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

Dear Daughters,

by Calvin Sun | August 15, 2026 | Post-travel Reflections, What Dreams May Come, You're Going to Miss It... | 4 Comments

Dear daughters, In a rare moment of peace as your mom was recovering in the PACU and you were down the hall in the NICU, I found myself thinking about everyone over the years who made judgments about my lifestyle and said to my face: "Sure, you've been to every...

We Had Twins

by Calvin Sun | July 26, 2026 | Crisis, Doctor in the House, Let me tell you a Story..., Serendipitous!, United States, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come | 0 Comments

Identical twins. This was a birth by a thousand cuts. A story as old as time, for two lives as new as right now, where spontaneity gets sandwiched between a relentless tango with death. They were born after one of the hardest chapters of our lives: a rare...

Tomorrowland Babies

by Calvin Sun | July 25, 2026 | Festivals | 0 Comments

Four Tomorrowlands in, and this is the first I'll be writing about a trip I planned without having gone. What gives? It's not as if I didn't want to: Right as 40+ of my monsooners were heading off to Belgium, I was in a hospital room in Queens, meeting my...

Where Do You Go When You’ve Already Been Everywhere?

by Calvin Sun | May 17, 2026 | Camping, Epiphanies on the Road, Fit for Foodies, May 2026: Bobo's Farm, New York, Post-travel Reflections | 0 Comments

Where does one of the youngest most traveled person in the world still travel to after they've been to nearly every country in the world? Home, of course. I've hitchhiked onboard trains through the endless expanse of The Sahel, slept in guesthouses in...

It Zermatt-ers A Lot You Followed Through!

by Calvin Sun | April 3, 2026 | Border Crossing, Crisis, Fit for Foodies, Flying Fancy, How's the weather?, Serendipitous!, Spring 2026: French & Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Weekend Trips, What Dreams May Come | 0 Comments

Any normal person would have headed home after 4 consecutive days of 6+ hours of skiing black diamond powder at 3,330 meters followed by six hours of raving in a blizzard. But I am not a normal person. Unlike most people, I don't procrastinate on fulfilling...

Alpe “d’Huez” in Charge Here? We Couldn’t Wait Until Tomorrow, for Tomorrowland Winter

by Calvin Sun | March 28, 2026 | Festivals, France, How's the weather?, Spring 2026: French & Swiss Alps, The Nightlife | 0 Comments

We made it to a Tomorrowland Aftermovie! Click on the YouTube video below where it starts right where you see us dancing to Alok; me on the left, and Patricia right in the center in her lavender hoodie as the video slows in on her/us (well, really just her)....

Why Not “Disfrutar”?

by Calvin Sun | March 23, 2026 | Fit for Foodies, Flying Fancy, France, How Did You Do That?, How's the weather?, Introspection, Layovers, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Serendipitous!, Spain, Spring 2026: French & Swiss Alps | 0 Comments

We got a lot going on in the world right now: There's now a war in Iran, the funding bill for our DHS still hasn't passed, and the entirety of the TSA has been working without a paycheck for the past month. With the war, I'd imagine both the region and Emirates...

Meet the Tomorrowland Winter Monsooners!

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

Why do Tomorrowland just once a year when you can do it twice AND ski/snowboard at the same time? Introducing the following returning monsooners for this iteration of our favorite annual festival. Welcome back those returning with me for their 2nd, 3rd, or even...

All Aboard the Santa Claus Express!

by Calvin Sun | February 10, 2026 | February 2026: Lapland, Finland, Fit for Foodies, Flying Fancy, Lapland, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

I woke up to an Arctic sunrise again, this time to send Mel off on her early flight back at 7:30am; she had to return a day before the rest of us. After she left in an Uber to the airport, I cooked the last of what was left in the fridge at the Airbnb and saw...

For Richer, For Polar

by Calvin Sun | February 9, 2026 | February 2026: Lapland, Finland, Fit for Foodies, How's the weather?, Lapland, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

I just woke up to this Arctic sunrise before everyone else in the Airbnb. I took the time to make some scrambled eggs for breakfast, brewed the coffee, and leisurely sat down to write this blog post as I waited for the rest of the group to come to life. What a...

Buwahaha

by Stephanie Quan | Aug 12, 2011 | Let me tell you a Story..., Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

THIS BLOG IS MINE!!! --steph

By The Time You Read This…

by Calvin Sun | Aug 9, 2011 | North Korea, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

...I should be in North Korea. Bye bye Internet.

Angkor What?

by Stephanie Quan | Aug 9, 2011 | Cambodia, How's the weather?, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

Is the name of a bar in Siam Reap. If you buy two buckets, you get a t-shirt. I have a t-shirt. Its been raining. Which is nice because it normally happens in the late afternoon, just when the heat is past my level of toleration. It has meant though that I've missed...

Warning Myself About North Korea…

by Calvin Sun | Aug 8, 2011 | North Korea, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Travel Warnings

Thank you, U.S. State Department, for issuing this warning for me. 🙂 In any case, I'll be in North Korea within the next 12 hours! The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against entering North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK),...

A Day In The Motherland: Beijing

by Calvin Sun | Aug 8, 2011 | China, Fit for Foodies, Getting that VISA, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

The last time I was in Beijing was exactly 10 years ago and I was 14 years old. Has it changed much then? Yes. I feel there's a greater air of confidence among the city life, the infrastructure and cleanliness have improved from the 2008 Olympics, and the...

Burmese Performance Art

by Stephanie Quan | Aug 7, 2011 | Let me tell you a Story..., Myanmar, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

On my last day in Myanmar, I decided to look up an art gallery I had read about in Smithsonian. The article outlined a series of artists who made art that skirted government censorship; artists who made paintings of women trapped in spiderwebs and lied about...

Observing Big Brother: Had to get out of Myanmar Before I Could Post This.

by Calvin Sun | Aug 6, 2011 | Let me tell you a Story..., Myanmar, Mythbusters, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Travel Warnings, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

I had to wait until I got out of Myanmar to post this without getting prematurely deported or thrown in jail. I got a small rush writing this while still in the country, but I didn't want to take my chances before leaving Myanmar for good (as if posting this in...

A Final Look At Myanmar

by Calvin Sun | Aug 6, 2011 | Epiphanies on the Road, Fit for Foodies, Myanmar, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

Traveling to Myanmar is like being in a time warp. Imagine a place untouched by McDonalds and Starbucks, where images of 1960s Southeast Asia become real life here. Cone-hat wearing villagers bike along a dirt road lined with endless rice paddies. This is a...

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