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...

12 Strong: Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan

by Calvin Sun | Jun 27, 2019 | Afghanistan, How Did You Do That?, How's the weather?, June 2019: Afghanistan, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come

Our itinerary for this trip needs a little bit of background context.On January 2018, the Taliban attacked the The Inter-continental Hotel in Kabul and killed at least 42 people. Among the dead included 5 pilots and 4 crew members of Kam Air, which was soon...

Afghanistan Beyond Kabul: The Panjshir Valley

by Calvin Sun | Jun 26, 2019 | Afghanistan, June 2019: Afghanistan, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

After 2 days in Kabul (which for security purposes I'll post about after our last day there), we set out for Panjshir Valley, which has been regarded by locals as the most beautiful place in Afghanistan by locals. We drove by numerous small...

So I’m In Kabul, Afghanistan Right Now… (Updated July 1, 2019)

by Calvin Sun | Jun 25, 2019 | Afghanistan, Epiphanies on the Road, How's the weather?, June 2019: Afghanistan, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Post-travel Reflections, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, Travel Warnings, Walking Tours, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come, What to Pack

(Given the ever-changing security situation here, this post will be updated as circumstances develop so check back often) Travel WarningsA helpful warning as I set off for Kabul today:Do not travel to Afghanistan due to crime, terrorism, civil...

The UAE/Oman Road Trip: Khasab, Musandam Oman

by Calvin Sun | Jun 23, 2019 | Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, June 2019: Unknown UAE, Khasab, Oman, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Weekend Trips, What Dreams May Come

After 3 days road trippin' around the UAE and visiting all 7 Emirates and Omani/Emirati counter-enclaves, it's finally to the literal end of the road to Khasab: the main city in an exclave called Musandam Oman and can be considered Oman's "Alaska". It's also...

The UAE/Oman Road Trip – “Conclaves”: Fujairah, Madha, & Nahwa

by Calvin Sun | Jun 22, 2019 | Border Crossing, Fujairah, June 2019: Unknown UAE, Oman, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Unrecognized Territories, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

UAEAfter visiting Abu Dhabi and the Dubai-Sharjah-Ajman-UAQ-RAK pentafecta of emirates yesterday (which epic-ness will be hard to beat), we woke up early and enjoyed breakfast at the hotel-with-hostel vibes at our lodgings in Rove City Centre . ....

Naked & Afraid – Off Roadin’ the UAE/Oman Road Trip: Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, & Ras Al-Khaimah

by Calvin Sun | Jun 21, 2019 | Ajman, Dubai, How Did You Do That?, June 2019: Unknown UAE, Ras Al-Khaimah, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Sharjah, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, Umm Al Quwain, United Arab Emirates, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, What Dreams May Come

One of my most epic days of traveling ever. And this is days before we head into Afghanistan! Following our whirlwind morning in Abu Dhabi, our driver Hosain took us up an hour's drive towards Dubai at the ENOC Gas Station by Ibn...

The UAE/Oman Road Trip: Abu Dhabi Doo! Where Are You?

by Calvin Sun | Jun 20, 2019 | Abu Dhabi, June 2019: Unknown UAE, Summer 2019: Unknown UAE, Afghanistan, Rwanda, & Uganda, United Arab Emirates, Walking Tours

Another monsoon begins. And this time it begins in the desert. Taking the 10:55pm Etihad Airways Flight #100 from JFK to AUH, I first experienced nearly an hour's delay on JFK's tarmac before taking off. While up in the air, I was able to knock out...

Off the Beaten Tracks in Angkor Wat and Beyond

by Aaron Lam | Jun 15, 2019 | Cambodia, Guest Posts

When I first began to plan my trip to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, I knew Angkor Wat was a must for many reasons…a world wonder, impressive in size and rich in history, an architectural feat, a cultural/religious symbol. Not only that, it was a special...

« Older Entries

Next Entries »