During the sixth lunar month, in villages throughout Laos and eastern Thailand (Isaan), one of the more unusual Buddhist festivals, Bun Bang Fai, or Rocket Festivals are held. This is the hottest and driest season in Southeast Asia (early May), and villagers are...
What Does it Take to Retire Overseas? A simple Google search will show that there are hundreds of websites and other resources devoted to telling you how much money you need to retire in exotic places all over the world. There are many other sites that will tell you...
This is a collection of images of entrepreneurs that I shot on the streets of Hanoi, Vietnam. Even though Vietnam is still purportedly a Communist country, it has made a policy shift to a smaller business-friendly, socialist-oriented, market economy and has begun...
Note: This guest post was written in 2015 and reflects the cost of living in Madrid at that time. Prices have changed considerably since then, so the figures below should be treated as a historical snapshot rather than current costs. Madrid may be one of Europe’s...
Watch the Video on YouTube Halong Bay, or as it is known in Vietnamese “descending dragon bay”, is a body of water in the Gulf of Tonkin, a little over 100 miles east of Hanoi. The area is famous for the thousands of limestone karsts, islands and islets that thrust...
For many years I have heard tales of adventurous foodies drinking cobra blood and eating various snake dishes made from other parts of snake in a mysterious village just outside of Hanoi. When Sarah and I planned our trip recent nine-day trip to Sapa, Halong Bay and...
Note: This guest post was written in 2015 and reflects the cost of living in Costa Rica at that time. Prices have changed considerably since then, so the figures below should be treated as a historical snapshot rather than current costs. Costa Rica is definitely...
I have always been a bit of a foodie and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Vientiane, Laos has a thriving organic market at Pha That Luang on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. It is not the largest organic market I have ever seen, but the sellers seem to take...