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

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...

Getting Away With Robbinsville: The Akshardham Redemption

by Calvin Sun | October 6, 2025 | Camping, Layovers, New Jersey, October 2025: Camping in Robbinsville | 0 Comments

One of my more unique camping trips to have monsooned; this is what happens when you plan a camping trip months in advance just to visit a temple arguably worth seeing as a world-class destination. I was stuck at work all day Friday as Eddie took the initiative...

A Quick Halifax Check

by Calvin Sun | September 12, 2025 | Layovers, Lessons Learned, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Walking Tours | 0 Comments

After two days in Saint-Pierre (and a turbulent ferry ride to Miquelon and back), we boarded an hour-and-a-half direct Air Saint-Pierre 9am flight to Halifax, landing around 9:30am local time (Halifax runs an hour behind Saint-Pierre), Our onward...

Miquelon Impossible

by Calvin Sun | September 11, 2025 | Doctor in the House, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

Sometimes the most spontaneous detours leave the strongest impressions. That morning in Saint Pierre, we hadn't planned on leaving the island. But after completing two walking tours around St. Pierre and checking the ferry schedule, we realized we could still...

48 Hours in a Little Saint-Pierre-ce of France

by Calvin Sun | September 11, 2025 | Saint Pierre and Miquelon, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

After three days soaking in St. John's charm, we dropped off our rental car at YYT Saint John's airport to catch the rare 5pm direct flight (PH1127) via Air Saint-Pierre to Saint-Pierre & Miquelon: one of the few weekly connections between Newfoundland and...

Don’t Be Dildo-Dallying

by Calvin Sun | September 9, 2025 | Canada, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

While based in St. John's, we took a spontaneous day trip by rental car to the now-famous town of Dildo. You'll know when you arrive; they're incredibly proud of their distinctive name. Though a vocal minority has repeatedly raised referendums to...

St. John’s: The Eastern Edge of Everything Everywhere All At Once

by Calvin Sun | September 9, 2025 | Canada, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

Months ago I decided to gift myself a week off after Labor Day...simply because I could. After a year as wild as this past one, I craved actual and intentional self-prioritization to restore some balance. Finding fares under $200, I booked a morning departure:...

Singapore Airlines Business Class FRA-JFK

by Calvin Sun | August 5, 2025 | Flying Fancy, Germany, Summer 2025: The Long Road to Berlin | 0 Comments

After a slow morning walk and talking about our villain (antihero?) origin stories in Berlin, I hugged Daniela and Gabe goodbye, hopped on the tram for a few stops, went underground for the metro, and made it back to the hostel in time for a 1:30pm check out. Nisha,...

You’re Going To Miss … Spain & Morocco

by Calvin Sun | Jan 4, 2012 | December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Fit for Foodies, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Post-travel Reflections, Spain, What Dreams May Come, You're Going to Miss It...

You're going to miss the freedom of wandering, the days that begun with nothing to expect, the trust in what's around the corner, the feeling of wanderlust, the time when you were free to do anything that you wanted. You're going to miss rambling...

12 Hours In Lisbon

by Calvin Sun | Jan 3, 2012 | Blitzkrieg!!!, December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Doctor in the House, Fit for Foodies, Layovers, Lessons Learned, Portugal

In Portugal I harnessed the sun in the palm of my hand... ...while I dream of desserts from my last hour in Marrakech: We awake from these dreams, while we wait for the sun while overlooking Lisboa, the city of 7 hills: We...

It’s Not A Competition!!!

by Go Yang Park | Jan 2, 2012 | December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Portugal, Post-travel Reflections

Calvin is kicking kicked my ass in the blogging department!! But BOY do I have some great excuses for that! I brought the wrong charger to my netbook. Whoops. Calvin travels with all the force of a great Monsoon. Zzzz, so tired. I'm sick. Sleeping in trains, train...

Gerard Butler Is In Marrakech

by Calvin Sun | Jan 2, 2012 | December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Fit for Foodies, Morocco, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come

Usually I would resort to these titles to grab your attention, but if you look at the picture above, you'll see it's more than a gimmick. It's for real: 5 minutes ago we ran into Gerard Butler in the maze of souks within the Marrakech medina. Being born,...

New Year’s In Marrakesh

by Calvin Sun | Jan 2, 2012 | December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Lessons Learned, Morocco, The Nightlife

Marrakesh......is a name of a song from my childhood. A nine letter word that existed only as melodies of an ATB track from the days of high school. Not until now could I attribute it to an actual place on Earth, in a sliver of land named Morocco. And...

Fantastically Fez

by Calvin Sun | Jan 1, 2012 | December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Fit for Foodies, How Did You Do That?, Morocco, What Dreams May Come

We ended up fixing our mistake and putting ourselves back on track. From Kenitra, we got on the 6:35am train heading to Fez, and got off 2 hours later at 8:30am. That was when Lonely Planet fails us again. It said that there would be a left luggage...

The Ferry Crossing From Spain To Morocco

by Calvin Sun | Dec 31, 2011 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Border Crossing, December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, How Did You Do That?, Lessons Learned, Morocco, Spain

A few minutes after crossing back in and out of Gibraltar, we took a relatively cheap (2.15 euros) 30min bus ride from La Linea de Concepcion (Spain's border town by Gibraltar) to the Spanish port town of Algeciras. There's really nothing much to see...

Missed Connections: Kenitra

by Calvin Sun | Dec 29, 2011 | Crisis, December 2011: Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Portugal, Fail, How's the weather?, Lessons Learned, Morocco, Public Transportation

The good news is that we accomplished the challenge of making it to 3 countries/sovereignties in a single day. We got in and out of Gibraltar and got to see the Rock, we made it to the Algeciras ferry to Morocco, and we caught the 9:35pm train to Fez 5 minutes before...

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