After China, we headed to Thailand to spend some quality time seeing temples and enjoying the beach. While this did happen, it did not happen quite as we thought. We spend 12 nights in Chiang Mai and decided to leave Thailand for a 9-day adventure in Cambodia. Our main purpose of coming to Cambodia was to check out Angkor Wat, a temple complex and the largest religious monument in the world. We arrived in Siem Reap (by plane skipping the long…
Hopefully we can get caught up on recap posts so we can write about our other experiences in more details, but for now we are doing our best! Japan exceeded every expectation we had and is our favorite place we have been on this trip (and ever). It was a perfect blend of modern, exciting, clean, orderly, and safe. While we loved everything about Japan we also loved being able to experience it with my parents! We traveled way too…
On a whim we decided to buy a cheap flight over to Cambodia with one goal in mind…to check out the famed Angkor Wat. We spent some time exploring temples, discovering undeveloped beaches and learning about the horrifying past of Cambodia. Our time was mixed with extremely beautiful places, constant reminders of poverty, lessons about humanity, and we feel that we have left Cambodia with a new perspective. Out of all of the places we have been so far on…
Thailand was a place we couldn’t wait to visit and was on the list from day 1. We have heard from so many friends about the beautiful beaches, friendly people, great food, and laid back vibe (also, I had a quick visit here a few years back and loved every minute). After our difficulties in China we knew it was just what we needed. We flew into Chiang Mai planning to spend a few days there before taking the overnight…
My first visit to China was 6 years ago with my parents. It was the first place I had ever traveled to outside of the USA/Canada (well, besides an all-inclusive resort in Mexico) and upon my arrival in Beijing I was excited, overwhelmed and completely terrified that I had signed up to spend a few months there. China taught me so many lessons about myself and the world around me, but most importantly it taught me what a small part of…
Taiwan, you have won our hearts. We spent a total of 19 nights in Taiwan to kick-off our RTW trip! Our initial plan was to spend 4 nights in Taipei before heading around the country starting with the east coast and working our way clockwise around the island by train until we made it back to Taipei. We made it to Hualien, a city about 3 hours by train southeast of Taipei. We were supposed to spend 3 nights here before…
In America, the term ‘food court’ is synonymous with shitty fast food, Orange Julius, and middle schoolers. How far from the truth this is when it comes to Taipei. We quickly found out that food courts in Taipei are nothing like what we think of back home. They’re filled with a dizzying array of every Asian cuisine imaginable, and all of it very high quality. To the uninitiated, it may be hard to believe, but the food courts of Taipei are not…
I first came across Taiwan’s Muyumugi Gorge last spring in a short article that was linked to in a Reddit post. The author described an off-the-beaten-path swimming hole, just a short bus ride outside of Hualien, with water so clear you could see straight through to the rocks on the river bed. The pictures looked awesome and it sounded like not many tourists made it there so I promptly clipped the article to Evernote. Like most of the random tidbits that wind up…
We chose to start in Taiwan for a few reasons: tickets to Taipei were cheap, we have heard Taiwan is a foodie’s paradise, it is small enough that you can explore the whole country, and it was in Asia (our desired starting point). To be honest, I am not sure if I knew that much about this country when we signed up to come here. We have walked until our feet want to fall off, tried out the food, sweated…
The first day of our trip have been a whirlwind. One minute we were in New Jersey saying bye to family and the next (actually, more like 24 hours, but who’s counting?) we were halfway across the world. The only goal of the evening was to find our accommodations for the night, an Air B&B in the Da-an District. Our research, done on a layover in the San Francisco airport, told us there was a bus we could take from…