After traipsing the Greek mainland to visit various historical and archaeological sights, we figured it was time to treat ourselves (errr….Jess) with a bit of the glamorous side of Greece: its islands. In doing so, however, we wanted to avoid the most popular (and expensive) Greek islands (most notably, Santorini Read more…
It’s not controversial to say that Greece is a popular tourist spot. Makes sense. The interesting thing is that it seems to be a somewhat narrow type of tourism, with people mostly spending time in Athens and the islands (and even then, it’s usually just a couple famous islands). Since Read more…
Throughout our travels it has been jarring to change countries – new languages, cultures, currency and other idiosyncrasies which often unveil themselves over time. Landing in Athens, Greece in the early evening, however, was weird in that it was a totally different experience – we were immediately enveloped in familiarity. Read more…
As you can probably gather from the title, the few days covered by this post will have a little bit of everything. On our way from Amman to Dana Nature Reserve, we stopped to visit Kerak, which is another historic castle that is apparently larger and more significant than the Read more…
After a month of traipsing around the U.S. during our unexpected detour, we finally set out for the next stop in our travels – Jordan – via an overnight flight from NYC (connecting through Ukraine on its national airline, which folks should avoid at all costs). We finally arrived in Read more…
After a couple of days visiting animal conservatories and other sights around Sandakan, Malaysia, we took our first foray into the “wild” side of Borneo by heading to a lodge on the Kinabatangan River. This was our first of three jungle lodge spots on our Borneo tour, each of which Read more…
Before getting started, we want to apologize for the delay in our blog posts. I experienced a family medical emergency (no worries – it’s all turning out okay now) that forced us to catch a last second flight from Dubai back to the U.S., which threw an unexpected wrench in Read more…
The city of Georgetown, located on the island of Penang in Malaysia, marches to the beat of its own drum. As it relates to tourism, it sorta zigs where everyone else zags and has embraced a fairly alternative scene that makes it the Brooklyn of Asia (in our estimation). Since Read more…
After 1.5 months of fairly rigorous (but very rewarding!) travel through Myanmar and India, we needed a break. Additionally, despite spending almost 6 months in Asia, we had only spent roughly 2 weeks of that time at the beach – an amount of time that Jess wasn’t a big fan Read more…
Our first few stops in and around the Indian state of Rajasthan were in a trio of cities known as “The Golden Triangle” – Delhi, Agra and Jaipur – which were wonderful and beautiful, but also a veritable viper’s nest of con artists and scammers attempting to prey on us Read more…
A popular tourist trail in India is known as the Golden Triangle, which includes Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, so our arrival from Agra to Jaipur signaled our end of this loop. Jaipur is interesting in that it is known as the “Pink City” and is the capital of the state Read more…
The mental image most people have of India – and that we shared prior to this trip – is that the country is very large and diamond-shaped. Few people seem to realize that, from the northeast portion of the diamond, there is a thin strip of land that juts out Read more…
Because of the adjustments to our trip arising from my prolonged stomach illness (aka: Myanmar trying to kill me slowly), we commuted straight from Bagan to the town of Nyaung Shwe for the last leg of our Myanmar journey. The bus ride itself was adequately comfortable and lasted for roughly Read more…
Before diving too far into Bagan, it is worth noting that details about a certain important part of our experience in this city are covered in the blog post about our engagement (here’s the link!), so be sure to check that out if you haven’t seen it! With that said, Read more…
After our last exciting post from Bagan, we’re jumping slightly back in time to resume our travels where we left off, back in Thailand…. As mentioned before, Jess and I have been consciously building small amounts of independent time into our travel so as to have a brief reprieve (aka: Read more…
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming…errr…blog with some late-breaking news from Bagan, Myanmar: we’re engaged! We’ll get back to our normal travel blog shortly, but wanted to (joyfully!) announce our engagement and provide all the juicy details that folks have been clamoring to know (and that we want to put Read more…
After a mere 2 hour bus ride from Kanchanaburi we were greeted by the sprawling mass of humanity known as Bangkok. With a population somewhere around 10 million people, the city is an interesting mix of many different types of settings, hurdles and cultures. The city has a pretty broad Read more…
Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, and on our second time through (after our day passing through en route to Pai), we only had a brief amount of time to explore, along with a fairly streamlined plan for how we were going to spend our time. After Read more…
When we left Laos after our stay at The Gibbons Experience, we had a commute via bus over the border that got us as far as Chiang Mai, Thailand. After a night there we set off for Pai, a smaller town a few hours away and our first real destination Read more…
This is a fairly short post, mirroring the simplicity of the activity itself: a slow boat ride up the Mekong River. The Mekong River has been ubiquitous during our time in Southeast Asia as we traipsed through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. At each previous stop we resisted opportunities to visit Read more…