Trip to the Island of Tahiti Trip (Part 2)

If you’re just reading this post, you’ll want to know a few things.  My wife and I chose Tahiti for our big trip this year, not for the over-the-water bungalows (because we can’t afford them), but because of it’s tropical beauty that we’d seen in so many photos. And, the flight to this middle-of-nowhere island was going to be as expensive and long as flying to the Caribbean for us flying out of Utah. Easiest decision ever! The plan for this trip was to spend a few days on the island of Tahiti, then spend the remaining week of our …

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Trip to the Island of Tahiti (Part 1)

When you close your eyes (after you’re done reading this description, of course),  and you picture a tropics paradise in the middle of the ocean, with palm trees dipping their roots into the the ocean. An ocean that is so clear and blue, that you can see hundreds of fish swimming around pristine, vibrant coral reefs. And on that island, are thousand-foot mountain peaks covered with a dense green, jungle with waterfalls spilling over the edge. Can you picture it? Now, could you imagine a place like that existing, or is it just a figment of your imagination? Well, lucky …

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Essay: My Fascination with Flying

Flying, in my opinion, is truly one of the most fascinating experiences. There hasn’t been a single flight, dating back to my first trip on an airplane when I was in the 4th grade, to my countless work trips, that I didn’t get a childish excitement at takeoff. Despite spending my entire career in the aerospace industry, making components that currently fly in commercial and military planes, the physical act of flying still amazes me. But why? Why, after all these years, has this joy not faded? Commercial flight is the closest that humans will ever get to teleportation. What …

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Floating Markets, Orchid Farms, and Exploring Bangkok | Thailand Trip

After exploring the city of Bangkok for an entire day and night by ourselves, the following day we planned to do a few tours. This AirBnB Experience was of a floating market and an orchid farm just outside of the city. This was our chance to experience local foods and fruits brought to market by farmers, and a guide to experience everything we wanted to try and eat. Not only for the food, but we were excited to finally get to see and ride on the traditional Thai Longtail Boats that are inexorably tied to the way Thai people, still …

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Exploring Bangkok’s Chinatown | THAILAND

Chaos. Pure, yet somehow organized, amazing chaos with the ever-present smell of food and spice in the air. That is the high-level overview of how I could best describe the Chinatown area of Bangkok. And we loved every single minute of it! We were immersed in the culture from the moment we woke up each day, until we retired to our hotel room after an exhausting, adventure-filled day. The sprawl of the city, the efficiency of the subway, the uniqueness of the lifestyle, and of course, the incredible food everywhere you looked. Bangkok was an explosion of new experience for …

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Food Connects Across Cultures | THAILAND

Our second night staying on the Coconut island, off the eastern coast of Phuket, I had one of those travel experience that you only read about in travel novels or magazines. One where the language and cultures couldn’t be any different from one another, and we were still able to find common interested and enjoy one another’s company. My wife and I were invited, after finishing our dinner, to an older Thai gentleman’s table to split a bottle of local Hong Thong rum, but we found out that it was about so much more than just the rum. As some …

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Bangkok Floating Market Tour | THAILAND

Boat Noodles, long tail boats, and street market food that would blow the top of most Thai restaurants in America. This is everything Netflix has showcased about the infamous floating markets outside of Bangkok. And though each floating market is different, the tour we booked through AirBnB Experience with our guide Vicky lived up to all our expectations. We ate so much traditional Thai food that I would never have tried in a million years, experience the ride of a lifetime in a long tail boat, and even had a family style lunch at a unique floating restaurant. All of …

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Review | The Village Coconut Island Resort in Phuket, Thailand

Just a short, five minute boat ride from the mainland, puts you at the edge of the dock of The Village Coconut Island. And once you hop off the boat, onto the pier, you treated to a view of the beautiful resort that lines the white sand beaches on the north side of Coconut Island. To the right are massive beachfront villas overlooking the sea, and to the left of the pier, are the beach lounge chairs, pool, and the resort restaurant right there on the beach. Some would say this is paradise! Unfortunately, over the next three days, we …

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Trip to Kamala Beach, Phuket, Thailand

After spending a few days on a SCUBA diving boat out near the Similan Islands, we chose to spend the next few days relaxing at the beachside town of Kamala Beach. Though we had only been to a few other towns in Thailand up until this point of the trip, Kamala Beach was beautiful, and completely different than anything we had expected. And over the next few days, we fell in love with this small beach town and how memorable it was. Kamala Beach, located on the western coast of the Phuket island, is just one town north of the …

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Exploring The Florida Keys on Vacation and Why This Should Be Your Next Beach Destination

When the destination of Florida was tossed around for our family trip this year, admittedly, I had some serious hesitations. Normally, we try to go to some place that’s more of a “destination” or out of the country. But with the pandemic making international travel a bit more hectic and chaotic than what we were willing to risk, we decided on making the trip to the Florida Keys. As it turns out, the Florida Keys are so far from what I could have ever imagined being attached to our Sunshine State. The Florida Keys contain over 800 islands, but are …

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