Tag: Travel Posts

My phone gave me a warning last night that my Internet package was about to expire. That means I’ve officially been in Thailand one month now. I still have to do a write-up about my adventures in Chiang Mai, but I’m just waiting for a few of my photos to go up, as well as some Scott took with his point and shoot (I didn’t take my SLR out around the elephants as it was a bit too dirty and wet for my liking). But hopefully this week I’ll write a big post about my adventures up there, as it was a really good time. I have only four weeks left in Thailand. Yesterday I decided to go for a drive on my scooter and see some of the north part of the island. Once I got there, I decided to keep going until I hit the west part of […]

I’ve been in Thailand now for about three weeks. So far, it’s pretty much everything I hoped it would be. Food is amazingly cheap, the people are super friendly, and in general Thailand is really laid back and accommodating. While the weather has been mostly cloudy lately, it’s still warm by North American standards, and a daily dip in the pool has become part of my routine. Back home a Pad Thai dish probably runs around $12 or $13 a plate. Some of the best Pad Thai I’ve had here costs around 50 baht ($1.66), so there’s quite a big price difference. At one place, you can pay 80 baht ($2.66) for Pad Thai and a beer, something Scott and I have done quite a few times already. Outside of that, most people here eat a lot of stir fries and coconut-milk based curries, all of which is amazingly tasty. […]

I was just lying in my hotel bed here in Richmond, about to go to sleep, when I realized I hadn’t written anything about heading out tomorrow. On the last round of travel I did, I couldn’t wait to write a post and get the ball moving. But with my cousin recently dying, and the last minute shuffle to get everything back into storage, I’ve actually been pretty wiped out lately. But in about 12 hours I’ll be heading to Vancouver International Airport and getting ready to head to Thailand. I have a 10.5 hour flight to Tokyo in the morning following by a 6.5 hour flight to Bangkok. Together that’s a whack of a time change plus 17 hours of flying, so I’m going to be pretty beat tomorrow night. Somehow I have to make my way to a little hotel near the airport for a few hours of […]

About a week ago, I got word that my cousin Corey had died back in Chilliwack. It obviously caught everyone off guard, since he was only 38 years old and was relatively healthy. As a family, all we have been left with are questions, sadness, and the hole where Corey’s life used to be. When I originally set out to Argentina at the start of this year, my mom sat me down and we talked about what would happen if someone were to pass away while I was gone. Obviously if possible, I would do my best to get back home for a funeral or support. But I was told by my mom, and later reiterated by a few other family members, that I shouldn’t feel guilty if I couldn’t make it back for a funeral. As it turns out, the funeral for my cousin is scheduled at the same […]

At exactly this time in one week, I’ll most likely be heading down to Vancouver International Airport for my flight to Tokyo, Japan. That means I only have five or six more days to get everything sorted again before I take off – I’m starting to feel the pressure! The most pressing issue is packing up my room and taking everything down to my storage locker. My brother in law is coming on Friday to help me move my bed back to Chilliwack, and I need to have everything sorted and boxed up by then. That means the next two nights are likely to be busy. But the bright side is that I should be mostly done in time to enjoy the weekend. On Monday or Tuesday (I still haven’t decided yet), I’ll make my way to a hotel and have a little breather before I leave. Back in January […]

I have less than a month to go before I return everything to my storage locker and hit the open skies again. Last time I departed I headed south and ended up in Argentina. This time I’m flying west and hitting a little island off the coast of Thailand called Ko Samui One of the aspects discussed in the book Vagabonding that seemed was relavant to me this summer was the concept of reintegration. The author claims in the book that after an extended trip it becomes difficult to find a way to fit yourself back into your old life. That was definitely the case for me this time around, and lately I’ve felt like I’ve been stuck in a bit of limbo. Given that I’m living out in a new area of Vancouver and that the majority of my belongings are still in storage, I imagine feeling a bit […]

I wrote a post recently about my travel metrics from the last six months. One of the observations I made was that I had spent roughly $500 a month on average for airfare. Given that I gave my apartment up in British Columbia prior to leaving, airfare is one of my only extra expenses I have when I travel. Taken together with a $90 a month storage locker and roughly $50 a month in travel insurance, that’s a rough cost of $650 a month that is in excess of what I would normally spend back in North America. If you do the math, a person will realize that they can actually make money traveling the world, at least when compared to the typical expenses they would spend back home. But I also made the observation that it cost nearly $450 a month to keep my car on the road here […]

One of the hardest parts about traveling with technology is lugging all of your gear around with you. Once you arrive at a destination and rent an apartment, you can store some items and only carry along a few things at a time. But when you’re in the process of traveling to or from a destination, you have to have all your items on your person for a period of time. I’m actually using the MEC Pangea 40 litre backpack as my main travel bag. For small trips I only bring the backpack with me, but for my major travel between destinations that I plan to live at for more than a week, I store everything that isn’t technology related in a suitcase and bring that along on the plane. My Backpack In terms of technology, I currently have the following items in my backpack when I travel. 13″ Apple […]

When many people think of traveling, their thoughts often gravitate towards all inclusive trips, usually containing a beach, a buffet, and a week escape from the daily grind. In North America especially, those pre-packaged vacations are generally the only options for people to take, since their vacations are often only a week or two long in duration. But world travel isn’t just about the places you go; it’s also about the physical and personal journeys that it takes to get there and the growth that often occurs along the way. It involves mishaps, missteps, and a natural learning process that takes someone from humility, to perseverance, to understanding, and beyond. Planes, cars, airports, and busses are important, but they are simply the secondary characters in a larger play – they help advance the plot, but they aren’t the story. When I went to Argentina earlier this year, I purposefully wanted […]

One of the main reasons I came back from my last trip was to take a bit of a breather in BC for a few months, and also to enjoy a bit of time camping in the outdoors. I’ve managed to do both since arriving back at the end of April, and so it’s time to start thinking about moving on again. I quite liked escaping some of Vancouver’s dreary rainy/cold season last year in Argentina, and I thought I would head to the southern hemisphere again this year. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about New Zealand for almost a year as a place I’d like to visit during North American fall/winter. Around the same time as I was thinking about booking a flight to New Zealand, my friends Scott and Samantha let me know they were going to be in Thailand for three months starting at the […]