Samsonite's Great Adventures!

Hello world! Tamar and Francois here. Welcome to our blog. For those who don’t know who we are, we're a young(ish) married couple that has decided to take our first retirement and explore this bodacious planet, together with Samsonite (our fake pet turtle) for the next year, maybe more, until we get unbearably annoyed with each other or until our money runs out. We've been Tumblring about our adventures and will continue to do so until we eventually port this blog over to WordPress (to allow for indexing), but for now, you're stuck with us here! If you have any advice, thoughts, questions, would like to meet up or just want to chat, feel free to shoot us an e-mail at either tamar(at)hollander(dot)fm or nighthawkcc(at)gmail(dot)com (sorry… we're paranoid about spam bots). Hope you enjoy our blog!  -- T&F    *Wanna see EXACTLY where we are? Track us here:  https://share.delorme.com/FrancoisMaritz

[t-f-worldtrip]

March 12-19, 2016: Island Hopping in the Andaman Sea

March 12-19, 2016: Island Hopping in the Andaman Sea

I can’t even begin to describe how excited we were for this particular portion of our trip as our adopted son/little brother, Ryan, was coming to meet us!!!!! (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

March 9-11, 2016: Temple Hopping in Bagan!

March 9-11, 2016: Temple Hopping in Bagan!

Bagan is one hell of a special place and a great city to round out our two week visit in Myanmar. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

March 7-8, 2016: Nyaungshwe (Inle Lake)

March 7-8, 2016: Nyaungshwe (Inle Lake)

After a stunning but exhausting 3-day trek from Kalaw, we finally made it to Nyaungshwe, an adorable little town that sits on the northern end of Inle Lake. As we only had a day and a half there (we wanted to maximize our time in Bagan, our next destination), we had to be selective with our activities. We opted for a winery and a day-long boat tour. Excellent choices! (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

March 4-7, 2016: Trek from Kalaw to Inle-Lake

March 4-7, 2016: Trek from Kalaw to Inle-Lake

This well-known trek is one of the most popular touristic things to do in Myanmar. Though it isn’t particularly challenging (unlike some other treks we’ve done – Havasupai and Annapurna, to name a few), it is a fantastic way to be immersed in the nature and culture of northern Myanmar. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 29-March 3, 2016: Hpa-An

February 29-March 3, 2016: Hpa-An

Got off our night bus from Yangon at 3am, found our guest house, which was kind enough to wait up for us, and passed out immediately. For anyone visiting Hpa-An, I HIGHLY recommend The Galaxy Motel. The place is itself is awesome and the owner, Kim, is the nicest and most helpful person ever. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 27-29, 2016: Yangon

February 27-29, 2016: Yangon

Before I begin talking about Yangon, I highly recommend reading up a little bit about Myanmar (Burma)’s fascinating history, as there is no way I’m going to summarize that for you here, nor will I get into the politics of calling this country Myanmar vs. Burma. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 23-26, 2016: Unwinding in Vientiane

February 23-26, 2016: Unwinding in Vientiane

After a busy, intensive, exhausting, yet absolutely thrilling few weeks in Laos, the four of us arrived in Vientiane pooped out of our minds. Spent our few days there doing very minimal sight-seeing (after all, there really isn’t that much to see) and recovering, which was extra-necessary after the absurd night-bus we took from Thakhek… (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 20-23, 2016: The Thakhek Loop

February 20-23, 2016: The Thakhek Loop

Said goodbye to the lively Vang Vieng and took off for the south (I consider anything south of Vientiane “South”) to do “The Loop” – a 3 to 4 day motorcycle journey that takes you between villages, caves, springs and waterfalls. In my personal opinion, this was an absolute highlight in Laos. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 17-20, 2016: Vang Vieng Shenanigans

February 17-20, 2016: Vang Vieng Shenanigans

After our long and grueling kayaking trek on the Nam Ou River, we made our way down to Vang Vieng to explore and enjoy this notoriously wild party city. Check out our adventures below! (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 13-16, 2016: Kayaking Trek on the Mekong (Sort Of)

February 13-16, 2016: Kayaking Trek on the Mekong (Sort Of)

Said goodbye to Mitch and Cody in Luang Prabang and took off for the charming and quaint little town of Nong Khiaw in Northern Laos, from where we were to hop onto the Nam Ou River and kayak for 3 days and 110 km (~70 miles!) back down to Luang Prabang. Read on to hear more and see pics! (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 10-13, 2016: Luang Prabang

February 10-13, 2016: Luang Prabang

Now, Laos has a very interesting history, in my option, at least. And though I COULD theoretically type up a brief summary of said history to fill you in, I don’t want to, so just go to Laos’ Wikipedia page (I love Wikipedia so hard) and read about it yourself What I WILL tell you is that Laos was under French rule for almost 60 years and thus you see a lot of French influence, particularly in…

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 9-10, 2016: The Slow Boat Journey down to Luang Prabang

February 9-10, 2016: The Slow Boat Journey down to Luang Prabang

Like many others, we chose to journey down to Luang Prabang via the slow boat from Huay Xai, the Laotian town bordering Thailand’s unexpectedly marvelous Chiang Khong. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

February 7-9, 2015: Chiang Khong

February 7-9, 2015: Chiang Khong

Chiang Khong, a tiny little one-street border town that almost entirely serves as a sleeping point for travelers intending to cross the border into Laos the next morning, turned out to be such a pleasant and pivotal point in our travels that we decided that it deserved its own post. Let me tell you why… (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

January 30-February 7, 2016: Hanging Out in Northern Thailand

January 30-February 7, 2016: Hanging Out in Northern Thailand

As incredible as the islands of the Philippines were and the people we met, we were SO glad to be back in Thailand where, well, things just made sense again.  (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

January 20-25, 2016: El Nido

January 20-25, 2016: El Nido

With much sorrow, we said goodbye to Alona Beach and Karim and took off for Palawan (voted most beautiful island in the world by Conde Nast Travel readers the past two years in a row)! Naturally, our flight to Puerto Princessa (Palawan’s capital – another gross, dirty city) got delayed and we missed the van to Port Barton, which we were really looking forward to seeing. Giving that our reaming…

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

January 13-20, 2016: Diving in Alona Beach

January 13-20, 2016: Diving in Alona Beach

After parting ways with Olga and Aaron in Siquijor, we made our way back to Alona Beach to begin our PADI Dive Course! We were referred to a dive shop called Piratas Alona Dive Center and are SO happy that we were because we had the coolest dive instructor in the world. (more…)

View On WordPress

[t-f-worldtrip]

January 1-13, 2015: The Visayas (Mostly)

January 1-13, 2015: The Visayas (Mostly)

As amazing as Japan was, we were so excited to get back to warm weather!! But as soon as we stepped foot off the plane in Manila, we very quickly regretted it, only partially due to the fact that it was 93,572ºF and 100% humidity. We very soon came to realize how much of a shit-hole Manila actually is.  (more…)

View On WordPress