World travel

[latin jazz]

We don't have kids and like traveling so it's pretty easy for us and I can work remotely. It's a good job and good benefits but living in developing countries has it's downside and some really struggle with that. She works in transportation. We are considering retiring after one or two more rotations and buy some property in south east Asia or somewhere and do some small rental thing and consulting work. We'll see though. I'm very excited about Cambodia though.

We are in our early 40s and in a similar situation (no kids). We decided to come to Spain for a few years. Pay or benefits are not that great here, but we live by the beach and can't complain too much.

The transportation division at WB is massive. With your wife's pension and no kids, there is no need for big investments. As you mention, just some consulting to keep the mind busy.

We also like traveling but it's becoming harder. I travel for work to the Middle East at least once a month. Traveling for work sucks.

We are planning on visiting Japan, Norway and Canada this year.

SE Asia it's great. I went to Cambodia 25 years ago. It was a mess then but now it should be great. Food was amazing, like in most places in SE (except Phillippines...I lived there). Just don't be that couple who end up retiring in Bali or Chiang Mai

 

[Ron Mexico]

We are in our early 40s and in a similar situation (no kids). We decided to come to Spain for a few years. Pay or benefits are not that great here, but we live by the beach and can't complain too much.

The transportation division at WB is massive. With your wife's pension and no kids, there is no need for big investments. As you mention, just some consulting to keep the mind busy.

We also like traveling but it's becoming harder. I travel for work to the Middle East at least once a month. Traveling for work sucks.

We are planning on visiting Japan, Norway and Canada this year.

SE Asia it's great. I went to Cambodia 25 years ago. It was a mess then but now it should be great. Food was amazing, like in most places in SE (except Phillippines...I lived there). Just don't be that couple who end up retiring in Bali or Chiang Mai

Work trips can be rough, especially that far of travel. Though usually we turn most work trips to a vacation at the end of it as well. I'm early 40s as well. We do have an option to live in DC and then she would travel to the countries for work regularly, but that's rough to me. I would rather be in the country and DC is not a city I like.

I have no interest in retiring in either of those places. My plan is to do a lot more scouting for places I want to be. It's really hard to get a feel for a place without spending a decent amount of time there.

 

[Rubashov]

Work trips can be rough, especially that far of travel. Though usually we turn most work trips to a vacation at the end of it as well. I'm early 40s as well. We do have an option to live in DC and then she would travel to the countries for work regularly, but that's rough to me. I would rather be in the country and DC is not a city I like.

I have no interest in retiring in either of those places. My plan is to do a lot more scouting for places I want to be. It's really hard to get a feel for a place without spending a decent amount of time there.

I've often thought New Zealand would be a good place to retire, its basically permanently the 1980s, everything closes at 8pm, you can still buy good fish and chips everywhere. Quiet, peaceful, in short boring.

 

[latin jazz]

Work trips can be rough, especially that far of travel. Though usually we turn most work trips to a vacation at the end of it as well. I'm early 40s as well. We do have an option to live in DC and then she would travel to the countries for work regularly, but that's rough to me. I would rather be in the country and DC is not a city I like.

I have no interest in retiring in either of those places. My plan is to do a lot more scouting for places I want to be. It's really hard to get a feel for a place without spending a decent amount of time there.

Same here. DC was also an option but we didn't see ourselves there (and in the current situation, no thanks). Healthcare in US sucks (and many of the places we have lived). We probably end up spending our 60s in Peru or Mexico and our 70s here in Spain, where healthcare and overall quality of life is great.

My wife wants a farm for rescue dogs. I want a donkey and an alpaca haha. So maybe a little house in the Peruvian Andes and a flat in Barcelona.

Hit me up if you come to Spain

 

[Ron Mexico]

I've often thought New Zealand would be a good place to retire, its basically permanently the 1980s, everything closes at 8pm, you can still buy good fish and chips everywhere. Quiet, peaceful, in short boring.

I thought it was a little expensive plus I don't like you have to drive everywhere, but other than that it seems nice!

 

[Rubashov]

I thought it was a little expensive plus I don't like you have to drive everywhere, but other than that it seems nice!

Housing is more expensive than here when you factor wages in.

 

[infection]

Catching up a little bit here. Last April we went to Thailand. We flew in to Bangkok and spent the first couple nights there. This was the longest flight we've ever done. I believe we left in the evening for San Francisco and then spent overnight in the airport until our early morning flight. We flew China Airlines (which is actually a Taiwanese company) and connected in Taipei, then flew another 5 or so hours to Bangkok. When we woke up the next morning, we had booked a day tour to Ayutthaya, which is a little over an hour north of Bangkok and had been the old capital before Bangkok.





While we were up there, we ran into this guy wearing a Malone jersey. I think he maybe said he was from the Czech Republic.



Some time on the Bangkok side of the trip, we went out for Indian food, which is a tradition we have anywhere we travel. Interestingly, the best Indian food we've ever had is actually in Utah. Maybe we're bias.

The next day we flew down to Krabi. Originally we were going to squeeze in a couple days up north in Chiang Mai but because it was the burning season and can be limited visibility, we ended up deciding against that. Probably the most popular places people would go for beach stuff would be Phuket or Koh Samui. Krabi is on the other side of the bay from Phuket and is less touristy and less congested, so we opted for that. We ended up spending a week there in an AirBnb right on the shore, though it was kind of shallow and rocky so we had to go elsewhere for actually getting in the water, though we'd walk along the beach. Our first activity was taking a boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands, which includes Maya Bay, which is the location from the movie from like 2001 called The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's become over-toured in recent years and they even closed the bay for a couple years. You used to be able to boat into it and swim but they only allow you to wade in the water now. I had booked an early morning tour so that we could avoid the crowds that develop as the day goes on.




Boat stop included a few more islands on the south part of the bay.



This boat trip to the Phi Phi islands is the farthest I've ever been from the US. My dad had thought he'd been farther when he was on the south part of New Zealand but this is indeed a bit farther than that.

One of the next days we went zip lining, which was the first time for all of us. I was surprised how adventurous all our kids were about it, especially our youngest as she was just shy of turning 6 but wasn't afraid at all. I can't remember how many lines they had but we were there for a couple hours. The second to last line was the long one, where you spend probably 35-45 seconds on the line. Everyone went alone except our two youngest, just because of how small they are they didn't want them to get stuck in the middle of the line so they went with guides.



This is the view from the end of that line and if you zoomed in, you'd see someone coming down.



This is our middle child but he was the youngest of the ones that went down solo.



The guide went first and used my phone to record this. It's a video screenshot. I wish he had done landscape and gotten more on the left of this what it looks like with the open valley and all the limestone cliffs.



This is the view from the back yard of our place by the pool. It's hard to appreciate scale in this, but those limestone cliffs and landscape in the background behind the palm trees is part of Krabi near Ao Nang, but to the left are the Phi Phi islands. The one on the far left that's small is the island that had Maya Bay.

I'm limited to 10 pictures per post so there's more in the next post...

 

[SoberasHotRod]

Catching up a little bit here. Last April we went to Thailand. We flew in to Bangkok and spent the first couple nights there. This was the longest flight we've ever done. I believe we left in the evening for San Francisco and then spent overnight in the airport until our early morning flight. We flew China Airlines (which is actually a Taiwanese company) and connected in Taipei, then flew another 5 or so hours to Bangkok. When we woke up the next morning, we had booked a day tour to Ayutthaya, which is a little over an hour north of Bangkok and had been the old capital before Bangkok.

View attachment 18127

View attachment 18126

While we were up there, we ran into this guy wearing a Malone jersey. I think he maybe said he was from the Czech Republic.

View attachment 18142

Some time on the Bangkok side of the trip, we went out for Indian food, which is a tradition we have anywhere we travel. Interestingly, the best Indian food we've ever had is actually in Utah. Maybe we're bias.

The next day we flew down to Krabi. Originally we were going to squeeze in a couple days up north in Chiang Mai but because it was the burning season and can be limited visibility, we ended up deciding against that. Probably the most popular places people would go for beach stuff would be Phuket or Koh Samui. Krabi is on the other side of the bay from Phuket and is less touristy and less congested, so we opted for that. We ended up spending a week there in an AirBnb right on the shore, though it was kind of shallow and rocky so we had to go elsewhere for actually getting in the water, though we'd walk along the beach. Our first activity was taking a boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands, which includes Maya Bay, which is the location from the movie from like 2001 called The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's become over-toured in recent years and they even closed the bay for a couple years. You used to be able to boat into it and swim but they only allow you to wade in the water now. I had booked an early morning tour so that we could avoid the crowds that develop as the day goes on.

View attachment 18141
View attachment 18140

Boat stop included a few more islands on the south part of the bay.

View attachment 18143

This boat trip to the Phi Phi islands is the farthest I've ever been from the US. My dad had thought he'd been farther when he was on the south part of New Zealand but this is indeed a bit farther than that.

One of the next days we went zip lining, which was the first time for all of us. I was surprised how adventurous all our kids were about it, especially our youngest as she was just shy of turning 6 but wasn't afraid at all. I can't remember how many lines they had but we were there for a couple hours. The second to last line was the long one, where you spend probably 35-45 seconds on the line. Everyone went alone except our two youngest, just because of how small they are they didn't want them to get stuck in the middle of the line so they went with guides.

View attachment 18144

This is the view from the end of that line and if you zoomed in, you'd see someone coming down.

View attachment 18145

This is our middle child but he was the youngest of the ones that went down solo.

View attachment 18146

The guide went first and used my phone to record this. It's a video screenshot. I wish he had done landscape and gotten more on the left of this what it looks like with the open valley and all the limestone cliffs.

View attachment 18147

This is the view from the back yard of our place by the pool. It's hard to appreciate scale in this, but those limestone cliffs and landscape in the background behind the palm trees is part of Krabi near Ao Nang, but to the left are the Phi Phi islands. The one on the far left that's small is the island that had Maya Bay.

I'm limited to 10 pictures per post so there's more in the next post...

Thailand is one of my favorite places I ever visited for work. The best food of any of the places I've visited and the people are so nice. I'd love to go back and visit for pleasure.

 

[infection]

The long tail boats there are like the taxis of this part of Thailand. When we'd go places, like Railay Beach, even though it's not an island, you can't take a car to the part of the peninsula so you have to boat a lot of places and they were quite cheap. Most of my crew is on the right but I don't know the two guys in the front on the left.



We later booked a tour for Phang Nga Bay. This one is a little farther from Krabi so most tours typically leave from Phuket. This one had the Samet Nangshe viewpoint, which I'll post later, but I scoured the internet trying to find specific tours that would hit that one. Very, very difficult finding the tours from Krabi. Anyway, we had just been eating dinner in Krabi and while waiting for our food, I went to a booth that had information on tours and I worked out with a woman being able to do a tour of Phang Nga Bay that would include going to that viewpoint. It was crazy because for the nine of us, it was only something like $300 for all day. It required us getting picked up early in the morning and driving almost all the way to Phuket before getting on the boat. My dad had really wanted to go here ever since he had seen Man With The Golden Gun and my wife really wanted to see the viewpoint (as did I) and the viewpoint really isn't a normal part of any typical tours.



You start off in a mangrove and this is entering Phang Nga Bay.



This is James Bond Island from Man With The Golden Gun. This place gets totally packed and everyone's reviews are that it's a huge tourist trap with a million people. What I found was interesting is that there were very few American tourists that we saw. It was mostly people from Europe or Asia, occasionally Australia, and very few people coming from later time zones. This meant we would try to go out early whereas many people are adjusting to getting up earlier. Since I booked everything for early in the morning, we beat all the crowds, and when we arrived on James Bond Island, we were quite literally the only people there.



Our last stop of the tour, they took us up to the view point of the entire bay.



This is the Samet Nangshe Viewpoint.



Back at the AirBnb, this is two of our kids living their best lives.



We had plans to go to Khao Sok National Park, which looks incredible and people rave about and there are very few people there. But, alas, we had some issues. Our second to youngest split his knee open severely when he jumped into a small part of the pool that had jagged tile. It was cut open about three inches long and was gaping open, down the the patellar tendon. We ended up at a local urgent care that was able to close him up, but it effective concluded the adventure part of our trip.



We then ended up going to an elephant sanctuary and fed the elephants, but only my wife and three of our kids were interested in going. Not sure why everyone else didn't.



The one closest to the camera is the one that split his knee open. We had a great time here and the next day we returned with our other two kids and my parents.

Continued below...

 

[infection]

We returned to Bangkok for the last night and a day before departing back to SLC. We went to Chinatown. There were a lot of things I wish we could have tried but it's so busy and difficult to navigate with 5 kids.



My wife and I slipped out later that night on our own and got a view of Wat Arun.



The next day, our last day there, we went to the Grand Palace.





Lots of stuff here but wouldn't be able to post all the pictures.

The food was great. Everything was super cheap. We found a great restaurant in Bangkok on our second stop that we ate at a couple times. Everyone got entrees, as well as numerous appetizers and drinks, and for all 9 of us we paid about $60, which would have been approaching $300 had we bought that in the states.

 

[infection]

Thailand is one of my favorite places I ever visited for work. The best food of any of the places I've visited and the people are so nice. I'd love to go back and visit for pleasure.

Eventually we'll go back and see Chiang Mai, but we'll probably combine it with seeing more of Southeast Asia like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Still need to hit Khao Sok but that would require an adventure to get there. We'll see what happens.

 

[Sardines]

That looks like an amazing trip!

 

[Ron Mexico]

Catching up a little bit here. Last April we went to Thailand. We flew in to Bangkok and spent the first couple nights there. This was the longest flight we've ever done. I believe we left in the evening for San Francisco and then spent overnight in the airport until our early morning flight. We flew China Airlines (which is actually a Taiwanese company) and connected in Taipei, then flew another 5 or so hours to Bangkok. When we woke up the next morning, we had booked a day tour to Ayutthaya, which is a little over an hour north of Bangkok and had been the old capital before Bangkok.

View attachment 18127

View attachment 18126

While we were up there, we ran into this guy wearing a Malone jersey. I think he maybe said he was from the Czech Republic.

View attachment 18142

Some time on the Bangkok side of the trip, we went out for Indian food, which is a tradition we have anywhere we travel. Interestingly, the best Indian food we've ever had is actually in Utah. Maybe we're bias.

The next day we flew down to Krabi. Originally we were going to squeeze in a couple days up north in Chiang Mai but because it was the burning season and can be limited visibility, we ended up deciding against that. Probably the most popular places people would go for beach stuff would be Phuket or Koh Samui. Krabi is on the other side of the bay from Phuket and is less touristy and less congested, so we opted for that. We ended up spending a week there in an AirBnb right on the shore, though it was kind of shallow and rocky so we had to go elsewhere for actually getting in the water, though we'd walk along the beach. Our first activity was taking a boat tour of the Phi Phi Islands, which includes Maya Bay, which is the location from the movie from like 2001 called The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. It's become over-toured in recent years and they even closed the bay for a couple years. You used to be able to boat into it and swim but they only allow you to wade in the water now. I had booked an early morning tour so that we could avoid the crowds that develop as the day goes on.

View attachment 18141
View attachment 18140

Boat stop included a few more islands on the south part of the bay.

View attachment 18143

This boat trip to the Phi Phi islands is the farthest I've ever been from the US. My dad had thought he'd been farther when he was on the south part of New Zealand but this is indeed a bit farther than that.

One of the next days we went zip lining, which was the first time for all of us. I was surprised how adventurous all our kids were about it, especially our youngest as she was just shy of turning 6 but wasn't afraid at all. I can't remember how many lines they had but we were there for a couple hours. The second to last line was the long one, where you spend probably 35-45 seconds on the line. Everyone went alone except our two youngest, just because of how small they are they didn't want them to get stuck in the middle of the line so they went with guides.

View attachment 18144

This is the view from the end of that line and if you zoomed in, you'd see someone coming down.

View attachment 18145

This is our middle child but he was the youngest of the ones that went down solo.

View attachment 18146

The guide went first and used my phone to record this. It's a video screenshot. I wish he had done landscape and gotten more on the left of this what it looks like with the open valley and all the limestone cliffs.

View attachment 18147

This is the view from the back yard of our place by the pool. It's hard to appreciate scale in this, but those limestone cliffs and landscape in the background behind the palm trees is part of Krabi near Ao Nang, but to the left are the Phi Phi islands. The one on the far left that's small is the island that had Maya Bay.

I'm limited to 10 pictures per post so there's more in the next post...

I'm hoping to spend a lot more time there regularly when I move to Cambodia and flights are dirt cheap and short. Looks like an amazing trip!

 

[Ron Mexico]

I have a friend visiting and he really wanted to scuba dive in the red sea and I refuse to ever go back to Egypt. So it came down to Saudi or Djibouti. We chose Saudi. It was a pretty boring place to visit actually. It's the driest place (alcohol) I have ever been. But beyond that it was just a lot of shopping and not much else. We did find a cool cultural center and had an awesome art exhibit. They also had a great fish market where you could buy live fish, crabs, shrimp, and whatever and then take it to someone to clean it, then to someone to cook it how you like. The scuba was kinda meh. Mostly that area looks like the coral isn't doing so we but it was still cool.

I have some videos but they aren't working probably not worth messing with them to upload.

 

[Ron Mexico]

I was able to travel inside Ethiopia for the first time. I took a trip to Harar it was pretty cool place. It's supposed to be the birthplace of coffee and khat. It's a old Muslim city and very pretty. Probably the most cool thing and they well known for is the feeding of wild hyenas. It has a lot of religious and cultural meaning. It's a very pretty area. We also got to feed wild falcons, which was fun.


Tomorrow I'm going to lalibela in Ethiopia. It's not completely safe, but I'm going for it. It has some of the oldest Christian churches that are cut straight into the rock.

 

[Rubashov]

I have a friend visiting and he really wanted to scuba dive in the red sea and I refuse to ever go back to Egypt. So it came down to Saudi or Djibouti. We chose Saudi. It was a pretty boring place to visit actually. It's the driest place (alcohol) I have ever been. But beyond that it was just a lot of shopping and not much else. We did find a cool cultural center and had an awesome art exhibit. They also had a great fish market where you could buy live fish, crabs, shrimp, and whatever and then take it to someone to clean it, then to someone to cook it how you like. The scuba was kinda meh. Mostly that area looks like the coral isn't doing so we but it was still cool.

I have some videos but they aren't working probably not worth messing with them to upload.

If you're interested in crabs, speak to @Douchebag K he has heaps of them. Have you been to Barcelona Ron, the fish market on La Rambla is pretty cool, I really want to go to the Tokyo fish market, only problem is its in Tokyo and I've not got sufficient interest in Japan.

 

[Douchebag K]

If you're interested in crabs, speak to @Douchebag K he has heaps of them. Have you been to Barcelona Ron, the fish market on La Rambla is pretty cool, I really want to go to the Tokyo fish market, only problem is its in Tokyo and I've not got sufficient interest in Japan.

The Tokyo fish market is awesome. Talk about knife skills

 

[Rubashov]

The Tokyo fish market is awesome. Talk about knife skills

I only buy Japanese knives... When were you at the fish market? I mean you're whole story sounds fishy to me. Bunch of blokes I know have been over to Japan on holiday or to fight they said its not an easy place for a larger man to get around in.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

I was able to travel inside Ethiopia for the first time. I took a trip to Harar it was pretty cool place. It's supposed to be the birthplace of coffee and khat. It's a old Muslim city and very pretty. Probably the most cool thing and they well known for is the feeding of wild hyenas. It has a lot of religious and cultural meaning. It's a very pretty area. We also got to feed wild falcons, which was fun.


Tomorrow I'm going to lalibela in Ethiopia. It's not completely safe, but I'm going for it. It has some of the oldest Christian churches that are cut straight into the rock.

View attachment 18165 View attachment 18164View attachment 18166

That picture with the Hyena is freaking me out just looking at it. You are a brave man.

 

[Ron Mexico]

If you're interested in crabs, speak to @Douchebag K he has heaps of them. Have you been to Barcelona Ron, the fish market on La Rambla is pretty cool, I really want to go to the Tokyo fish market, only problem is its in Tokyo and I've not got sufficient interest in Japan.

I haven't been to the Barcelona one, but I have been to the Tokyo one. Japan is a great place to visit. Great food and plenty to do. The Mozambique fish market has been the best one I've been to. Dirt cheap lobsters and great cooks.