When I did research on where to go in Laos, almost every single blog and internet posting about Vientiane basically said to skip it and not think twice about the capital of the country. In fact, many long-term travelers we’ve met have decided to skip the country altogether, deeming it Read more…
Our shuttle back from Halong Bay deposited us in Hanoi on a Sunday afternoon, also known as Christmas Eve. The place was a zoo, in the best possible way! Hanoi is notoriously known for its chaotic traffic (even other folks in Vietnam comment on how ridiculous it is), but each Read more…
In order to reach Halong Bay, we had to start by taking an overnight bus from Phong Nha to Hanoi, which was uneventful and normal in most/all respects (i.e., the seats were mostly uncomfortable, the ride was uncomfortable, the driver drove like a madman and we barely slept). The notable Read more…
As Jess mentioned, she loves caves. I think they’re cool, but my love affair with them is not quite as involved. But one passion her and I both share is a love of adventurous, rigorous hiking. So when we found an opportunity to couple these two passions by joining a Read more…
Following Hoi An, our next destination was supposed to be Hue. The problem was, weirdly enough, navigating the transportation options to get from one city to the next, as they were roughly 3 hours away from each other. The issue is that there were several highly recommended sites to visit Read more…
After a few days apart, Jess and I reconvened in the mountain city of Da Lat in central Vietnam. Recharged after our brief reprieve from each other, we were extremely excited to tackle our next great adventure: canyoning. As it’s located in the mountains, Da Lat is surrounded by forests, Read more…
After 5 weeks of wandering through China and a couple weeks of exploring Cambodia with Giannis, we finally achieved the travel conditions that we desperately needed: a beach, sunshine and uninterrupted relaxation. These criteria were provided by Koh Rong and Koh Rong Sanloem, which are small islands off the southern Read more…
First, we have to apologize for the long gap between our last post and this one! We’ve had a friend traveling with us for the last couple of weeks, and it’s been a whirlwind without a lot of time to write. We’ve also been lounging recently on a remote island Read more…
While we were excited to get to Chengdu, our journey there was more onerous than for our other stops in China. Specifically, it involved a 16 hour “soft sleeper” (private vestibule with 4 total beds) overnight train ride from Xi’an. Soft sleeper train rides are pretty great from our experience, Read more…
When the easiest part of your day is waking up in the morning, you know it was a fairly rough day. That’s exactly what we confronted when we tried to take a daytrip from Xian to the nearby Huashan Mountains. Buckle up for a ride. [Editor’s note: technically, “Hua Shan” Read more…
After spending a week in the sprawling metropolis of Beijing, we decided we needed to briefly decamp to a quainter, rustic location in China for our next series of adventures. This led us to the “tiny” town (read: population of ~3.5 million) of Datong, which is situated approximately 6.5 Read more…
We somehow managed to survive our first week in China, all of which was spent in Beijing. In some respects it was exactly as difficult as we expected it would be, but in others it was way more difficult. Amidst the struggles and triumphs of our first week, we developed Read more…
We’re about to depart from Beijing after a week in this glorious(?) city, and we’ve certainly managed to keep ourselves busy while here. More extensive blog posts on some of our experiences will follow in the coming days (thanks to our impending 6 hour train ride!), but we wanted to Read more…
There are many things that shocked us about Beijing the first few days we were here. One of them, which has had a trickle-down effect on all of our actions within the city, has been its epic, sprawling layout. It’s easy to look at a map, see that something is Read more…
In a couple hours our flight will take off from Seattle to Beijing and our true backpacking will begin. It’s actually happening and “surreal” doesn’t begin to adequately describe it. Jess set up this fabulous blog (with no help from me, unsurprisingly) and launched this ship with her inaugural post, Read more…