The Monsoon Diaries: How to travel the world with no time or money -

Meet the Sundancers!

by Calvin Sun | January 2, 2026 | Introductions | 0 Comments

From a trip planned over a year ago after a bunch of friends joined me in Killington 2024, we are flying out to Park City, UT for our first time at the Sundance Film Festival for their final time in Park City, UT! Welcome back those returning with me for their...

Niger At Last: A Second Chance

by Calvin Sun | December 10, 2025 | Border Crossing, December 2025 Annex: Niger, Fail, Flying Fancy, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Layovers, Niger, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come | 1 Comment

11 months ago, I sat on the tarmac in Niger's International Airport at Niamey, watching my trip evaporate due to visa complications. The Niger Embassy in Washington D.C. had stopped issuing visas to Americans entirely. But I don't give up. In late...

Yemen Day 4: Mukalla Drive

by Calvin Sun | December 5, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Yemen | 0 Comments

Al-Mukalla Pulling ourselves away from a desert mirage paradise at Haid Al-Jazil, we swapped our armed guard at another checkpoint during the 2 hour drive to Mukalla. You point that thing away from me! After a long wait at one of the...

Yemen Day 3: Where Reality Surpasses Dreams at Haid al-Jazil-lion Miles Away From Reality

by Calvin Sun | December 4, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Haid Al-Jazil As the afternoon began to wane, we continued onto our accommodation for the night at the Haid Al-Jazil Resort Hotel, named after what it overlooks and its location perching dramatically on a cliff overlooking the Wadi Do'an. You'll find remarkably...

Yemen Day 3: Wadi-“we” Do’an Here?

by Calvin Sun | December 4, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Deep into Wadi Do'an From Shibam, we drove deeper into the Hadhramaut system, heading toward Wadi Do'an, a dramatic side valley that branches off the main wadi. Because of the recent military takeover of the local Hadrhamaut government yesterday, we had...

Yemen Day 2/3: Waking Up to A Military Takeover | Shibam Diggity – Where Are Skyscrapers Born? Here, in The Manhattan of the Desert

by Calvin Sun | December 4, 2025 | Crisis, December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Travel Warnings, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, Yemen | 0 Comments

Day 2 was supposed to start with a morning drive to Al-Mukalla, the seaport and capital city district of Hadramawt. But that plan aged poorly, because we woke up to this instead: Just like my morning of our last day in Kabul in 2019, we woke up to...

YE-ah-MAN! Yemen Mainland Day 1: Oh Sei-yun Can You See?

by Calvin Sun | December 2, 2025 | December 2025: Yemen - Hadhramaut Valley, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Yemen | 2 Comments

Let's just say being here to take this photo at sunset today was worth the wait: The Visa Maze: When Standard Procedures Is Anything But Standard Before you get in, you'll need an entry visa. As an American citizen in 2025, you'd expect the Yemen...

Grenada Más

by Calvin Sun | November 4, 2025 | Grenada, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End | 0 Comments

🇬🇩 190 down. 3 to go. After our 3 day stay in Dominica, we took a long hour-and-a-half drive back to the airport from our Portsmouth lodgings, stopping for a quick photo opportunity along the way. Dominica's airport is tiny. You...

Dominica-n’t Miss This

by Calvin Sun | November 1, 2025 | Dominica, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

From St. Vincent, we boarded InterCaribbean Airways JY 717 at 12:20pm. Their new airport, however, was built just 8 years ago and still has some operational quirks. The staff double-printed my first leg itinerary from St. Vincent to Barbados without including...

Dead Men Tell No Layovers: St. Vincent & The Grenadines in 12 Hours

by Calvin Sun | October 29, 2025 | Layovers, October 2025: Pirates of the Caribbean's At World's End, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 0 Comments

Fresh off a quick overnight in Grenada (courtesy of a free JetBlue voucher from last October's Welcome to Chinatown gala), we touched down at Maurice Bishop International Airport at 1:53pm. This marked the beginning of a 3-country Caribbean...

Zona Colonial At Night

by Calvin Sun | Jan 5, 2013 | Dominican Republic, Fit for Foodies, January 2012: La Hispanola, Walking Tours

After arriving in from Haiti, we dropped off our stuff at a hostel in the Zona Colonial district of Santo Domingo. Zona Colonial is the oldest city of the New World as the oldest working church and the oldest military installation of the New World can be found...

From Haiti Into The Dominican Republic

by Calvin Sun | Jan 5, 2013 | Border Crossing, Dominican Republic, Haiti, January 2012: La Hispanola

Today we crossed over from Haiti into the Dominican Republic via bus from Cap-Haitien to the Jabon border, and then continuing onwards towards Santiago and into the capital of Santo Domingo.The simplest and most time-saving method is taking the direct 8am Caribe...

Haiti’s 8th Wonder Of The World

by Calvin Sun | Jan 5, 2013 | Haiti, How Did You Do That?, January 2012: La Hispanola, Public Transportation, Walking Tours, What Dreams May Come

We woke up early at 7am to grab breakfast at Croissant d'Or, Cap-Haitien's best bakery (that much Lonely Planet gets right!). There we loaded up on some carbs before heading down to catch a taptap to Milot. Lonely Planet says there's a bridge going east...

From Port-Au-Prince To Cap-Haitien

by Calvin Sun | Jan 5, 2013 | Fit for Foodies, Haiti, How Did You Do That?, January 2012: La Hispanola, Public Transportation, The Nightlife

The 7 hour bus ride from Port-au-Prince is relatively straightforward, but you have to choose your poison; shall you go with the public transportation that'll cost you no more than a few dollars for a nary a bench space on a vehicle without shock absorbers? Or a...

The “Official” Warning In Haiti

by Calvin Sun | Jan 3, 2013 | Haiti, January 2012: La Hispanola, Mythbusters, Travel Warnings

First things first, the internet in Cap-Haitien barely exists. Not that I'm complaining, but it'll be hard to shoot an update out with pictures until I get into Santo Domingo probably tomorrow. So far we took a 7 hour bus ride from Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haitien (the...

Haiti’s Independence Day

by Calvin Sun | Jan 1, 2013 | Community Service, Fit for Foodies, January 2012: La Hispanola, Serendipitous!, Travel Warnings, Walking Tours, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Here I am! And on your Independence Day (it's January 1st) too! We're currently staying at the Trinity Lodge in Delmas, a quieter suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. I first have to give a shout out to...

New Year’s Eve In NYC

by Calvin Sun | Jan 1, 2013 | New York

After our layover in Frankfurt, we had a 2 hour layover in Ottawa, Canada. Then it was back on our return flight to NYC where we immediately got off the plane and headed to my New Year's Eve party on a rooftop in Chelsea: So far so good. Happy New...

Frolick In Frankfurt

by Calvin Sun | Jan 1, 2013 | December 2012: Eastern Europe, Germany

Remember 8 months ago when we took a detour sidetrip with our 5 hour layover in Frankfurt? Well it's deja vu all over again, this time with a different group of 16 people (with the exception of Cynthia coming again, of course)!I'll spare you the repost of photos...

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