We wanted to say hello 🙂 Thanks for being on our blog!
Who are we?
We are Julia and Brice, a French-German couple in our early thirties, living in Brussels, Belgium. In the last two years, we travelled to Thailand, Vietnam, and Costa Rica, as well as New York, and countless European destinations. In the summer of 2018 we decided that our 25 vacation days are not enough to explore as much as we wanted to and to take a seven months break from work in 2019 to travel around Southeast Asia. With a one way ticket to Hong Kong, we are excited to start this journey in March. For now, we are planning to visit Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
What will we eat?
We are big foodies and exploring the cuisine of our destinations is definitely one of the most important things for us. We love to eat street food and will take a Pad Thai from a street vendor over a fancy restaurant any day. Julia is a vegetarian, so one of the fun challenges will be to find as much vegetarian street food as possible! So far, the Thai cuisine has been our favourite of the South East Asian countries we’ve already visited. We’re curious to discover new countries and their cuisines, but are definitely looking forward to our time in Thailand. One of our favourites things, as you may have guessed, is enjoying a delicious fresh coconut.
How do we travel?
We will travel with a backpack, as this for us is the easiest way to transport our belongings while still being able to easily board boats, walk on dust roads and manoeuvre through busy cities. We haven’t yet defined a full itinerary – currently we estimate that we will spend from 2 days to one week in the same location – but who knows what we will find along the way! We are planning to do a mix of transport, trying to stick to boats, trains and busses wherever possible, but taking the occasional plane when necessary. For local transport, where possible we will definitely rent motorbikes or bikes to be independent.
Where will we stay?
When it comes to accommodation, we aim to go for basic comfort: a private room, with a private bathroom, and at least a fan. Our budget is currently set at a maximum of 30€/night, but hopefully in most places we will be able to pay less, and very rarely we’ll have to pay a little more (e.g. in Hong Kong). So unless we make an exception to splurge, don’t expect a five star resort when following our hotel recommendations! Whether we have the budget or not for a five star resort, we prefer smaller places where we can have a chance to connect with owners and staff and get the best hands-on local advice.
What will we do?
Besides visiting the surrounding nature, sights, and fantastic beaches, how will we spend our time? Brice is an advanced open water diver (PADI certified) and one of his goals for the trip is to get the rescue diver certificate. Julia is planning to dive for the first time ever, but no better place than the turquoise waters of the South China Sea or the gulf of Thailand for this, right?
Julia enjoys doing yoga every day and will pack her yoga paws for this purpose. She will definitely also check out local classes wherever possible – so far no plans for a teacher training, but who knows!
Our running shoes will be on our feet as we travel, but we will see how we can incorporate it as regular exercise during the trip.
What will we miss?
We already know that some friends and family will pay us a visit and travel along with us for a couple of weeks every now and then, so we will be happy to see them and miss the ones who couldn’t make it. Besides them, we will most likely miss Italian food the most and probably at some point we will be on the search for the best pizza in South East Asia (recommendations welcome) and for a European cheese shop to find Parmesan for pasta.
Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. We hope to see you often during our trip!
lookingforcoconuts 