again. I'll see you later. But yeah, let's go grab dinner and go to a bookshop. And we're in the diary. There's no more drama here. Anyways, I'll hang out with them and they'll tell you all the good, the bad and the ugly of this trip. Okay, ready? I'm Lucy. I'm from London. Hi, my name is Sarah. And I'm from Denmark, Copenhagen. I'm Sapphire. I'm from Victoria, BC in Canada. Hi, so I'm Hannah. Hi, I'm Chelsea. Hi, I'm KS Day. I was really nervous about coming on this trip with Meg, but I thought it would be so amazing to meet her face to face because I've been watching her on YouTube for like three years now. And we've had such a fun time being here. It's really been nice. And we've seen so many amazing things. Yeah, lots of really cool animals. And for me, it was like a lot of the plans were so cool. Yeah. You want to pause? Don't worry. Okay. I'll just put our hands up. This means we're pausing. Okay, all right. Especially as someone who doesn't have any people in their real life to read books with, it's been great going on this trip, meeting like-minded people. And I've had such a good time. It's been so much fun. Had some incredible experiences, saw some turtles going into the ocean. Seriously. She could grab her chair from us. Okay. Mom's career is on the line. Okay. All right. I'm really sorry. I've got tears dripped out my face. We did a lot of outdoor stuff, but also a lot of indoor stuff, where we could just kind of chillax and kind of talk with the group, which is really nice. We all got along and played a lot of games with each other and just like talked about books and stuff we like in our free time. Every day has just been amazing. What's your favorite part of the actual trip? So one of the excursions that we did on the trip was kayaking through the jungle of Costa Rica. And I had such a blast. Kayaking is one of like my favorite things to do during the summer. Yeah. Which is so amazing to do with a group of girls I never met before across the world. Yes. Yeah. Kayaking in the jungle was my favorite. My favorite part about this particular itinerary is I'm going to have to say the jungle walk. Like, Natalie will know. The night one? The night one. Okay. Natalie will know how scary this was for me. This whole trip has been outside my comfort zone. But doing that and doing it with a group of people that I feel safe with and connected with was amazing. Our favorite experience was kayaking. We actually got paired together as roommates and then we paired together in the kayak and I think it really bonded us for sure. I wasn't expecting to get on with everyone so quickly but we really gelled straight away didn't we with the whole group. Yeah. So it's been really lovely. Yeah. And also the tour guide. Yeah. Yvonne was really great and he knew what he was talking about. He knew the area and like he was really accommodating if we wanted to do something like we wanted today on the last day. We wanted to go to the bookstore and we figured out a way that we could do that and make dinner. Yeah. Which was really nice. Yvonne the tour guide was incredible, incredible, amazing, challenging. She was stopping brilliant. He's been really, really sweet about like if something's got like canceled then he found alternatives for us or like we could just have a nice day for ourselves. I think it's nerve wracking. One travel alone because I think a lot of people travel alone and then two to go somewhere that you don't know. So don't worry about it. Meg's great. Sometimes she has a resting bitch face but it's not real. She means well. She is lovely. She is really lovely. And seeing things that you've never seen before like I'd never seen in sloth before. We saw like a thousand. Oh yes. Yes. And so one thing got canceled and we just ended up having like a nice chill night where we all actually worked out well because we all got to know each other a lot better. And then the next morning we actually got to do that activity which was really cool. Yeah. So yeah it's just been absolutely amazing. And I'm very excited to see what happens with the next travel trips and hopefully I'm looking to make the Greece trip next year as well. So yeah if you're thinking about going on the Greece trip I would definitely book onto it because you've had an amazing experience here. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah it has been a lot of fun. So just like to ease anyone else's anxiety about going on this trip, traveling to a different country by yourself, to not be afraid because you're all going through the same experience. Yeah. So you feel this instant connection. If you have any like nervous anxieties or anything about anyone being like nice or anything like that I would a hundred percent not worry about that and wouldn't let that stop you from booking your trip at all. Everyone here has been super lovely. We've had such a good time. We all got on so well together from the get go. It's a transatlantic relationship all the way from across the ocean. No for real. We're married. And if anyone's thinking like anxiety about logistics or anything to do with that there's like first for your host like Meg will be helping you along the way of all of it. And also the travel company has got everything scheduled for you. If you were looking for a wife or husband go to Greece. It could happen. Meg's the matchmaker of the century. Mom and dad prime. Tom's great as well. Shout out Tom. Shout out for real. Shout out Tom. Tom Cain's true gent. I've had a few special requirements for this trip but everything's been sorted completely fine and it's really eased my anxieties because I thought I would be a nuisance or something totally was not. If you're wondering what Meg's like who is she? Who is she? Where did you find her? She is exactly as she is off camera as she is on camera. She's so lovely and Tom is amazing. Very much golden retriever energy. So you will 100% get on with everyone. It's been amazing and we would really recommend going on the Greece trip. We sadly cannot make it. No I'm going to be in school. Yeah same. And also being a solo traveller coming into a group of strangers. We're literally all doing the same thing. Yeah. So it's been great meeting everyone. And now we have this group of friends. Yeah we're talking about doing reunion tours. Yes. We haven't even finished the trip yet. We're doing another. But then we can have a podcast maybe we'll be famous. Oh yeah we might start a podcast. We'll turn my gun. Go ahead. We might start a podcast if you're interested in that thing in the comments below. If you love us but maybe saving up for the next trip that she does after Greece. Yeah. Who knows. So on the whole we will think that the trip was success. Let us know we'll start a party. Okay enough. I've met some incredible people and I really want to keep in touch with everyone for the long haul. Is that off? Yes. I don't know. How can you tell? The red light's still on. Did it make a noise? Oh what if we did it wrong this whole time? Well I think that's it. I feel like we... What if we love you? No what's the Gen Z one? I can't do it. There you go. Hope to see you guys in Greece in 2024. Bye. No it says record in. Turn it off. Hold it down. You're holding the wrong button. That whole thing was record. Okay bye. Guys I was just editing those clips and I almost cried because I missed them. I'm so sad. Also I promised I didn't make them say anything. It was just like if anyone was talking about how the trip was you know I sat at the camera left the room. I wasn't standing by the camera going be nice. But genuinely the Kostryka trip was amazing. I hope some of that showed through the vlog. It was an incredible time. You know as one of the travelers are probably nervous you know solo traveling, meeting group they've never met before. I was also really nervous. I was nervous about everyone having a good time, wanting to go well, wanting nothing to be a disappointment for anyone and it went as well as it could possibly be imagined. It went better than I can imagine. I had the best time in Kostryka. It was honestly the trip of a lifetime. The amount of animals and nature that we saw, the activities that we did together and just the time we spent together. It was amazing guys. I feel so lucky. I feel so blessed. It was an incredible time and I'm sad. It's been like a week since it ended and I'm not over it. I want to be back with them. It's cold in the UK. I want to be in hot Kostryka with my friends. I had an amazing time. You know we bonded so well. We were together from like seven in the mornings like 11 at night at least basically every day and I could not have imagined a better group of people to do that trip with. So for those of you, anyone of you who's watching who came on the trip, I love you and thank you for making it such an incredible trip. It wasn't everyone in those videos who was on the trip. Some people didn't want to be on camera so that was just the people who were up there on camera. But all of you who came on the trip, you're all amazing. You made it an incredible time and as some of them were saying I am hosting another trip to Greece next year in October, October 1st to 7th 2024. We're going to be doing so many fun activities. We've got a Jeep safari. We've got a wine tour. We've got where visiting loads of ancient archaeological sites. We've got a sort of beach visits again as well. It's going to be amazing and doing this trip has made me feel so much more excited about Greece but also made me so much less nervous because like now I know how great it's going to go. I'm not really nervous like I was. I don't think for Greece. Maybe because it's the time I will be but I'm just excited. So if any of you want to join us there, I think a few people from this trip may be coming again and hopefully a lot of new people. We've already got a lot of new people coming on the bookings. If you want to join us I'll leave the link down below and you can ask me any questions that you have in the comments as well but it was the trip of a lifetime. I feel so lucky to have experienced it. I hope you guys enjoyed watching this vlog and kind of living vicariously through it and seeing what we got up to but thank you also all of you for making that happen because even if you didn't come on the trip by being a subscriber, by being a viewer of mine, you made that happen right? Like I can't believe I'm in a position where that's my life and I just want to say a big thank you to all of you because you all made that happen, all of you watching and it was the most incredible time. So I love you all. Thanks for watching this little holiday vacation vlog and I'll see you guys soon in the next video. Bye!