Category Archives: Travel Stories

Heading into the final stretch of this trip through SE Asia I visited a place that I had formerly planned to go in April of 2020 — Komodo Island, Indonesia. I reminisced on my past working on cruise ships with a 4 day/3 night sailing tour departing from the island of Lombok and ending inContinue reading “The Lombok To Komodo Sailing Tour”

I’ve been wanting to come to Bali for three years now. Admittedly, I am one of the masses who discovered the famed Indonesian island through reading Eat, Pray, Love. In April of 2020 I was supposed to visit Bali for the first time on my second cruise job … but of course that didn’t panContinue reading “Four Days In Ubud, Bali — Indonesia”

The culture shock of arriving in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur from Laos is perhaps as blunt as it gets for SE Asia — this is part of what makes travel exciting. Gone were the colorful and ornate temples, Tuk-Tuks, and saffron-clad Buddhist monks.“KL” (for short) has a diverse majority Muslim population and aContinue reading “The Unexpected Joys Of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia”

I’m happy that Laos in the middle of my SE Asia itinerary. Why? — It is the perfect place to slow down after so much moving around. The number of sights I’ve checked off on my To Do List on recent stops has become fewer and fewer, and once I left Luang Prabang I stoppedContinue reading “Finding Gratitude And Relaxation In Laos”

Landlocked between Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, and Cambodia — Laos is relatively unknown to the average person. However, I think it may be the most magical and rustic country in all of SE Asia. I intended my visit to be an opportunity to slow down and just … be … but naturally I had aContinue reading “Luang Prabang & Nong Khiaw, Laos”

Coming to SE Asia I wanted a specific purpose for visiting each country. For Vietnam it was to test my day to day backpacking endurance. In Cambodia it was to wander the Angkor Wat temples. As for Thailand, the goal was simple — eat as much as possible and let everything else slip through theContinue reading “Bangkok & Northern Thailand”

For my first trip to Cambodia I allotted myself seven nights, with three stops in quick succession. In this post I’ll be focusing on my last stop, and Cambodia’s main attraction — the World Heritage temple complex of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is located a short bit outside of the city of Siem Reap. OfContinue reading “The Jungle Temples Of Angkor Wat”

The final two stops on my 26-day journey down through Vietnam couldn’t have been more different. I arrived in the holiday city of Da Lat around 6:00 AM on a clear morning. As I stepped off of the sleeper bus I was relieved to feel the cooler air of the Vietnamese highlands. Not only that,Continue reading “Vietnam — VI. Da Lat & Saigon”

No one told me that the 14-hour overnight bus from Ninh Bình to Da Nang was going to make a stopover in the city of Hue, or that we would be swapping buses, or that we would have a two hour “layover” between said buses. A man on a Grab bike (the SE Asian equivalentContinue reading “Vietnam — V. Da Nang & Hoi An”

Coming to the region of Ninh Bình after two days spent with a bunch of binge-drinking 20 year olds in Ha Long Bay felt like a relief. Other than the constant feeling that I’m defying American societal norms, the most difficult thing about backpacking around the world in my late 20’s has been separating myselfContinue reading “Vietnam — IV. Ninh Bình”