My 2024 trip around the world was a great success. I saw so many amazing things, and learned so much, I wanted to do it again. I was gone a little too long for Stephanie’s liking, though. I also tried to visit a few too many places, even after I cut off Korea and Japan. I am going to do a few things different this summer, but I still plan to go all the way around the world. Join me to see how my more informed trip this year compares to my first trip around the globe.

Some things will remain the same. Like last time, I will avoid going to places I know Stephanie wants to visit. I will also try to keep costs down while Stephanie is not with me, just like last year. It doesn’t seem fair for me to shell out large sums on things that only I will enjoy. In fact, I am learning a new trick for this – the points and miles hobby. I will post more about this in a later article, but the gist is that you can earn a LOT of credit toward flights and hotels by signing up for and using credit cards. I have been building a stockpile of these for the last few months. This will greatly lower my out of pocket costs on some of the most expensive aspects of international travel.

In addition to trying out this new cost cutting measure, I will shorten the trip by a few weeks. Instead of joining me for the first few legs of the trip, Stephanie is planning to “meet me in the middle” to visit Vun in Thailand. Rather than joining me for the entire trip, Caleb will just come with Stephanie. I will plan to spend at least a week in each country I visit, and sometimes stay longer. More than half of the countries I plan to visit this time require visas – an obstacle I mostly avoided last year. With fewer destinations, I have been able to do a bit more research ahead of time on the places I plan to go. I have also joined a club called Servas, in which members trade off hosting international travelers for a few days. It is essentially like being a short-term adult foreign exchange student. More on Servas later.

As of this writing (May 15^th, 2025), I have secured tickets only for the flights bookending my trip. I have a June 5^th flight booked from San Francisco to Taipei, Taiwan and an August 19^th flight from Doha, Qatar to San Francisco. Everything in between is still somewhat up in the air. My plan for now is to visit Taiwan for about a week and a half, then go to Hong Kong and Macau for a few days. I will then spend another week and a half or so in China to see the Terracotta Warriors and the Great Wall. I will fly from Beijing to Hanoi, and spend about a week in Vietnam, making my way across that country by rail. I plan to take boats and buses through Cambodia for a week, where I will visit Angkor Wat, then go on to Thailand to meet Stephanie and visit Vun’s family again. Once we are done there, I would like to fly to Sri Lanka where I will spend a week before making my way up to Mumbai. I’ll fly from Mumbai to Doha, Qatar, where I will spend my last few days before returning to the United States.

One of my biggest regrets during the 2024 trip was that I did not bring gifts to share with Vun’s family. I did not think ahead enough. I was completely overwhelmed by their hospitality and generosity. In their culture, there is a much stronger hospitality expectation, and it was moving to experience the care and love we were shown. The least I could have done would have been to bring a few trinkets from home as a token of my gratitude. I had only a rough idea that I wanted to stop and say hello to Vun in Thailand when I left home. By the time I got to Thailand, I had been living out of a backpack for nearly three months. It would have been difficult to have packed anything significant that far around the world. Later, we intended to send some Christmas candy to Thailand along with the cards we send everyone that time of year. Sadly, the postage would have cost about 100 times the value of the candy, so we ended up just sending the card. This time, if Stephanie meets me in Bangkok, we can check a bag just for that purpose. I would like to bring some really nice gifts to share with his family while we are there. I will also pack along some smaller Texas or U.S. specific small gifts that I can present to Servas hosts. That seems like a nice gesture, and something I can manage with proper planning.

Although my plan is not set in stone, it still feels like an aggressive travel agenda. I would like to spend more time in each place. There is only so much time, though, and there are so many places to see. I am sure my pace will slow, but for now I am off on another “sampler plate” trip. A large portion of this journey will be done solo. I will also stay in some homes, which I think will give the trip a different feel. I am not sure I will update the website completely within a few days of each stop this time around. I may make brief posts, and then edit them toward a more polished product once I am home. Feedback is welcome, of course. I hope readers will let me know what they think as I embark on another epic journey.