Before we dive into the various ways in which I was unprepared to travel again, I want to do a little rambling. As is my nature. One of the most common questions I get asked about traveling across the globe is how do I manage the different languages. My travels at this point have involved…
It has been 4 years since I have been backpacking. Or budget traveling, or flashpacking, or long traveling, or whatever made up terminology you prefer. Covid was of course the big cause of this, but there were also a hundred minor emergencies that sucked money from the travel fund, as well as significant time spent…
Let’s talk about Hoi An, and through Hoi An let’s talk about how we talk about countries as backpackers. The first thing that I notice about Hoi An is that is beautiful, the second is that there are a lot of tourists, the third is that is expensive. The first thing causes the other things,…
Vietnam is likely the country from this travel that you, person who for unknown reasons keeps reading these, know the most about. For as the old aphorism states “war is how Americans learn geography.” But while war might teach us that Vietnam is in Asia, that it is communist, and that it is tropical, it…
We arrived in Bangkok in the middle of the night and began parsing how exactly to get to our hostel. Bangkok is rife with scams, or so the internet would have you believe, so despite our fatigue we were wary of taking a taxi from the airport. We determined to take a train into town,…
It takes a long time before the reality of long term travel sets in. Usually weeks unfortunately for those suffering under the tyranny of standard American vacation time. Sometimes it is a slow process of letting the stress and responsibility of the real world roll off as you realize they no longer hold sway over…
Taman Negara, which translates from Malay as literally National Park, was an addition to our travel born directly from our time being sick in Kuala Lumpur. Our initial plan had us hugging the West Coast of Malaya1 from Melaka through KL, Ipoh, and ending in Penang before heading to Thailand. But Megan’s illness presented time…
At various times in this blog I have and will mention meeting people at a hostel or doing activities with a group of fellow travelers. I have never been shy about saying that this is my favorite part of traveling. Teaming up to save on transportation and solve the issues of navigating a foreign country…
Singapore is sort of an anomaly in SE Asia. The guided democracy ruled almost exclusively by one political party achieved renown for advancing from developing country to developed country during the term of a single leader. A fellow backpacker who had worked his way from Vietnam to Cambodia to Thailand to Singapore described reaching the…
We awake on a Saturday and make our way to our favorite Manila attraction one last time: The Robinson Square mall. We have by far the best meal yet, not coincidentally the most expensive, then grab our bags from the hostel and make our way via Grab to the bus station. After consulting travel routes,…
Slackerz Guide 