Freedom

Let’s Go Exploring: Cusco and the Lost City of Macchu Picchu
- Let’s Go Exploring: Cusco and the Lost City of Macchu Picchu - May 29, 2023
- Reader Case: Can I Move to Spain? - May 15, 2023
- Big Tech Is Laying Off Workers: Is Your Job Next? - May 1, 2023
“Holy…crap…how…much…further?” I panted. I was carrying a 10L jug of filtered water from the supermarket to our AirBnb. What’s normally a common and uneventful task in South America turned into an unexpected slog because of one major thing you have to watch out for if you ever visit Cusco, Peru: the altitude. Cusco sits about 11,000 feet above sea level, which is *checks notes* really freakin’ high. We had gotten a prescription for Diamox, an anti-altitude sickness drug, before we left for Peru, and once we arrived we were chugging the coca tea generously provided by our host like crazy, […]

Why HomeExchange Beats Airbnb
- Why HomeExchange Beats Airbnb - May 22, 2023
- Let’s Go Exploring! Da Nang, Vietnam: The Next Digital Nomad Paradise? - May 8, 2023
- The Worst Travel Day Ever - April 24, 2023
So after the worst travel day ever and just barely making it to Australia, we thought we’d be on easy street. Nothing but blue clouds, rainbows, and unicorns from here on out right? Wrong. Turns out, we weren’t done with jumping through hoops to be in Australia yet. We had to prove we were worthy. And as such, our HomeExchange host in Sydney cancelled on us at the last minute, so we suddenly found ourselves (at least temporarily) homeless. Now, of course, this is completely understandable, given that there was a medical emergency that the host had no control over. […]

Let’s Go Exploring! Da Nang, Vietnam: The Next Digital Nomad Paradise?
- Why HomeExchange Beats Airbnb - May 22, 2023
- Let’s Go Exploring! Da Nang, Vietnam: The Next Digital Nomad Paradise? - May 8, 2023
- The Worst Travel Day Ever - April 24, 2023
The last time we were in Vietnam was 2016. Things were simpler back then. No one knew what a pandemic was, ChatGPT wasn’t threatening to replace jobs, our parents were all healthy, and the only thing we worried about was how badly we were going to get scammed. We’d read an article from seasoned budget traveler Nomadic Matt called “Why I’ll Never Return to Vietnam,” and were pretty worried about going there. After all, we’d just been spoiled by Thailand, “the land of a thousand smiles,” which had a visitor return rate of 50% while Vietnam only had a 2% […]

The Worst Travel Day Ever
- Why HomeExchange Beats Airbnb - May 22, 2023
- Let’s Go Exploring! Da Nang, Vietnam: The Next Digital Nomad Paradise? - May 8, 2023
- The Worst Travel Day Ever - April 24, 2023
Since we’ve been travelling for the past 7 years (excluding the pandemic), sometimes we get cocky. We think that just because we’ve been to over 50 countries, applied for countless visas, navigated complex public transportation networks, and always made it to the airport on time, we got this travel thing down. Turns out, we were wrong. To quote the famous philosopher Chris Rock “ain’t nobody above an ass-whooping.” Let me tell you about one of the worst travel days we’ve had recently so you can avoid our mistake. Ever since 2020, we’ve been trying to get to Australia. Given that it’s on […]

Let’s Go Exploring! Slovenia: Switzerland without the Lavish Price Tag
- Why HomeExchange Beats Airbnb - May 22, 2023
- Let’s Go Exploring! Da Nang, Vietnam: The Next Digital Nomad Paradise? - May 8, 2023
- The Worst Travel Day Ever - April 24, 2023
Long term readers of this blog know that ever since we quit our jobs to travel the world in 2015, we’ve been playing this game we like to call “Schengen Bingo”. For those that don’t know, Schengen is the area in Europe consisting of 27 countries without internal border controls. Travellers can freely move through this area without border checks between the countries. With our Canadian passport, we can only stay in the Schengen zone for maximum 90 days. During our 9 to 5 days, we only had 3 weeks’ vacation so 90 days was an eternity but when you’re […]