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

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...

A Quick Halifax Check

by Calvin Sun | September 12, 2025 | Layovers, Lessons Learned, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Walking Tours | 0 Comments

After two days in Saint-Pierre (and a turbulent ferry ride to Miquelon and back), we boarded an hour-and-a-half direct Air Saint-Pierre 9am flight to Halifax, landing around 9:30am local time (Halifax runs an hour behind Saint-Pierre), Our onward...

Miquelon Impossible

by Calvin Sun | September 11, 2025 | Doctor in the House, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

Sometimes the most spontaneous detours leave the strongest impressions. That morning in Saint Pierre, we hadn't planned on leaving the island. But after completing two walking tours around St. Pierre and checking the ferry schedule, we realized we could still...

48 Hours in a Little Saint-Pierre-ce of France

by Calvin Sun | September 11, 2025 | Saint Pierre and Miquelon, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

After three days soaking in St. John's charm, we dropped off our rental car at YYT Saint John's airport to catch the rare 5pm direct flight (PH1127) via Air Saint-Pierre to Saint-Pierre & Miquelon: one of the few weekly connections between Newfoundland and...

Don’t Be Dildo-Dallying

by Calvin Sun | September 9, 2025 | Canada, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

While based in St. John's, we took a spontaneous day trip by rental car to the now-famous town of Dildo. You'll know when you arrive; they're incredibly proud of their distinctive name. Though a vocal minority has repeatedly raised referendums to...

St. John’s: The Eastern Edge of Everything Everywhere All At Once

by Calvin Sun | September 9, 2025 | Canada, September 2025: Newfoundland to Saint Pierre & Miquelon, Serendipitous!, Way Way Off the Beaten Path | 0 Comments

Months ago I decided to gift myself a week off after Labor Day...simply because I could. After a year as wild as this past one, I craved actual and intentional self-prioritization to restore some balance. Finding fares under $200, I booked a morning departure:...

Singapore Airlines Business Class FRA-JFK

by Calvin Sun | August 5, 2025 | Flying Fancy, Germany, Summer 2025: The Long Road to Berlin | 0 Comments

After a slow morning walk and talking about our villain (antihero?) origin stories in Berlin, I hugged Daniela and Gabe goodbye, hopped on the tram for a few stops, went underground for the metro, and made it back to the hostel in time for a 1:30pm check out. Nisha,...

2 Hours In Brisbane

by Calvin Sun | Jan 1, 2018 | Australia, Walking Tours, Winter 2017: Australia & New Zealand

Getting in a healthy 7 and a half hours of sleep, I decided to leave with the first group of 5 monsooners at 7:30am to make sure their direct 9:30am flight to Cairns turned out okay. Sarah, who with me was supposed to leave on the later 10:35am flight...

A New Year In Sydney

by Calvin Sun | Jan 1, 2018 | Australia, Walking Tours, Winter 2017: Australia & New Zealand

Unlike our marathon 14 hour wait for the fireworks last night at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, today was a bit more productive.Waking up at around 10am, some of us headed out into the city on our own while others first stopped by for brunch at The...

A New Year’s Sydney Serendipity

by Calvin Sun | Dec 31, 2017 | Australia, How Did You Do That?, Serendipitous!, The Nightlife, Winter 2017: Australia & New Zealand

Happy New Year from The Monsoon Diaries! FYI, this entry almost never happened -- organizing affordable accommodations for a group during New Year's Eve in Sydney has been no joke the past 6 months. Most of the affordable properties in...

Flying First Class (EVA & Thai Air) To Oz Via Taipei

by Calvin Sun | Dec 29, 2017 | Australia, Blitzkrieg!!!, Flying Fancy, How Did You Do That?, Layovers, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Taiwan, Way Way Off the Beaten Path

At a journey that could clock at more than 42 hours from NYC, flying to Sydney can be a real ballbreaker for even the most dedicated of jet-setters. And I wanted to make the most of it -- so last week I transferred 90,000 Chase Ultimate...

Meet The Kiwi Kangaroos!

by Calvin Sun | Nov 16, 2017 | Introductions

For our upcoming trip to Australia & New Zealand, I present to you our next class of monsooners: We're also meeting up with Genoviva again, this time in Sydney for New Year's...

Munich By Night

by Calvin Sun | Nov 12, 2017 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Germany, How's the weather?, Layovers, Serendipitous!, The Nightlife, Walking Tours, Weekend Trips, What Dreams May Come

One year ago at a Thanksgiving Dinner I was hosting at my place, one of my monsooners from my 2016 Southern Africa trip and the 2017 Trans-Mongolian + Tibet trip, JC, brought over his new roommate Stephanie. She had just moved into NYC from her hometown of...

Let’s Do The Tiraspol Transnistrian Time Warp Again

by Calvin Sun | Nov 11, 2017 | Border Crossing, Getting that VISA, How Did You Do That?, Moldova, November 2017: Moldova & Transnistra, Rules Are Meant To Be Broken, Transnistria, Unrecognized Territories, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Weekend Trips

See those dotted lines around Tiraspol on the map above? That means something.Sandwiched in between Moldova and Ukraine lies a breakaway/renegade self-proclaimed separatist region officially known as Pridnestrovian Moldavian...

Chiseled Chisinau

by Calvin Sun | Nov 10, 2017 | Blitzkrieg!!!, Fail, Moldova, November 2017: Moldova & Transnistra, Serendipitous!, The Nightlife, Walking Tours, Way Way Off the Beaten Path, Weekend Trips

One more weekend off, one more monsoon. I've always wanted to come to Moldova & Transnistra for a few reasons:Former Romanian-turned-USSR enclave rebuilt by Kruschev and thus currently one of the last few capital cities other than Minsk and Pyongyang to...

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