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...

Bilba-oh No! Brake-ing Bad in Basque Country

by Calvin Sun | Jul 17, 2025 | July 2025: Northern & Southern Spain, Spain, Summer 2025: The Long Road to Berlin

With San Sebastián behind us, this morning Nishant, Kenny, David and myself booked a cab to pick up two rental cars from Enterprise, tucked beneath a mall complex just south of the old town. Moments after signing the paperwork, it seemed Nishant’s choice of...

San Sebastincredible

by Calvin Sun | Jul 16, 2025 | Fit for Foodies, July 2025: Northern & Southern Spain, Spain, Summer 2025: The Long Road to Berlin, Walking Tours

Leaving behind the festivities of Pamplona, we boarded the 11am Alta direct bus bound for San Sebastián. Our journey was quick, and within 2 hours from Pamplona, we found ourselves walking through the coastal paradise of the Basque Country. ...

How to Be Pamp-Blown-Away in One Day — and Survive a Bull Run

by Calvin Sun | Jul 14, 2025 | Crisis, Fail, Festivals, July 2025: Northern & Southern Spain, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Serendipitous!, Spain, Summer 2025: The Long Road to Berlin, Walking Tours, What Dreams May Come

We arrived just in time for the final stretch of the San Fermin Festival aka the Running of the Bulls, and we’re therefore diving headfirst into the vibrant chaos of Pamplona during this festival -- To get here, I redeemed 90k miles for...

Meet the Monsooners of Tomorrowland 2025!

by Calvin Sun | May 2, 2025 | Introductions

This July 38 of us are heading back to Spain and Tomorrowland, both for the 3rd time with at least 51 others and about half of them returning for another monsoon: Mihaela “Compass”: 19 time monsooner (across 30+ countries!) to Libya, Syria,...

The Tagline I’d Be Proud Of

by Calvin Sun | Jan 13, 2025 | Epiphanies on the Road, Post-travel Reflections

Six years ago, during our entire week without a signal, data, or internet and wandering through the otherworldly landscapes of Socotra Island, Yemen, my friend and co-guide at the time, Pier Doyon, asked me a question that caught me off guard: “What would your...

Bujum-bura My Head in the Sand

by Calvin Sun | Jan 12, 2025 | Burundi, Epiphanies on the Road, Flying Fancy, January 2025: Central Africa, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, You're Going to Miss It...

It's nice to wake up in front of our airport gate, again. For the 3rd time and second to last time back in Addis Ababa as our home base for our Central Africa trip, it was another 2 hour and 45 minute flight from Addis Ababa and this time to...

Let’s Not Fight If We’re Brazza-s-ville

by Calvin Sun | Jan 10, 2025 | Border Crossing, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Fail, Getting that VISA, January 2025: Central Africa, Lessons Learned, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Republic of Congo, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

To get in, you first need a VISA: The Republic of Congo website: https://www.ambacongo-us.org/en/embassy-services/consular/visa Download and fill out 2 copies of the visa form ROC Visa Application Attach required documents 2 passport photos with the 2 visa forms The...

Kinshasa My Worries Goodbye!

by Calvin Sun | Jan 9, 2025 | Border Crossing, Crisis, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Doctor in the House, Fail, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, January 2025: Central Africa, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Republic of Congo, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Travel Warnings, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

To get in, you first need a VISA: Download and fill out the visa form: DRC Visa Application Attach required documents One passport-style photograph (2″x2″) taken within last 6 months. Invitation letter from your host OR hotel reservation A printed copy of yellow fever...

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