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

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 | 0 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...

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...

I Dream Of Djénné

by Calvin Sun | Jan 31, 2022 | February 2022: Mali, Mali, What Dreams May Come

You need to wake up at 6am for a day like this. After an early breakfast in San this morning, we began a long 3 hour drive to Djenne – known as the ‘capital of mud’. After crossing a few military checkpoints getting into Djenne,...

“San”-yonara Segou!

by Calvin Sun | Jan 30, 2022 | February 2022: Mali, Mali

After a late 10am breakfast at our hotel in Segou, we further explored a Somono neighbourhood – a place filled with adobe mud brick buildings, a traditional architectural style house found mostly in Segou that help keep the family inside cool during intense...

Gone in 60 “Segou”-nds

by Calvin Sun | Jan 29, 2022 | February 2022: Mali, Mali

After minimal sleep getting in last night, we tried to enjoy an 8am breakfast at our hotel in Bamako where everyone finally got to meet for the first time. By 8:30 am we began our 4 hour drive to Segou, a town built on the banks of the Niger...

28 Hours in IST Airport for Bamako, Mali

by Calvin Sun | Jan 28, 2022 | Border Crossing, February 2022: Mali, Flying Fancy, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Layovers, Mali, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Weekend Trips

It was a surprisingly easy visa acquisition last week at the local consulate to Mali in the Upper East Side of NYC. They didn’t even ask for my flight itinerary or a copy of yellow fever vaccine as suggested on their website. All I had needed to drop off...

You’re Going to Miss … Martinique, Saint Lucia & Guadeloupe

by Calvin Sun | Jan 20, 2022 | Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, You're Going to Miss It...

If the photo is really really professional looking, then the photography credit goes to Paul Woo.PRESS play and read the post with the music . . . “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John A....

The Pointe-Á-Pitre is to Guade”loupe” You In

by Calvin Sun | Jan 10, 2022 | Guadeloupe, January 2022: Martinique, St. Lucia, & Guadeloupe, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

If I’m in the photo or the photo is really really professional, then the photography credit goes to Paul Woo. After 7 days on the water, we settled back in readjusting our sea legs onto our first bed on land. After checking out and saying our goodbyes to...

Sainte-Anne-versary

by Calvin Sun | Jan 9, 2022 | January 2022: Martinique, St. Lucia, & Guadeloupe, Martinique

If I’m in the photo or the photo is really really professional, then the photography credit goes to Paul Woo. It’s our last day but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of it! After a night off and following morning at Pigeon Island,...

Landed Like a Pigeon Island

by Calvin Sun | Jan 8, 2022 | January 2022: Martinique, St. Lucia, & Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia

If I’m in the photo or the photo is really really professional, then the photography credit goes to Paul Woo. Today we rested up at Pigeon Island, an islet located in Gros Islet in the northern region of Saint Lucia. Once...

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