We have now stayed over a week on 6 different islands in Thailand, over the past two years. We have liked them all for different reasons and I will try to sort that out a bit in this post. First, I need to explain Koh Mak. This is a place for deserted beaches. The island…
Author: Beacon Bill
Semi-Nomadic Travelers
Thai Islands!!! First up- Koh Chang
The most popular tourist country in South East Asia is Thailand, and for good reason. We love Thailand. On our last trip in 2023 we visited 4 different Thai Island, and enjoyed all of them for different reasons. We had to come back and see more islands. Our first stop is Koh Chang. It is…
Tet Lunar New Year in Da Nang, Vietnam
It has been 5 years since we were in Vietnam, so when we were eager to include it on our current South East Asia trip. We had last been here right when Covid was starting, and we barely made it out before they started closing down the airports in 2020. It was an interesting time…
Our First NomadMania meetup
We are part of several of Nomad Facebook groups, but have recently also joined NomadMania because of their new app functionality that enables member location identification, which is very helpful to initiate member meetups. Full time or mostly fulltime travelers lack a traditional community so online communities with the opportunity for meetups all over the…
Did we like the Philippines?
We spent a week on Malapascua Island followed up with another week on Bantayan Island. We didn’t really do much besides eating, swimming, and beach sitting on Bantayan so I don’t have much for a blogpost. I will share some beach pics but mostly would like to share our observations on our first trip to…
Malapascua Island, Philippines
I’m not sure why it took us this long to the to the Philippines. We have heard so many good stories from our Filipino friends as well as other travelers. We lived for a few years in Beacon Hill which is the heart of the Filipino community in Seattle. We are definitely familiar with Filipino…
2025 Starts in Taiwan
OK, actually it started with a flight from Seattle to Seoul, South Korea. But it was only 1 night so that hardly counts. Asia is difficult to find deals using points so when you find a flight from Seattle for only 30k points so we jumped on it even though we didn’t really want more…
Our Best Places of 2024
It is really fun looking back at all the places we have been this year and thinking about our favorite spots. We went to some amazing places, but we also went to some places that we probably won’t want to return. We visited 11 countries on 3 different continents with 6 of those countries being…
Last stop in 2024- Cozumel
We spent 3 months last Spring in Mexico and this winter we just spent another month and a half. Mexico has become so comfortable for us, but at the same time, Mexico is never fully comfortable. We get used to things but it is never the same as our home. We are ready to hang…
Isla Holbox, Mexico
If you have followed our travels, you know that we keep coming to some relatively remote beach locations. I love the idea of a tropical island where there are no cars and there is nothing much to do except hang out on a beach. We have been to many different islands and towns in many…
Our favorite Mesoamerican Ruins
I don’t like when travel Youtubers rank the attractions in their videos with “Top 10 things to do in _______”. After watching the video, I realize they have only been in the town a couple of days and those were the only 10 things that they did. So, I am careful with my blog title….
Valladolid, Mexico and Chichen Itza, Mayan Ruins
We enjoyed Merida but we were very ready to leave the big city and get back to a smaller Mexican village. Valladolid is another one of those towns we love in Mexico where the community is centered around the zocalo or town square. This was another older town with many buildings that were are very…
Mérida, Yucatán
Big cities wear us out. The longer we travel, the more we realize that our best stays are not in the biggest places. But, we also realize that the big cities have a lot of the major attractions and museums. If we want to understand a place, we need to see the sites. Last month…
Campeche, Mexico on the Maya Tren
Mexico hasn’t had passenger trains for a long time. Even worse than the US, trains began to die out with the rise of cars and freight trucking. Passenger train infrastructure is expensive and needs to be backed by a government that understands the importance of good transportation. It was not a priority for past Mexican…
Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico
We made it to our 14th Mexican state – Chiapas! I have re-united with my wife M who spent the last week back in Seattle, and I am very happy to be back to our normal “couple traveling” instead of solo traveling. I really prefer being able to share everything again with her. This includes…