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...

Understanding a Moment In Amman

by Calvin Sun | Jun 19, 2011 | Epiphanies on the Road, Introspection, Jordan, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, What Dreams May Come

We are the only two foreigners. Scratch that -- the only two Asians in a sea of local Jordanians and other Arabians. In a balcony cafe awash with the perfumed smoke of nargile, we overlook the quiet chaos of downtown Amman. For a moment, everything seems...

The Palestinian Refugee Camps

by Calvin Sun | Jun 19, 2011 | Introspection, Lebanon, Mythbusters, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

It's semantics. In India, poorer neighborhoods where Indians live are called "slums." In Lebanon, poorer neighborhoods where Palestinians live are called "refugee camps." Yet I saw no evidence of what the media conjures up for us: there we no tents in the...

From Beirut To The Deserts Of Amman

by Calvin Sun | Jun 19, 2011 | Jordan, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

Some leftover from our last hours in Beirut: After an uneventful flight from Beirut to Amman, and the standard passport etiquette (20 JOD for a visa on arriva, which is $28.71 USD!), we decided to save some money by taking the airport shuttle (3...

Beirut, Baalbek, And Hezbollah

by Calvin Sun | Jun 18, 2011 | Lebanon, Let me tell you a Story..., Mythbusters, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, What Dreams May Come

Beirut: A cosmopolitan city policed by carbine-armed soldiers, where Ferraris and BMWs park next to armored tanks, and where glass-paned high-end boutique shops neighbor derelict husks of concrete bombed out by a 10 year old conflict. There are military...

Airport FUN

by Stephanie Quan | Jun 18, 2011 | Crisis, Fail, Lebanon, Lessons Learned, Let me tell you a Story..., Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea

Now that I'm in Lebanon, I can tell you about entering. Upon arriving in Beirut, I was asked to fill out the visa information. Not knowing the address of the hotel, (Calvin had made the reservations and was coming in on a later flight) I left that part blank. Passport...

Entering Lebanon

by Calvin Sun | Jun 17, 2011 | Lebanon, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, The Nightlife

"Sir, have you ever visited Israel?" "Never." "OK, go." I know this routine. I've heard about it ever since I started traveling. The rule is that if you ever been to Israel and show evidence of it with a stamp in your passport, you're assumed to believe that Israel is...

My Favorite Person In Istanbul

by Stephanie Quan | Jun 17, 2011 | Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Türkiye (Turkey)

Meet Ahmet! He's 7 months old and just too cute. His mother (in the background) rigged up a camera battery charger for me from another type of charger. Brilliant! And amazing in a touristy area where most people will just try to sell you a charger for way too...

OH! Before You Head To Lebanon…Read This:

by Calvin Sun | Jun 16, 2011 | Lebanon, Summer 2011: From the Middle East to North Korea, Travel Warnings

Guess what's been issued as I'm about to embark on my journey into Lebanon today:The Department of State continues to urge U.S. citizens to avoid all travel to Lebanon due to current safety and security concerns. U.S. citizens living and working in Lebanon should...

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