One of the must-do excursions from Hanoi is visiting beautiful Ha Long Bay by boat. You can do this as a daytrip but it is even better as an overnight cruise. Luckily we had a budget surplus from our weeks in Missouri that we could apply to booking the cruise, which is a little pricey…
Category: Asia
Delightful Da Nang
Da Nang was our favorite of all the cities we visited in Vietnam. We spent two weeks here following our two weeks in adjacent Hội An. It helped a lot that we chose the perfect neighborhood as our base, Ngũ Hành Sơn, which has My Khe beach on the east and the Hàn River to…
Huế Getaway
Not long after arriving in Da Nang (more on that in the next post), Chad and I took off on an overnight trip to Huế, which was Vietnam’s national capital from 1802 to 1945 (when communism replaced imperial rule). In addition to being an important historic site in Vietnam, Huế (which is pronounced like “way”…
Hội An Ancient Town
After our mixed feelings about Ho Chi Minh City, we were eager to see if we’d like Hội An more. There was ample reason for hope – Hội An is a much smaller town at around 120,000 people, a UNESCO World Heritage site as “an exceptionally well-preserved example of a South-East Asian trading port dating…
Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon
I’ve written before about the travel phenomenon that Chad and I have dubbed “the Japan effect.” Basically, this occurs when you go from someplace that fits your preferences perfectly (Japan, Buenos Aires) to someplace with some challenges. After spending only a week in Japan prior to our arrival in Vietnam, our first days in Saigon…
Nagano Snow Monkeys
I am about five weeks behind on blogging, but I’m choosing to view this as a good thing. It means I’ve been really, really busy with both work and travel. Travel is the goal and work makes it possible, so those are the best priorities. Still, our two nights in Nagano feel like a very…
Tokyo Twice
We were more than halfway through an immensely hard 2024 before we even started planning this leg of our travels. In light of how challenging the year was, we decided a more dramatic trip was in order and so we decided to return to Asia for the first time since 2019. Our one and only…
FAQ – What Did We Learn in Leg 3
From the very beginning of our planning, we expected our Asia leg to be the most exotic and therefore most memorable of our initial three long trips. What we didn’t expect was how many once-in-a-lifetime experiences we’d be able to pack in and how many of them we could only describe as “magical.” While so…
FAQ – How Did Our Numbers Look for Leg 3?
Numbers are great for wrapping our heads around all the experiences we’ve had. So, here is our 3rd leg represented in numbers: Countries visited: 5, all new for us – Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, IndonesiaCities visited (overnight): 9Number of hotels: 8Number of hotel nights: 17Number of apartments: 4Number of apartment nights: 68Total beds slept in:…
Bali – A Beautiful Mixed Bag
We had very high expectations for our two weeks in Bali. The town of Canggu has been #1 on Nomadlist, a website we use to help us estimate costs for places and get ideas on where to go, since before we left on our trip over a year ago. Over and over we’ve heard wonderful…