New Year’s 2026 – From Mérida to Hong Kong

My seventh annual New Year’s trip abroad was loosely planned for Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, Vietnam (key word – loosely). I’d been plotting my return to the South East Asian country for a few months, keen to snowbird there for the winter. However, my attempt to travel there on standby (via LAX to Hong Kong) on 23 December didn’t go as planned – out of the 14 people on standby I was the only one who didn’t make it on. Looking ahead at flight loads for that week I determined I wasn’t likely to reach Asia by the year’s end. So, as the plane I hoped to catch left the gate without me, I sat down and thought, “what’s my back-up plan?” Soon enough, I boarded a flight to Houston, there I slept overnight in the terminal, and the next afternoon I caught a flight to Mérida, the capital city of the Yucatán state in Mexico.

Arriving to a Latin American city on Christmas Eve, especially after dark, is a weird thing. This is because very little except for the most touristy and overpriced of restaurants are open. At the same time public spaces are unusually quiet. From the Mérida airport a public bus was easy to catch, this took me straight into the city center. I arrived to my hostel, Che Nomadas, just as the guests there had sat down for a hostel-run Christmas Eve dinner. If only I’d arrived a few hours earlier … I could’ve signed up for it. But it was fine, I went out and splurged on a meal along the city’s main plaza. There I tried a Yucatán traditional dish called Poc Chuc, which consists of marinated pork and fillings served with tortillas to make tacos (many of the Yucatán foods are consumed this way). Between sips of beer I watched as a Santa Claus rode a bicycle and waved through the plaza, escorted by a police vehicle.

This was my first visit back to Mexico in four years, and though it was unplanned, it felt great. Mérida had been top of list for me for a while now. It’s recognized as Mexico’s safest city, and it possesses a reputable food scene. But the thing that initially surprised me about Mérida was the absence of street tacos. In their place, at nighttime, were carts everywhere selling a popular Yucatán dessert called Marquesitas – a crepe/waffle folded with shredded cheese (this, plus any number of fruit fillings and Nutella). Sit-down taqueria restaurants were my best bet for tacos. These were found at any of the city markets – the Santiago market, the San Benito Market, and the one I frequented most: the Santa Ana market. I visited one specific Taqueria at the Santa Ana market almost every day.

A goal of mine for this New Year’s trip, no matter where I ended up, was to relax and not force myself to do too much. I’d had a fruitful year of travel and work, with trips that aligned with various purposes. For the year’s end I just wanted to unwind and reflect upon it all. Most travelers were out and about enjoying cenote tours and visiting the sites of Mayan ruins, but I was content with simple things in the city center: early mornings with instant coffee by the pool, taqueria visits whenever I liked, more time by the pool, and getting in my calisthenics workouts in the massive Parque La Plancha. Multiple days passed before I even took out my Fujifilm camera, though I’d made mental notes of where to return for photos. Mérida has a well preserved colonial city center, along with many old churches (including the oldest cathedral in all of Latin America!)

While people came and went at the hostel, I spent a lot of my time poolside with an American woman named Karena, photographed below. Karena was the same age as my mother, but she embodied the spirit of someone far younger. She spoke of her early life relocating with her mother from Ohio to Switzerland amidst a divorce, this while her father ran a collegiate study abroad program traveling between multiple continents (she later studied in her father’s program). Furthermore I learned of her own marriage and divorce; the house she bought with a lover in Chihuahua; and her solo wanderings in Europe and Latin America. Her presence was one of quirky moments and head-turning one-liners, things I’d expect to hear out of the mouths of people even younger and wilder than myself. It was inspiring that she still chose to stay in hostels, and it reminded me that this type of backpacker accommodation isn’t just for broke 20 something’s. Karena and I laughed a lot, and there was rarely a dull moment.

Having postponed my trip to Asia, I decided that I would continue on with those plans just days into the New Year. Leaving Mérida I embarked upon a dizzying series of flights to get to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon. It didn’t help that my travels were primarily on a Sunday, when domestic travel in the U.S. is busier, and standby flying tricker. On that morning there was a marathon run going on in the Mérida city center, this made calling an Uber virtually impossible, as large stretches of road were blocked. I barely made it to the airport in time, having literally ran with my massive pack on across the city center and to a well-located bus stop – at a point awkwardly running straight through the marathon itself! I’m pretty sure I got a seat on standby only because of that marathon … there were a number of no-shows.

I flew first to Houston, then to Denver, and then onto to San Francisco. There I finally boarded the 15-hour flight across the pacific to Hong Kong. Interestingly, in 2018 I had intended to fly to Hong Kong as my first visit to Asia – but of course I didn’t get a seat on the plane, and I gave up. Fortunately, arriving there now I had a 14-hour layover. This was my opportunity to go into the city for the day. Visiting now, with nearly a dozen Asian countries under my belt, it was certainly a point for reflection. I remember years ago worrying that I wouldn’t be able to read signs, and that I’d be utterly lost (I didn’t know that signs are typically doubled in English). Instead of Hong Kong inducing culture shock, I found myself generally comfortable, comparing it to my recent stay in Taipei.

What was not comfortable, however, was lugging around my bag on my shoulders all day. I should’ve found a place to lock it up for the day, but oh well. I still enjoyed wandering up hills and between the densest skyscrapers I’ve ever seen. For lunch I stopped by a take-away food stall, full of fresh cooked meats and vegetables. Upon making payment I learned they only accepted cash or a local type of card – neither of which I had. Some kind man behind me stepped in and paid for me, I don’t know what I would’ve done otherwise!

My favorite part of the day was walking the promenade along Victoria Harbour – there I spotted the iconic red-sailed Junk Boats, and had great views of the skylines on both sides of the harbour. Returning to the airport, that night I took my *fifth* standby flight, coincidentally a brand new “Fifth Freedom” route between Hong Kong and Ho Chi Minh City (“fifth freedom” referring to a flight that begins and ends outside the home country of the airline). Having missed the iconic nighttime lights of Hong Kong, I was happy to get a glimpse out the window after we’d taken off – and from my upgraded seat in Business Class, at that!