Vacation Responder

Our Trip Around the World (And Probably Back)

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Update from Bulgaria: Spoke to an awesome busking duo across from where we ate dinner. As they packed up one of them came up to me and said “You said you busk but you don’t have a guitar. Why don’t you take mine for tomorrow?” So now I have a guitar. 

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Report from Bulgaria: supermarkets sell 2 liter plastic bottles of beer, for just over $1 US.

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Matcha latte!

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Sorry we haven't posted in a while. Got distracted by pools, beaches, and some other stuff. More soon. From Bali, Holly & Jonathan

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How we pass the time.

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Good morning.

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This seems like a trap.

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My Cambodian Karaoke debut with Lisa Loeb's "Stay" of course. (They actually had all three of my usual karaoke songs: Stay, Let's Hear It For the Boy, and Hopelessly Devoted to You!) We wandered into this place from our hotel across the street in Kep - and it was amazing.

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Saving Mr. Banks in Siem Reap

We had a free afternoon in Siem Reap while we waited for the night bus to begin our journey to Kep. 

Siem Reap was hot. Like go outside and immediately feel sweat running down your face hot. Like unpleasant to be outside hot. 

Jonathan decided that the plan for the day was to sit inside our (shaded but not air conditioned) hotel lobby. I knew we could do better than that.

I quickly looked up movie theaters - mainly seeking a refuge from the heat. 

I knew that finding an English-language movie during a weekday in Siem Reap might be a long shot. And what I found wasn't quite a “movie theater” by a strict definition. But it was something even better! 

Just a 10 minute walk from our hotel was a “private cinema!”

Ankgor Cinema is basically a bunch of karaoke sized rooms with comfortable couches, good air conditioning, a big projector screen, and a sound system. You pick a movie from a huge binder of English-language selections from around the world (they had thousands of movies to choose from including new stuff, some obscure stuff like The Last Five Years, and also films about Cambodian history). 

We paid $10 for the movie and the room (plus we paid $5 for two beers and popcorn which was delivered to our room). 

And it was an air-conditioned comfortable couch heaven for the duration of Saving Mr. Banks. 

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Taking a Cambodian Night Bus

So we could go on and on in this post about whether it is worth it/safe/practical to take the night bus from Siem Reap to Kep, Cambodia (short answer: not really sure/definitely not if you're a solo female traveler). 

But instead, we are just going to give you a synopsis of our 17 hour journey. 

Day before: There are two “direct buses” from Siem Reap to Kep. (“Direct” means that you use the same ticket the whole way.) We visited a travel agent and were dismayed to find out that it was too late to book the next morning’s day bus and so we booked on the Virak Bun Tham night bus.

6 pm: We begin waiting for some type of vehicle to pick us up from our Siem Reap hotel

6:40 pm: Open air bus picks us up at the hotel (a few rows of benches on the bed of a truck).  We pick up some other travelers along the way.

7:10 pm: Arrive at bus station, board quickly, and depart. The seats are reclined like chaise lounges. They don't lie flat but at a 45 degree angle. There is an upper and lower level with two “seats” on each level on each side of the bus aisle. We kept our luggage with us (because of reports of theft), so that made our cubby hole a little cramped but at least we were together. There is air conditioning but it's pretty weak.

The bus made a few stops to pick up and drop off passengers...

9:20 pm: Bus stops at rest stop with food and rustic toilets (BYO-TP). Some passengers nearly get left behind.

1:05 am: Bus stops at Phnom Penh station. Everyone has to get off the bus and change to a different bus headed for their destination. There is a lot of confusion and no instructions, so make sure you're on the correct bus multiple times. And don't trust anyone who tells you they know what time the bus will leave. It will leave when it's ready and so you better be on it.

1:10 am: We board our next bus. This one is a lot roomier with what amounts to a flat double bed for the two of us to share, complete with a blanket and pillow (that for cleanliness purposes I wouldn't recommend using; skipping over the big infectious bump I got on my face during the bus ride but ask me about that later). There is also a privacy curtain which blocks out the light from the bus aisle.

3:20 am: Pit stop with a nicer bathroom and restaurant option. (I slept through this one and have no recollection.)

5:15 am: Bus arrives in Sihanoukville, and we are told it is the last stop. We get off the bus, and all the foreigners we were riding with disappear via tuk tuks. We tell people who look official that we are going to Kep, and they say our bus will probably leave from there at 7:30, so we wait. 

5:30 am: A dozen Cambodian women are doing Zumba next to the bus station.

7:30 am: A guy who appears to work for the bus company arrives at the station. He asked us where we were going.

7:40 am: Same guy asks us again where we are going.

7:45 am: And again. Then he makes about 5 phone calls. 

8:00 am: A guy in a super nice air conditioned minivan shows up. He looks at our ticket and makes a phone call. Then he and the other guy chat and make a series of phone calls, including to the agent who sold us the ticket in Siem Reap. The guy with the minivan leaves. 

8:10 am: The guy with the minivan comes back and tells us to get in and so we do. It's just us and one other girl and the AC works great! We think, “score”!

8:30 am: And...we were wrong. That guy just took us into town to put us on a super crowded minivan with no air conditioning except in the front seat where the driver is. Also, the driver has a huge box of frozen Snickers bars but doesn't share.

10:15 am: Quick rest stop in Kampot. We eat ice cream.

11:00 am: Arrive in Kep and are the only people to get off the bus there. (The other 10 passengers are likely continuing onto the Vientnam border which is still REALLY far away). Also, the driver says he has a tuk tuk and will take us to our hotel for $2. 

11:05 am: Driver leaves the van (full with 10 passengers) and drives us to our hotel in his tuk tuk.

11:15 am: We are finally here.

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Next stop: Kep, Cambodia. Here’s why:

When we started planning the round the world trip itinerary, I read off a list of every country in the world from a website, and then Jonathan and I discussed whether it was a “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.”

But after that, we still had the gargantuan task of identifying which regions and cities we wanted to visit in each place. Some were obvious: Paris, Athens, Bali; some weren't. 

For the others, we scoured TripAdvisor, the New York Times’ travel section, and spent a lot of time reading internet-y lists like Buzzfeed’s “27 Surreal Places to Visit Before you Die” or Forbes’ 21 Most Beautiful Places in the World or the 25 Coffee Shops Around the World You Need to See Before You Die. Anyway, you get the point. 

So we stumbled onto this site:

Amongst others, this list includes Portsmouth, NH and Ushuaia, Argentina - some of my personal favorite small towns! So we decided to give Kep a try. 

(Note: when we told some locals in Siem Reap where we were heading, a few had never heard of Kep at all.)

Our ETA in Kep is in about 8 hours. 

When we get there, we will try to follow up with our own list, which will either be called 10 Reasons Not to Make Travel Plans Based on Internet Lists or 20 Reasons to Visit Kep Right Now. 

Stay tuned...

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Adventures in Southern Thailand/How (Not) To Get to Koh Jum

Jonathan here – happy new year!

We have had a pretty crazy few days, or perhaps just one day, yesterday, when we moved from the island of Koh Lanta to the small island of Koh Jum – on Holly’s birthday, no less!

We had spent the last week and a half on Koh Lanta, a long-ish island with many beaches along the coast. We spent most of our time there at Klong Dao beach, at the Lemonade Boutique Hotel (highly recommend for value, hot showers, and cleanliness; steps from the beach). Once we learned to slow our pace down, we spent most of our time lying on the beach reading or napping, or dipping in the water, which had calmer waves than we were used to in the U.S.

We spent our last two nights on Koh Lanta at Lanta Paradise Beach Resort (don't bother staying here; not worth the price for dirty and pretty gross rooms)  on the more southerly Klong Nin Beach. Though farther from the main road, this was a slightly more lively beach, and one night as we ate we enjoyed watching a number of tourists trying their hand at launching flying lanterns. A few lanterns failed early in flight and drifted into the water, but it was really exciting when one would start to rise – sometimes after a few minutes lightly struggling with the wind in basically one place – and continue to ascend into the air until it seemed to be another star. Anyway, it was a nice beach life.

Then, the adventure started. Our last night at Lanta Paradise, it POURED. We ran to the shelter of our hotel’s restaurant (by the way, the most reasonably priced in its area), which was covered but still outside, so plastic walls were folded down to protect the guests. The power went out, then back on a minute later. Then out, then on. Again. And then it was out. Out. But we were on a beach. This was awesome; we were all in it together! The wait staff brought extra candles to light our tables, and continued to take orders – nothing on the menu was off-limits, because cooking was over an actual fire: no power, no problem! The rain kept coming, and in 20 minutes or so the lights came back on, and with them the music and the WiFi. We were back in sanity and comfort, but a part of us wished the lights had stayed off – it was more fun!

So then the REAL adventure started. The next day we were set to move to the less busy island of Koh Jum. We had a van scheduled to take us to a ferry to the main town of Krabi (where the airport is), and the ferry had a Koh Jum stop in the middle. A long-tail boat would pick us up from that stop and bring us to the resort. As we went out to breakfast, it was still pouring. We were a bit worried about the ferry, but our ride came, and the ferry was there. The seas were a little rocky, but either they weren’t as rocky as they’d been on our first boat in Ireland to the Aran Islands, or I was much better at being on a boat – I didn’t get sick this time (phew!).

However. When you hear that your ferry makes an intermediate stop, perhaps you imagine, as I did, that your ferry will dock at a pier and another boat will pick you up from that pier.

Nope! There are two Koh Jum stops on the ferry, and we were told by our resort to get off at the second stop, and the ferry crew confirmed this. About 45 minutes into the ferry ride, the boat slows down with shouts of “Koh Jum! Koh Jum!” and long-tail boats crowd around the ferry for passengers to step (i.e. jump) onto, straight off the ferry. I walk out to confirm with one of the ferrymen that our resort is at the second Koh Jum stop, and I think I get this confirmation.

But apparently not, because about ten minutes after this stop he comes through the aisles of the ferry and we mention where we were going and he makes it clear that because of choppy waters, the second Koh Jum stop will not be happening, and we were supposed to get picked up by our resort’s long-tail at the first stop! A few more people were in our situation, and we’re all a bit confused. When we reach the second Koh Jum stop, the ferry slows to a stop, and we look for possible boats. There are none – but wait! There’s one in the distance. It’s not coming toward us. It’s moving in a perpendicular path, so the crew waves and shouts at it, to no avail.

So, we’re on our way to Krabi (accidentally), where we’ll take the ferry back and get off at the Koh Jum stop. Another wonderful we’re-all-in-this-together adventure. It was pretty fun, pretty cool, actually. What else did we have to do? Nothing!

As we approached Koh Jum on the way back, though, the waters became quite choppy again. We rode past the original second stop, which was very close to our Koh Jum hotel, and appeared to be riding past Koh Jum entirely. It actually wasn’t clear whether we’d be stopping or if we’d in fact be going all the way back to Koh Lanta! Holly and I decided that if this were the case we’d write of Koh Jum, and just try to get a room at Lemonade, our first Lanta hotel.

As we approached the original first (now second) Koh Jum stop, we slowed to wait…and boats came! It was a minute before we saw them in the distance, but there they were, three long-tail boats for three resorts. We were shouting to each other through the wind and rain about which boat to take. I nearly slipped as I stepped to our boat. It was like some movie adventure!

The long-tail boat had benches for maybe 2-dozen people, but it was just us and the two boatmen. They took us to this southern long-tail dock, where a pickup truck soon arrived to take us to our resort. Had we gotten off at the originally intended stop, this probably would have been a very quick, easy ride. As we had not gotten off at the originally intended stop, this was not a quick easy ride. Muddy, bumpy, hilly, stormy, amazing. Very, very much off any beaten path. We were thankful that the pickup truck was strong, the driver was good, and the jungle road was passable.

But, we got here!

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Last day in Thailand and at Koh Jum Resort - which is the best place in the world (we've been so far). On to Cambodia. (at Koh Jun Resort - Koh Jum , Thailand)

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This link could change your flight-booking life (especially if you're a United loyalist)

United offers some very good mileage flight deals through its Mileage program. You can regularly fly transcontinental for 60,000 miles roundtrip, and for as little at 45,000 during annual sales.

And you get a few great perks.

When you book a round trip flight with Mileage Plus points, you get two free open jaws (i.e. you can leave the U.S. from one city, go to city in Europe, leave Europe from a different city, and return to a different city in the U.S. like e.g. Washington, DC to Rome; Paris to San Francisco).

You also get a free stopover (i.e. a more than 24 hour stop somewhere along the route).

The challenge for me has always been figuring out where to do that "somewhere along the route" stop. I used to try to figure it out by plugging cities into United's website and see where the connections were. Though with this method, there's no way to be sure that you're seeing all the offered routes.

Then, I discovered this site: http://star-alliance.innosked.com/

If you're going from Paris to San Francisco for example, here are just a few routings (or potential stopovers) - there are 18!

And if you just want a quick layover, i.e. less than 24 hours (always free) - like maybe 12 hours in Cairo just to see the pyramids? - this site will help you see where options for that might exist.

This site can also help if you're booking a Round the World Star Alliance ticket. Each Round the World ticket is limited to only 15 flight segments so to get the most value from the ticket you'll want to take the maximum number of direct flights. This site can help guide your routing decisions.

What's the best layover or stopover you've ever had?

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How to find the cheapest flights around the world

As I mentioned in the last post, we decided to string together a series of flights rather than buy a Round the World ticket. To do this, we planned to buy the longer/more expensive legs with United miles (NYC to Ireland, Turkey to Thailand, Japan to San Francisco, San Francisco to Budapest, and Rome to D.C.).

The shorter routes we would rely on discount airlines, and by looking at buses, boats, trains, and other ground transport options.

For each of these routes, here was our step by step method:

1. Check Rome2Rio.com. Rome2Rio does a great job of showing the various ways to get from point A to point B. But don't rely on their price estimates (usually they are higher than the actual price).

Sometimes you'll find that a boat is the fastest way when you thought flying was a must. Or that flying is cheaper than the bus. Rome2Rio gives you a good list of options and a cost estimate you should take with a grain of salt.

Now that you've decided to look into flying...

2. Check Google Flights. The main advantage of Google Flights over other flight search engines is that it provides you with a full calendar (i.e. all future dates) and the prices on every date.

When you are first debating in what order you want to reach your destinations or on what date, this full calendar function is extraordinarily useful and dictated a lot of the itinerary.

3. Then, check what discount airlines service your departure city and your destination.

Every once in a while a discount Google Flights won't include a particular discount airline. So it's useful to make a list of discount airlines for the places you're heading and to check each of those, just in case the prices are better than what you've found on Google Flights.

Make sure to include all taxes and fees when comparing flights (Google Flights includes them).

If you're considering flights that leave from different airports and are budget conscious, use Rome2Rio to see how much the airport transfer would be and how long it might take. That is often a deal breaker for us between two similarly priced flights.

(If you are searching for specific flights and want to know the relevant discount airlines, let me know. Happy to help. Hoping to compile a tool someday soon that can help do this.)

4. And finally, book your preferred flight directly through the airline.

And off you go!

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FAQ: Did you buy a round the world plane ticket?

Nope.

We wanted to book most of the major flight legs (i.e. expensive flights) with United Mileage Plus frequent flyer miles. We initially looked at buying a Round the World tickets with miles, which is a surprisingly affordable 200,000 miles which includes 5 stopovers and 15 flight segments. 

While 200,000 miles is totally achievable by strategically opening and spending on mileage credit cards, the change policies on those tickets and the lack of route flexibility made booking that way less desirable (a random stop in San Francisco for Jonathan's brother's wedding in the middle of three trip was not going to work given the rules). And with 15 flight segments you're pretty limited until each of your destinations connect directly.

(For more information about using all kinds of airline miles for Round the World tickets, click here.)

At the same time we were periodically looking into the costs of flights between our destinations and finding really great discount airline prices - and at times reordering the itinerary slightly to get even cheaper flights.

You'll see that we splurged on a few trains and planes over buses and boats but went around the world twice (!) hitting 27 destinations for about $1108 + 180,000 miles each.

Here's how we ended up getting and are planning to get from place to place:

NYC - Shannon, Ireland: 30,000 United miles each Shannon, Ireland to London: $40 on Ryan Air London to Paris: $70 via train (bus is a lot cheaper but a lot longer) Paris to Barcelona: $52 via train Barcelona to Santorini: $64 on Vueling Santorini to Thessaloniki: $54 on Aegean Air Thessaloniki to Crete: $51 on Olympic Air Crete to Athens: $40 on Olympic Air Athens to Goreme: $116 on Pegasus Air Goreme to Antalya/Kas: $17 via bus Kas to Istanbul: $23 on Atlas Global Istanbul to Cairo to Bangkok to Phuket: 55,000 miles (This was a flight that was chosen for its 16 hour layover in Cairo - enough time to see the pyramids. Once we did a little more Thailand planning we decided to not take the Bangkok-Phuket leg and buy instead a Bangkok-Chiang Mai leg. It was much cheaper to buy another flight than to pay the $250 per person change fee) Bangkok to Chiang Mai: $36 on Thai Airways Chiang Mai to Krabi/Koh Lanta: $62 on AirAsia Krabi to Siem Reap: $86 on AirAsia Siem Reap to Kuala Lumpur (12 hours) to Bali: $117 on AirAsia Bali to Singapore (one night) to Hong Kong: $133 on Tiger Air Hong Kong to Tokyo: $111 on Hong Kong Express Tokyo to San Francisco: 35,000 miles San Francisco to Budapest: 30,000 miles Budapest to Bratislava to Vienna: $20 via bus Vienna to Zagreb: $16 via bus Zadar to Rome: $40 via ferry and train, or a free stopover (will explain more in another post but if you book a roundpoints United flight with points you get a free stopover) Rome to DC: 30,000 miles

Again, our total transportation cost: $1108 + 180,000 points.

In summary, because of our stop back in the U.S. in the middle of the trip, the rigidity of RTW tickets, the many unknowns (we still change our minds about the last two months’ destinations), the 15 flight segments limit, and our ability to piece together a totally decent price, we took the DIY approach. 

That said, everyone's trip is different so do the math for your destinations and see what works best for you. The United RTW ticket is a good deal, and I hope to go that route (no pun intended) in the future.

Stay tuned for more on how we found these flights, how we figured out routings, and some discount airlines you should know about.

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Why You Should EatWith

When we were planning our nine-month-round-the-world trip, one of the things we were worried about was having human interaction outside each other. It can be pretty easy when you have a travel partner, and are staying in hotels instead of hostels, to go weeks only talking to each other. It's surprisingly easier to make friends when you're a single traveler than when you're part of a couple.

Some good ways we have found to meet other people is through local Expat Facebook groups, and going on Free Walking Tours of whatever city we find ourselves in. I also just signed up for a promising new app called Travello, which shows me what travelers with my shared interests are nearby.

But the most enjoyable and best interactions we have had while traveling are because of EatWith.com.

EatWith offers the opportunity to join communal dinner parties at someone's home. And by someone, I mean an incredible chef. Some are also cooking classes or food market tours or musical performances. All are good chances to connect with others - in unexpected ways sometimes.

In September in Paris, we had dinner at Claudine's, which offered fabulous French food. We learned translations of quirky French proverbs painted on the dinner plates. We learned how to bargain at French food markets, and how to tell if a vendor was selling his or her farm's own produce.

Our dinner party company was a Midwestern family traveling out of the country for their first time. Is this who we expected to meet at a dinner party in Paris? Definitely not.

While we studiously avoided a discussion of politics as much as possible (my previous jobs make that a challenge), we certainly had a nice chance to connect with people we wouldn't typically have dinner with. And are better for it.

In October in Barcelona, we had dinner with Guillermo and Cristina. We met up with Guillermo outside his apartment with eight other travelers from all over Europe and Canada. We first went to the food market to get ingredients for the cooking we were about to do, and then went back to Guillermo and his partner Cristina's impeccably decorated apartment with creative touches like a recycled door serving as the dining table.

We chopped and seasoned. I used an immersion blender for the first time (see below). We learned about life in Barcelona, about organic farming, about the many varieties of sea salt, and about Barcelona's best recipes and restaurants. We had wine, lots of it. And we made the best paella we have tasted, taking turns stirring while chatting. We learned about the Bali trip that inspired Cristina and Guillermo to leave their "real jobs" for good and instead to spend their lives sharing Barcelona with its visitors. And we were inspired too.

While EatWith isn’t available in every city all over the world (yet), they do have hosts in more than 200 cities (see the list here). And we’re already working on booking dinners for some of the next stops on our round-the-world trip, including in Hong Kong (thinking this one), Tokyo (this one), and Rome (I can’t decide AT ALL).

EatWith is also available in many cities in the U.S. by the way, including Washington, DC (my home), and the prices are extraordinarily reasonable for the quality of the meal alone. You can search dinner parties and sign up at www.EatWith.com.