I suppose everyone needs to fly in a hot air balloon once in their life. It might as well be over Bagan. It was expensive – let’s just get that out of the way. And it’s not a long flight – around 45 minutes. I had buyers remorse for a day or two. However, those…
Tag: travel life
Bagan, Myanmar
Bagan is a magical place. We have not been to the valley of the pyramids, or Machu Pichu, or Angkor Wat (we skipped it to go to Bagan). But Bagan has to rank among the ancient marvels still remaining on this planet. It’s incredibly photogenic – we have more content from Bagan than some countries…
Mandalay, Myanmar
After the overcrowded streets of Hoi An where tourists far outnumbered locals, Mandalay was a refreshing change of pace. We came to Mandalay from Vietnam to get off the well worn tourist track and it took just a few hours in this country to validate that we had. Mandalay feels relatively untouched by western influence….
Traveling With Teens for Three Months in SE Asia – The Journey So Far
As I write this it is day 60 of our 99 days in SE Asia. On the road and online you meet many fellow travelers. You swap stories and learn from their successes and failures. Most travelers are in their 20s or 30s and are taking a gap year in school or in life. It’s…
Kuang Si Falls, Laos
The are waterfalls and then there are really epic waterfalls. Kuang Si Falls is in the second category. It’s deep blue waters emerge from a limestone cave and almost immediately cascade down the side of a mountain in a series of tiers and pools. The limestone deposits build up on anything they touch to create…
Floating Pagodas
Editorial Note – I posted the following on Trip Advisor. Seemed like a good blog post. We spent three weeks in Thailand and Wat Chaloem Phra Kiat, which is also known as the Floating Pagodas, was not on our radar when we arrived in the country. We “discovered” it by seeing a picture on Instagram…
Pai, Thailand
Pai was not a place we planned to visit when we departed Seattle. Eli, Ethan’s former Evergreen teacher, turned us on to this bohemian town near the northern border of Thailand. It was mid-December and we had to lock in our early January travel plans so Ethan took the lead in planning these few days…
Journey to Freedom – Elephant Nature Park
There are few times when you can reflect back and pick a week that was fundamentally transformational. For this family, Journey to Freedom was one of those weeks. Journey to Freedom is part of the Elephant Nature Park, an organization dedicated to the preservation of elephants. We picked this program because it had a service…
Bangkok, Thailand
We rolled into Bangkok road weary, battered, bruised and suffering from a range of maladies: food poisoning, bed bug bites, mosquito bites, a cold and lots of scrapes and bruises from canyoneering. We had a week’s worth of laundry to do and were in much need of an internet connection. Bangkok is our gateway to…
Cebu, Philippines
In our search of “what to do in the Philippines”, Cebu and the surrounding area stood out for nice beaches, some interesting geographic sites, and the whale sharks. Originally we planned five days in the area, but this leg of the trip became compressed between the Elephant Reserve in Thailand and expanded travels through Korean…