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...

Hello From JFK!

by Calvin Sun | Dec 25, 2010 | Pre-travel Preparations

Hello from JFK Airport! Jasmine, Cula, Nilam, and myself are chilling in the Delta SkyLounge waiting for our flight in 45 minutes. They made me carry all their stuff:

It’s About To Begin, Again.

by Calvin Sun | Dec 24, 2010 | December 2010: A Clinic in Mexico, Epiphanies on the Road, Mexico, One Small House, Pre-travel Preparations, What to Pack

No rest for the weary. Not even 3 days after unpacking from Hong Kong, I'm already repacking for 5 days in Mexico: 2 short-sleeved shirts 2 long-sleeved shirts 2 pairs of pants 4 pairs of underwear 4 pairs of socks 1 fleece 1 sweatshirt 1 krama 1 pair of...

How It Feels To Be Home

by Calvin Sun | Dec 20, 2010 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Hong Kong, Post-travel Reflections

So I'm back home and the above photo describes exactly how I feel.

Heading Home

by Calvin Sun | Dec 19, 2010 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Fit for Foodies, Hong Kong

How can a trip be complete without something getting served? Thanks to Vicky for coming out to see me a day after getting her wisdom teeth pulled! We haven't seen each other for at least 6 years (since we were seniors in high school), and it was...

Hong Kong By Night

by Calvin Sun | Dec 18, 2010 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Fit for Foodies, Hong Kong, The Nightlife

I think my trip in Hong Kong has been defined by limitless amounts of good food. Like being in NYC Chinatown but much much better. After what seemed like a 15 course dinner, I wandered about a few hotels along the river: And then my brother Linus...

Dim Sum For The Soul (And The World’s Longest Escalator System)

by Calvin Sun | Dec 18, 2010 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Fit for Foodies, Hong Kong, How's the weather?

UPDATE: I added some videos of the drive in and through Hong Kong - Out of the Airport and into the Maw I have to say, the 60ºF weather here is a welcome respite from the biting 20ºF I experienced right before leaving NYC. It's funny to see so many people here walking...

Finally Out Of The Airport And Into The Maw

by Calvin Sun | Dec 17, 2010 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Hong Kong

I realized that Hong Kong is the city I've been to the most without actually being in it. I passed through Hong Kong's HKG Airport to get into Manila, Surabaya, Taipei, and scores of other destinations in Asia throughout my life but never once have I stepped...

In Vancouver

by Calvin Sun | Dec 17, 2010 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Canada, Hong Kong, Layovers, Uncategorized Stories

Well this is a first for me. Currently at a technical stop in Vancouver, Canada where I'm one of maybe 5 passengers who have remained on the plane for the subsequent flight to Hong Kong. I was awoken by a flurry of attendants engaged in a frantic buzz in...

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