Monterrey, Mountains, and Unexpected Mexico
For those of you following along, I mentioned how our tickets to Monterrey had been canceled twice, and it was becoming increasingly unclear whether the universe really did not want us visiting this part of Mexico or whether Viva Aerobus was only pretending to offer flights there. Well, we finally […]
In the Saddle: Conquering Cerro de la Silla
Its image is everywhere — on labels of tostadas and tortillas, wall murals, and even in the logo of the local baseball team. It’s the symbol of the city. The most recognizable landmark. It is as iconic as Rio de Janeiro’s Sugarloaf or Cape Town’s Table Mountain. Cerro de la […]
São Paulo: Hate At First Sight
“Skip São Paulo. It’s just a concrete jungle. Nothing to see there,” was the advice I received while planning a trip to Brazil. Nonsense. We are big city people. We love architecture, museums, and restaurants. Big cities have this never-ending energy and are always full of activities and things to […]
Bad Things
We arrived in Taipei on December 13th and left on the 18th to explore Alishan. On December 19th, 2025, a 27-year-old man threw smoke grenades and stabbed people in a Taipei metro station, killing three people and injuring eleven others. He then killed himself by jumping from a building. This […]
Taiwan: Shaking in Our Boots
It was an evening of our last day in Kaohsiung, and we were visiting the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. Temples in Taiwan usually have dragons painted by one set of doors to indicate that those doors are used to enter the temple, and tigers by another set of doors, which […]
The Happiest Pizza on Earth
We were in Kampot, walking around the main touristy street, when I noticed a strange abundance of Italian restaurants, to be more precise – pizza restaurants. All the menus displayed pizza and pasta and a few other Italian/Western dishes, alongside traditional Khmer cuisine. Every restaurant had the word “Pizza” in […]
Karlštejn Castle, Czech Canyons, and How I Almost Died.
Over the years, we’ve been in a lot of unfortunate, ill-fated, and plainly dangerous situations. We already posted about being attacked by monkeys and will soon write out how we visited Egypt in the middle of the Arab Spring, lost our luggage in Barcelona, and ignored all anti-mugging advice on […]
Southeast Asia – No Happy Endings
The only thing I love more than massages is cheap massages. Sure, a luxurious spa with relaxing music, aromatherapy, essential oils, and a highly trained therapist who will definitely not grope you in weird places is nice. I splurge on one every birthday. But it just cannot beat an hour-long […]
Iceland in a van
We had 6 days and about $1000 each. “The tickets to Iceland are super cheap!” Victor called out from the couch, “$400 round trip for around Labor Day.” In the back of my head, I could faintly remember an article I read about the recession in Iceland and how much […]
Guatemala – Strangest Place for the Best Coffee
Guatemala, a country where coffee is the number three export after bananas and raw sugar, where coffee plantations are crowded by volcano ranges, and where thousands of people subsist by growing coffee, happens to consume some of the worst coffee in the world. All of their flavorful coffee beans are […]
India – Food and Fast Food
Both of us love Indian food, and the trip to India only reinforced our shared love for Indian spices, vegetable curries, flatbreads, and fragrant rice. Friends warned us that we would tire of turmeric and cumin and coriander in every dish and that we would miss meat, but the only […]