Does Solo Travel Get Lonely? The Truth Nobody Talks About

Does Solo Travel Get Lonely? The Truth Nobody Talks About

What’s going on everybody? This is Island Opera TV and today we’re going to talk about solo travel. Does it ever get lonely? People are always asking me this very question. And uh I’m actually making this video as a second round. Uh so if you guys can hear me loud and clear, smash up the likes. I’m going to share a lot of information about my uh story of how in 2014 I first started uh traveling solo and I still travel full-time. Last year I went to about 24 25 countries and about 24 25 countries. This year I’m currently uh in Southeast Asia. I’m not going to tell you my exact location, although if you saw my last video, you probably have an idea. Uh okay, Philippines. There you go. Anyways, thanks to everyone who smashes up the likes. If you guys can hear me loud and clear, let me know. Um but I wanted to say that uh you know, solo travel people are always kind of like, “Oh man, I want your life.” And that is great. I mean, I love travel. I think anyone I think we can all manifest our own uh destiny, right? You know, whatever we really want, if we put our minds to it, we can achieve it. I know that when I first got into solo travel, I just wanted to travel. That was my big thing, right? Like I always just wanted to travel. Um, and just to give you a little bit of backstory about my travel history being that I’ve been to a hundred countries, um, and probably probably about 90% of those solo, um, I would say that, uh, when I was in the Navy from my 20s, we went to places like Hong Kong, Thailand, and all that. Uh, it was never lonely because we always had a big crew in our ship, a bunch of people to always, you know, ask if you wanted to go out in town. But when I got into my 30s, I was out of the military. the whole brotherhood and all that was gone. I then still wanted to travel. So, I had to figure out a way to still travel. I at first I was always calling someone. I’d be like, “Hey, you want to go with me? Hey, you want to go to California? You want to go to Seattle? You want to go to Alaska? You want to go to Hawaii?” I wasn’t really thinking too much about going out of the country other than maybe going to places like Mexico or Jamaica or something like that. I ended up ultimately getting to a point where I would go a lot further than that. pretty much obviously Africa and you know Southeast Asia and all over Europe, pretty much every country in Europe by this point. Uh but most of it was done solo and uh I want to talk about how it can get lonely and the things that I’ve done to help um overcome loneliness. I will say that uh at at first it wasn’t easy. Um, one of some of the things that I personally struggled with, uh, being someone who now is, you know, a full-time solo traveler, the things I struggled with in the beginning was being seen alone. I think that was a big thing, but also feeling alone. I think whenever you’re around people, uh, especially friends or family, you always feel a little bit more confident. There’s even a idea that, you know, loneliness is actually bad for your health. So, how do you travel and not feel alone? Well, one of the things I said recently, and this was just something that came from my own mind, and I literally said it. Someone else may have said it also or had the same intuition, but it was that I’ll be home in my actual hometown, and I’ll feel lonely even though my friends and family are all nearby or the people that I consider my close friends, and they are my close friends, but I’d consider myself lonely even though I’m there. But then I would go to certain countries, and I was never feeling lonely even though I was alone. Do you get what I’m saying? So think about what I just said. I was alone but I never felt lonely. Whereas I was in places where I was around friends and family but I felt alone. So I think it’s a state of the western world or a state of the United States or I don’t know what it was or maybe I was just in a the wrong place and I needed to move. It could be a bunch of different reasons. Could be a spiritual reason. I mean it I when you travel around like you could be in a funk in one country and then you go to another country and you can totally snap out of it. You could be feeling sick or ill in one country and then you go to a new country and you feel like a new new man again. It’s really crazy. It’s almost like going into portals and going in and out of portals. And I can’t explain it. I don’t have any real scientific evidence for why that would be. But, you know, like I could be feeling sick or groggy or depressed in one country and then next second I’m over here and I’m in a whole another place. Uh I would say sometimes the weather can have to do with it. Sometimes it could be the hotels or whatever or just the environment. Uh, a city like Manila is a very interesting place. You know, you would think, oh, Manila and Bangkok, which one’s better? They’re not even comparable. Manila is not even close to being on the same level of Bangkok. Or, you know, you could say Jakarta or Manila, that’s more of a comparison that you could make. But, uh, you know, both of those cities, they can actually suck in and you can get kind of like really bored in those places. But you go out of Indo, you go out of Jakarta, you go out of Philippines, you can kind of feel alive again. And so sometimes going out into certain villages in the provinces or uh towns in the provinces, you can really wake up uh your spirit. So there there’s there’s that. Okay. So what is it that I’ve picked up on with that? Well, I would say it’s the people. So there there’s there’s a couple countries out there that just have these real easygoing uh communities. Philippines is one of them. One of the things I like about the Philippines, anywhere you go around the Philippines, you can pretty much go up to someone and tell a joke or anything and they’ll share a laugh with you. You can just literally start up a small chat conversation with pretty much anyone in the Philippines, anywhere you go. That helps a lot. Like if I was ever like if I step out of the the the room here and I just seen someone, I could say, “Hello, ma’am. How are you, sir?” You know, this and that. And then just, “Hey, where are you been? How you doing? What what are you up to? You know, have you been to the province lately?” and we could just go back and forth and they they’ll have energy to have a conversation with you and it’s real friendly like that. Whereas in the US or some of these other countries in Europe, you you can’t just talk to people randomly like that. It’s just not the vibe. So, that helps when you’re in a place where people are very chatty and very friendly. And I’ve seen that in many different countries. Thailand’s kind of like that as well. Indonesia is like that. Uh you could you could say uh maybe Vietnam’s kind of like that, but they don’t speak as much English. Take it everyone who’s smashing up the likes. I can see you. And Kareem, have you ever felt intimidated by any new cities in particular? And how did you overcome it? Oh, yeah. In the beginning, I used to feel really intimidated by uh places like um Cairo. I remember feeling intimidated when I was in Cairo, Egypt at first. Um although I’d say people in Cairo are pretty friendly. Um where else did I feel kind of intimidated? That’s a great question. Um, some cities feel very suffocating. Like you you you’re in they’re so overwhelming. Like a mega city like Jakarta or Manila even, it’s really hard to get around just because of the traffic. And so you like step outside and you’re like there’s not much going on around this community and then you got people coming up to you. Like Manila is not the same as the rest of the Philippines. So if you come to the Philippines and you just go to Manila, you might not like Philippines. But once you get out in the province, you’ll like it. Um, but yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I could see how someone would get intimidated by a place like Manila or Jakarta. Uh, Bangkok’s not too intimidating. Um, but yeah, Cairo was kind of an intimidating place. I just went to Istanbul. I would say that wasn’t very intimidating. Um, Abu Dhabi was kind of intimidating at first, but I got over it. Whereas Dubai, Dubai and Abu Dhabi can be intimidating at first, but then as you spend more time there, uh, but it doesn’t happen as much. I mean I recently went to Manama Bahrain alone. I went to Doha Qatar alone. Um a lot of places alone. So I mean all the places this year have been alone. Um but yeah no it doesn’t happen as much. But this is this is why I’m making this video because I want to give you guys some of my uh mental preparations or things that I I do. I would say Latin America maybe in like Lima, Peru. I I was a little bit intimidated at first but uh as time went by it got better. Panama City a little bit. These are places recently I went to Keto Ecuador. But I mean when first thing I do is right when I get to the hotel I automatically look about the things to do and I start I walk out of the hotel and I’m already like all right who’s who who’s going to give me a ride and who’s going to show me around? First thing I’ll look for is a hop on hop off bus. If I’m really in a pinch I’ll just look for the hop on hop off bus because that’s like a quick out of the box like in the game kind of experience. You could just go on a regular tour. Um, but hop on hop off bus. The problem with those is obviously the traffic. Um, they move slow. Uh, but you know, if you wanted to see a city, you get an idea because they’ll show you all the routes. I mean, I just went to Tlisi, Georgia, and I was kind of confused about TLI. I mean, it’s a nice place, but I had no idea really where to go. There’s not a lot of information on TLI. So, I was like, okay, I know what I need to do. I’m going to go talk to the hop on hop off bus guys and at least get the route or the, you know, the route to go. And I was automatically in there. Now, that’s a little bit expensive. I think it was like 25 bucks. Some of you guys might be on a uh a bit of a budget, but uh I was just watching a video by this one new YouTuber guy. He makes $350 a month and he lives in Thailand full-time solo and he’s just talking about he doesn’t have any uh savings. I don’t know how he’s doing. I mean, he’s going on a prayer. That’s he’s going on a whim right there because how are you going to survive on $350 a month from his YouTube channel? Um and I’m I’m I’m supporting him. I I subscribed to his channel. I pushed the like button and I even commented because I was like like, comment, and subscribe. And uh you know, but I was like, man, dude, I I know what it’s like to be in those situations because I mean, I remember back when Island Hopper used to make $3 a day. And before that, it wasn’t even monetized. Um so, you know, that where was I going to get my money? I was just loving to travel. I was paying for everything on a credit card. But the solo travel thing, I would say, was really tough in the beginning. I remember one my very first time going out solo. I uh I I was going through a little bit of a funk with work and I needed to get I needed to stop thinking about it because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So I checked Amtrak. I was like there’s an Amtrak station nearby here in San Diego. So I booked the Amtrak all the way to Seattle and the first route was really nice. It was called the California Coaster right along the San Diego coast. I was like this is great. I’ll even pay for the business class, whatever. This is nice. I was reading the book uh Think and Grow Rich and I kept watching a bunch of Napoleon Hill videos and I was all by myself. I was like, “This is a really comfortable, nice environment.” But then by the time I got to LA, the train changed. It wasn’t as nice, but it was all right. Um and then I ended up getting up there to uh Mount Shasta and then we passed through Portland and then we arrived in Seattle. When I got to Seattle, I went around Seattle for the first time. I always wanted to see Seattle in the Pacific Northwest and then I ended up booking a flight to Hawaii. Well, guess what? I chickenened out on that flight. I I I missed the flight because I didn’t feel comfortable getting on that flight going all the way to Hawaii because it was like a 4-hour flight. I was getting anxiety. I was getting stressed. This was in 2014 and I was like, man, I’m not going on that flight. Now, I mean, I’ve been on a lot of flights since then, but that I’m just showing you that I’ve had to deal with these kind of things, these challenges that popped up. And, uh, it’s been tough. Um, and so I ended up the next day I was like, “Okay, I can do this.” So, I went back to the airport, got the ticket to Kona, and I was happy as can be when I landed in the evening time. It was a great experience. I got a rental car. I went all around the Big Island. I was like, “Dude, this is great. I love this.” I actually ended up deciding to move to uh the Big Island. I started making YouTube videos uh from Hawaii actually about life in Hawaii. I lived there for about three years. I lived two years on the Big Island and about one and a half years on Maui and then I moved back to Arizona. Someone was just asking me what happened to your Arizona channel. I haven’t seen it recently. Oh yeah, we just made a bunch of videos about Arizona. Go to the Arizona channel if you want to see all those new videos. Um someone says it doesn’t make you lonely, but it screws up your spelling. Oh, really? Did I spell something wrong? Oh jeez. Did I spell the Did I spell something wrong? Does solo travel get lonely? The truth nobody talks about. What do you mean the spelling? I don’t know what you’re saying about that. Sorry. Um I thought maybe I made a spelling or grammatical error. Maybe I did and I still didn’t even catch it. Anyway, I got to stick to the subject here about uh solo travel getting lonely. So some of the things that happened to me also I remember one time I was in Singapore after kind of going around Southeast Asia and I remember just all of a sudden it hit me like being lonely. I was I I got hit with a like a lonely spell if you want to call it that. Probably in around 2017 I was like missing my family. I was like man I’ve spent so many years like traveling. I I feel like I’m all alone. Like my family I haven’t really seen them in a long time. And I remember just feeling like kind of in a funk about that. And I remember walking through the streets just being like, “Dude, this is this is what my life has come to.” Even though I was in Singapore, I was traveling. I was just like really in a funk about it. So I I I would say like, yeah, people glorify solo travel, but I could see how like anyone who goes through solo travel at first is going to go through this. Nowadays, I don’t deal with any of this. This is why I’m trying to make this video right now because I’ve got information to share with you about how I’ve gotten to a point where I’m very content with being alone as a solo traveler going around. I think money definitely helps, but also mindset helps. So, the idea of loneliness equaling being or being alone. So, it’s okay to spend time by yourself. You’re not missing out. You’re growing. So, the personal growth that comes from it, this is like a moment of solitude. I remember just like really appreciating the moments where I would just go to a beautiful beach in Hawaii and go down there and think and journal and think about like what I wanted. And the reason I was doing this was because in that book, Think and Grow Rich, that I was reading, they were talking about like write down your goals. It was like all about manifestation. Like think about what it is you want from life and what it is you’re willing to give. And so I was doing that and I was like, well, I can’t do that if I’m in a big city where there’s lots of distractions and noise, but I can easily do that from a beautiful beach here on the Hamakua coast in the Big Island. So I did that quite a bit. And then that kind of evolved from uh journaling or like pondering and meditation so to speak to more of like listening to podcasts, listening to other YouTubers, getting more like self-help advice from other people. Uh, I remember coming across a Tony Robbins video when I was trying to find purpose. He said, uh, it’s what it is is if if you’re ever in a rut, I believe it was Tony Robbins, I don’t know where this idea came from, but it’s it’s true. Go back to when you were a kid. What was it that when you were a kid, you were interested in? And I was like, well, when I was a kid, I was interested in almanacs, atlases, and globes. Also, I used to look at the back of basketball cards and statistics. So, I was like, “Okay, but how is any of that ever going to make me money?” I’m like, “Yeah, looking at atlases, that’s not going to make you money.” But what I was pondered it a little bit more and I was like, “Really, what I want to do is travel.” I was like, “I love travel.” Pretty sure if you watch this travel channel, you’re like, “I love travel.” So, you’re like, “Wow, how do you get paid to travel?” I’m like, “Well, hello. That’s like everybody’s dream.” Telling you today, here I am. I get paid to travel. So, as crazy as that sounds to say, I mean, I it’s not something to take for light. Um but yeah, I’ve been doing that for over 5 years getting paid to travel. Um the first five years I was I was kind of out of pocket like that just I was I was getting paid to travel but it was not coming from the same resource I guess you could say. Um but uh yeah so I was definitely I I definitely have experience with being alone traveling like that. But some of the things that I do uh when I’m I would say that like I kind of got sucked into a lonely vortex in Europe. Europe can really uh there’s places in Europe sometimes you really rarely even talk to people in Europe. Europe is such a a drainer. Even going through like North America is a drainer. I would say places that will wake up your soul or wake up your spirit. Um I would say right now it’s mostly in Asia. The places that will just drain you. I mean even in Latin America I’ve had some good experiences but uh that one can be that one can suck suck you dry also. Um, so I don’t want to give any wrong information and tell you like, yeah, if you go to Mexico, you’re going to feel alive because there’s been times in Mexico even I was feeling a little bit drained. But I would say some of the best countries for solo travel where you’re going to feel like you’re interacting. Uh, even in Dubai, I can feel like I’m interacting with people mostly because of the taxis and they’re like Pakistan people and Pakistan people, I don’t know, they’re just very friendly. uh some of the friendliest people that I’ve seen around the world uh typically uh yeah Pakistan I would say Pakistani people are very friendly for the most part Indian people are very friendly to me at least um Filipinos are always very friendly I always get along with Filipinos um I come across a lot of Brits abroad like when I’m in UK I don’t talk to many Brits but when I’m outside of the UK I talk to a lot of Brits and Aussies as far as like whatever you want to call them expats or immigrants. Just to clear it up, people are always having this conversation. Why don’t expats call themselves immigrants? Well, simple. It’s definition. Expats are people who leave their country and they go to a new place, but they don’t pick up citizenship or residency. They just kind of stay for a set amount of period of time and then they go back to some other place. That’s expatriate. And then an immigrant is someone who moves to say Australia, picks up residency and then becomes a citizen. That’s an immigrant. That’s immigration. like Italian immigrants when they came from Italy or Irish immigrants when they came from Ireland, they came to the United States as immigrants because they actually live there. Okay? So the immigrants who move to Australia or the immigrants who move wherever the expatri expats are people who move to a place but they don’t immigrate there. Get it? Because uh there was some confusion about this where people don’t understand the English language to the extent that they need to. said they were like, “Why don’t expats call themselves immigrants?” Well, they’re not. Um, thank you everyone who’s smashing up the likes. Let’s keep this video going. What time is it where you guys are at? Where everyone tuning in from today? Um, one of the things that I try to do, and I guess this kind of came from my dad actually when I was uh one time he said uh he said something about like getting out of the house and just talking to people. So, let’s let’s evolve that to where we’re at now is traveling. So, it’s like make it a point to like conversate with people whether you say, “Hey, good morning. How’s it going?” Like sometimes just the vibe that you can catch off people will be good. I get it. Sometimes you’re just not in the mood. Uh sometimes that coffee hits you a little sideways and you’re like, “Don’t talk to me. I just had a caffeine buzz or whatever.” I don’t know what could have you in a bit of a mood. But um whenever you get out of that mood and you get into a little social uh you know go up and talk to the bell bell boy or go talk to the person at the front desk or talk to someone at the restaurant and then if you’re in a place like Bangkok or Philippines or uh you know who knows where you’re at uh Dubai you know go to the kind of find your local spots. I would say every city that I travel to I have my like lifestyle routine. I mean, in Bangkok, I have a lifestyle routine. In Phuket, I have a lifestyle routine. In Manila, I have a lifestyle routine. If I’m in Pong Lao Beahol, I have a lifestyle routine. These are places that I kind of go back to. Like, I’ve been to Manila maybe 10 times. I’ve been to Bangkok maybe 25 times. Who knows? I mean, I I stay in Bangkok for like 10 10 days to two weeks at a time, and that’s good enough for me sometimes. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get to a point where I’ll stay for 30 days because I’m starting to like my routines in these places. Singapore. I got a nice routine in Singapore. Um I could get into each one of those routines, but the longer you stay in a place, the more you build a routine. Uh some places, you know, you’ll get there and you won’t like it for the first two days. Koala Lumpur is a perfect example of that. Like my first two days in Koala Lumpur, I was like, dude, I don’t really like kale. Okay, but then I start then kale. I started to like kale. I started to like Koala Lumpur. I started to like Malaysia because I was used to things being done a certain way in Thailand. And by the time I got to Koala Lumpur, I was like, “This isn’t for me.” But as time went by, I even built a routine in Koala Lumpur. So you got to give a place a little bit of time. And you got to actually think about like how am I going to how am I going to enjoy this place like you know maybe you got to leave Thailand or maybe you got to leave Singapore or Philippines or uh Vietnam or something because your visa. So you need to spend a little bit more time. So you need these like second home, third home, fourth home, fifth home, in this case like 10th homes. Like when I go to Dubai, I’ve got a little routine. Dubai is a bit harder to get a routine just because it depends on whether or not it’s summer or winter. Um like in Europe, I’m trying to develop a routine. And like I would say the the south south of France, I was trying to build a little bit of a routine. It I really like places where they have bikes. anytime a place has bikes, going for a bike ride in the morning, putting down the phone because when you’re riding a bike, you have to put down the phone. So, you’re just get you and you’re getting the blood flowing, you’re getting exercise in. So, that’s really good. Um, and then by the time you get off that bike, you’re not just sitting at a phone, sitting in front of a screen to where you’re like droned out. First thing you’re going to do is start talking to people. So, that’s important. Talking to people, making conversations, especially the earlier you do it, the better your day is going to be. But I will say like screens, looking at screens can really take the take away from you. So the longer you spend looking at the screen, the more detached you’re going to be around from the world around you. The more you’ve got the earbuds in and all that, the more detached you are from the world around you, the more alone you’re going to feel. So it’s actually all about going out and trying to make a conversation whatever you want to talk about. You could say, “Hey, how’s I have like these little jokes that I do with people like I have this uh coin. And it’s called Pocky Pocky. It’s a cryptocurrency that I started called Pocky Pocky. P A K I P A K AI. I just had this idea one day. It’s to call a fish pocky pocky because you know in Philippines they got like elo holo hollowo um uh you know like lapu lapu. And one day I just had this idea about pocky pocky. I was like there had to be a word called pocky pocky. So I created a cryptocurrency. And so I asked people I was like hey have you guys ever heard of pocky or I’ll say like do you guys take pocky pocky? And people always have the same response. They’re like, “What is pocky pocky?” They always go like this. What is pocky pocky? And then I’m like, “Oh, you don’t know pocky pocky?” And and so it’s just I’m just giving you an example of something fun I do with people. And um it doesn’t work so well in Europe because people over there are just way too freaking serious. But over here, it’s a good way to share a laugh with people. Uh but like I said, it’s a cryptocurrency. So it’s like a I’m able to talk to people about my cryptocurrency coin, Pocky Pocky. Um, I was actually thinking about making it like a travel community coin. Although, uh, I I I could actually just give it away. Like, at this point, I mean, I’ve got the coins. I just like, “Hey, you want some crypto of the the coin that we created?” And I just give them away. Uh, I haven’t done that yet, but I was thinking about doing that. I started the coin about a year ago, but that’s something fun that I do. Like just because the word pocky pocky is so funny, it’s I mean literally I would say in the places this pocky pocky like just takes off like Sri Lanka, um Thailand, Philippines, uh it’s just a word I guess that just is so funny. Indonesia, Indonesians love it. I was using that word a lot in Bali. I’d say between Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia, that word is a hit. It’s like they’re always like like people will literally hear that word. They’ll be like I’ll be like pocky pocky or you know and and they just start laughing. I’m just giving you an idea of how to share a moment with someone. I mean it was a creative way that I came up with to like share some funny conversation because I was like what am I going to talk about? How’s the how’s the weather? Oh it’s beautiful weather. Like come on. Like people don’t want to talk about that. So like saying a funny word and getting a laugh out of someone is funny. And then so um that that’s important talking to people. Now, you can also get into like groups or group travel uh and just meet people that way. I mean, that’s that’s like the basic rudimentary way to go about it. That’s not the way that I typically go about it, but sometime I mean I actually never really do this. I I do like going on travel tour groups, especially when I’m with somebody, but if I’m alone, I don’t really like doing uh tours too much, but that’s a way you can do it. That is a low pressure way to meet people. uh you know because you don’t have to talk to people on the tour but you can talk to people on the tour. the earlier you get started with that, you know, people will always be like, “Good morning.” You know, it’s like, “Good morning.” And then like as time goes by, someone will say something or you like be out there like around, I don’t know, in Mexico, you know, you’re at the mess place and they’re talking about how tequila is made and someone will be like, “Hey, you want a shot?” Next thing you know, you’re doing a shot sharing a laugh with the person that and you’re like, “Where are you from?” He’s like, “I’m from the UK or I’m from Germany or I’m from blah blah blah.” Who knows where someone’s from? And you know, conversations start happening and then you’re like, “What?” You guys eat at lunch. you know, that’s a way to make friends. Um, but also have a purpose like something that you’re working on, whether it be like writing a book. I remember when I was writing a book, that was fun. Or right now I’m talk I’m talking about making a travel app. This travel app would have a multiple different features, but that’s something that occupies my time as well as doing these YouTube videos that you guys see. So, you got to have something that like distracts you from any sort of monotony. If you’re just traveling and you’re not having any sort of hobbies or anything that you’re working on, that can get you to feel pretty lonely. So again, routine, having something of a responsibility really important. And then just having conversations with people around really makes things uh get going. Someone says, “Culturally sensitive areas for women. Any advice?” Okay, so Jane, I imagine you’re talking about what areas are you talking about? Um because every every culturally sensitive air every area has a different cultural sensitivity. I’m just going to assume you’re talking about maybe like places where they want you to cover up or something like that. Like maybe like um uh the Middle East, let’s just say Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Qatar. Yeah, Middle East. Okay. Yeah. Because that’s really the only place there’s like some sort of cultural sensitivity. Uh advice would be don’t wear revealing clothes. That would be the best advice that I would give. I mean, outside of that, you should be fine. I mean, you I I remember going to like Dubai. I don’t know. Russian women, they love to just wear like the least amount of clothes in Dubai. And I’m like, this is Dubai. Like, I know that in Russia and Moscow, you’ve coming out of winter and you want to, you know, but like basically we’re talking about like basically like wearing a bikini walking around the streets of Dubai. like the jeans so short and I’m just like dude come on do they not have like cultural uh classes about like you know how to dress in Dubai. I mean did but I was like she walked around nobody said anything. So I mean that was in Dubai it seemed like it was good to go. Uh I’ve seen people wearing bikinis in Dubai Abu Dhabi even. So I mean they’re progressing a lot over there. So it but I would say still come on let just out of like respect for the you know if if you see people wearing burkas and and stuff like that you know maybe don’t push it too much wearing revealing clothes. Uh other things just being aware of it. I think I think we all have whenever we go to the Middle East we have to be aware of it. That that would be that would be the thing. Um someone said 8:50 a.m. where I am been starting my travel journey. So, I love channels like yours, Tokyo in 2023 with my friend Bangkok in 2024, solo so far. Awesome. Yeah, that’s how you do it. I mean, slowly but surely, one by one, and then the next thing you know, you’re going back to Bangkok, you’re going back to Tokyo, and then you’re mixing in Taipei, and then you’re mixing in Manila, and then you’re mixing in um you know, like every time I kind of come into a new country, I always like go into the capital, and then like if I depending on how I feel, I’ll just go to the capital and then I’ll leave. Um, but I would say it definitely gets more enriching outside of the capital. So like if you go to Thailand, you go to Bangkok, you’re like, I went to Thailand. No, you didn’t go to Thailand. You went to Bangkok, which is a capital city in Thailand. But there’s a lot more to Thailand, whether it be just I mean, I’ve gone all around Thailand. I’ve gone to Isan. I’ve gone to I’ve gone all the way down the Malaysian Peninsula several times, which includes like going through Huah Hin down to Chan. uh through that whole area then into Kowak Cowok all the way down Krabby then going even further down and that was just like a little journey that’s not really talked about but it’s like transiting the Malaysian Peninsula. The Malaysian Peninsula is that little like leg that kind of comes down and at the top is like you know Thailand and then it goes all the way down to Singapore. That’s one. And then another kind of challenge that I put myself into was going across Java. I was like Java is a big island. How do I go across Java? And then Philippines, it was like the first couple times I went to Philippines, I went to like Borakai, Behole, and then that was it. But then I was like, okay, after I go to Sirao, and then I went to like Palawan, Elito, and all that. Then I was like, okay, well, okay, now I’m here in Borai, instead of flying out of Borai, I’m going to actually take a private car, get a transport, and go all the way to the bottom because I see there’s a town down here called Elo. And if I go to Ilo Elo, it looks like I can take a ferry to Bakalode, which is on Negros Island. And then when I got to Negros, I was like, “Okay, I’m on Negros.” And I was like, “Well, do I fly out of Negros or Bakalot or do I go across uh the island?” And I was like, “Do I go down to Dumagetti or what do I do from here?” I ended up going across uh the beautiful mountains of Negros. Like I was like, “Dude, this is awesome up here. It’s like you’re you’re in Philippines, but it’s high up in the mountains.” um you get to the other side and then you cross and you go into like San Carlos into Sabu and then you’re like okay how do I get from San Carlos to Sabu city and then you’re in Seabu City because at times I’m like I want to avoid airports so how do I avoid airports without stressing myself out too much because traveling in the Philippines can be like that but I mean I went all the way from uh from Negros uh to Sabu to Pang Laol up behold to this like no man’s land up in the northern part of Behole. Crossed uh that that straits there to Lee. I ended up in Lee, another place. It was kind of like no man’s land. I’m talking about places where there was no foreigners. I’m like the only foreigner on the whole boat. Um and you know, I ended up going to this place called Ormok. And then I went to Camotees. I mean, this is just like just because I and the whole reason it happened was because I was like, I don’t want to go to an airport for a while because airports were driving me crazy. I was just like, I got to stay away from airports. just like I go to airports too much. And so it kind of came about because of that. And then I actually enjoyed it. So it was like sometimes if you’re feeling a certain way, maybe it’s like the universe pushing you in a certain direction saying like, “Hey, we’re going to do this. We’re going to show you around Philippines because you don’t like airports. You get to see a bunch of the Philippines now.” And that was kind of cool. Same thing kind of happened with um Indonesia because I was like, “Oh, I don’t want to go back into that busy Jakarta airport.” So I was like, how do I get to Bali from uh Jakarta? So I was kind of looking about like how to get across Java. That’s how I ended up going to places like Jo Jakarta or I ended up in um Suraya or um Sarang. I was trying to get to Bali, but by the time I got to Suraya, I was like, “Oh, it’s going to be hard to get to Bali.” So I was like, “Well, I’ll just take the plane from here because it looks like it’s like a low low cost kind of airport.” So I just flew to Bali from there. But I pretty much went across Java just through that same concept. But you know, it’s just island hopping. That’s where the whole channel name comes from. Island hopping. That’s what I did in the Philippines. I mean, going from uh like right now I’m thinking about I’m looking at the map and I’m like, dude, I could go down to Muro. From Muro, I could island hop over to Kuran. From Kuran, I could go down to Palawan. By the time I get down to Palawan, I could get down to Porto Princessa and then, you know, see where it goes. But go all the way down. I mean, I’ve even looked at going across um because if you go all the way down to southern Powan, you’re like, “Okay, I think I can see Borneo from here in Malaysia, but it’s a little bit dangerous down there right now.” Kind of same thing that happened with um Mindanao because I want to go down to Mindanao, but uh you know, it’s like, dude, Mindanao is so close. If you go down to the Sulu, I mean, there’s so many beautiful beaches and islands down there, but they’re off guard or they’re off. You’re not supposed to go down there. It’s uh US travel advisory level four. Uh I’m not going to get into why or anything, but you know. If you know, you know. Um but yeah, I was trying to get down there. Someone said a question. Are there any traditional tourist destinations that you wouldn’t travel solo? For example, places like Colombia or Egypt don’t have the best reputations or like Guatemala or Lebanon. Good question. All of those would be ones that I would heavily consider. Uh, so would I go to Colombia again alone? Uh, yeah, why not? I mean, the area around Medí is nice. I mean, I think it’s called Pablato. Pablato has like, you know, it’s got nice hotels. It seems fine to walk around Pablato. It’s a nice place. I mean, it’s like it’s it’s high elevation. It’s it’s nice as far as Bogota goes. Yeah, I’d probably go there alone. Um, I mean, I just went to Ecuador. I went to Panama City, Peru. I went through all that. I I I’ve been to almost every country in South America except for like uh I don’t even know what they’re called. Like, well, Venezuela, that whole northern that whole northeastern part of the the continent. Oh, and I never went to Paraguay. And Paraguay is a place I need to go. Paraguay is actually really good place. Someone says, “By the way, I’m loving these questions, but would I go back to Lebanon?” If you’ve seen our video from Lebanon, uh, yeah, I would say I’d go back to Lebanon. There was no real reason. Like, Lebanon is not necessarily unsafe. It’s just the situation there is no good. The paper, the currency, you get this wad of cash and it’s basically like not valuable at all. They don’t even have like uh currency exchange there. I mean, the currency is basically like toilet paper there. What I’m saying is like it has no it has very little value. It could have like hundreds of millions of It’s like in Indonesia, you know, like when you buy things in Indonesia, you’re paying 1.5 million rupia, which is about I don’t know like what 25 $30. By the way, here in Philippines, they have been having earthquakes. I don’t know if you guys have seen this, but right now I felt like the uh the building just kind of shook a little bit. That was weird. Um they a lot of people are like kind of waiting for a big one. Like a lot of my Filipino friends keep sending me this. like, “Oh, the Manila fault line is supposed to rupture.” And I’m like, “Oh, boy.” But yesterday, I was sitting here at this desk making a video and all of a sudden the whole building went like this and then it just stopped. And I looked I was like I went on Twitter or X and I was like, “Did I just feel a earthquake?” And uh sure enough, there was one about 50 miles away. It was like a 5.6 earthquake. So, they’ve been getting a lot of earthquakes, which kind of made it like to where I that’s why one of the reasons why I’m staying in Manila and I’m like really close to the airport because I’m like, “All right, is this fault line like really active right now?” Because in Philippines, they get a lot of calamity. They get typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes. Like there’s an active volcano that erupted like two weeks ago over there. Tall, tall volcano. So, I don’t know what I’m going to do in Philippines. I want to explore more, but it’s been kind of crummy weather. Uh yeah, I’m not too high up, but I’m a little bit high actually. Uh someone said, uh when traveling, do you prefer hotels that are dirt cheap hostel, middle range, or high-end? Obviously cost is a factor, but you can see right now I’m staying in a pretty nice room, right? Um let’s see here. I like if you guys read that book that I wrote, Diary of a Three Star Gypsy. And basically, I’m calling myself a three star gypsy, because I’m someone who likes to travel. Gypsy means I travel. I roam around, been to 100 countries, and like I just kind of go around by myself. Um, you could I could have used of a three-star nomad, but I use the word gypsy just because that’s kind of what my grandpa called himself or my grandma called my grandpa gypsy soul. So, I kind of take after that. That’s why I wrote that book, The Diary of a Three Star Gypsy. But um three star indicates that I like um middle range. Like, yeah, I’m staying in a nice hotel now. And I’ve stayed at JW Marriott, Conrads, uh Grand Hyatts. I’ve stayed at the Conrad here in Manila. I’ve stayed at the the you know, the Grand Hyatt. Stayed at a lot of those places. But uh if I’m to be honest with you, like in the Philippines, I love a good three-star hotel nearby the beach. Just chilled maybe like 40 25 to 40 different rooms in the whole hotel. Not too busy. Maybe a 50% occupancy. That means maybe 20% of the rooms are full. You can get the pool to yourself in the morning. You can get a nice relaxing breakfast. Whereas at one of these kind of hotels, you wake up like right when you go into the the uh the breakfast hall. It’s like people everywhere. Thanks to everyone who’s crushing up the likes. We got 20 likes. I appreciate that. Um so I would say that um yeah, I like three star hotels. That’s kind of like the sweet spot, you know? You get a good price, at least in Southeast Asia. Three, a good three star in Kosamui, a good three star in anywhere in the Philippines. Uh geez, I mean, I don’t really have any problems with three stars. Two stars, great prices, but you know, you come the thing that holds me back with two stars is there’s always like, did they clean the sheets? Is the towel clean? You know, so it’s like maybe I’ll pay a little bit more and hopefully they uh took better care like that. But sometimes you’ll stay at like a two star and they they’re better than a three star or four star. So the rating system could be a bit flawed. So sometimes like if I’m in a place like I just land in Pung Lao Behole, I’ll go around and I’ll like scout out the area and I’ll be like, “Okay, if I want to stay here for seven days, I’m staying at this hotel. I’ll either decide if I want to stay here longer.” So I only book one night and then I’ll kind of look around. I’ll be like, “That’s a better area. Let’s see if there’s any hotels that are available.” I’ll go talk to the front desk. Can I see a room? If I see that, oh, this is perfect. This is going to work great. They got a pool. They got a room. They got a breakfast hall. They got a nice front desk. Good price. Nearby. Great location. I can easily base camp out of this spot. How’s the internet? Oh, you guys got Starlink. Nice. Well, I’m staying here. You know, because like out here in the Philippines, they got either real slow internet or Starlink. And so it’s like big disparity. Like the fastest internet I ever seen was on an island Malipasca out in the middle of the Lee G out in the middle of Lee out there by Lee. I don’t know where that earthquake happened. And that was a year ago. Um, but it was like a dive resort on Malapasca Island. And I was like I was like I had to make a couple videos. I was like, “Well, let’s see how slow the internet is. Probably like one megabyte per second went two megabytes per second.” So I did a speed check and it said 250 megabytes per second. I was like, “What?” I was like, “This is lightning fast internet out here on this island.” They were like, “Yeah, we use Starlink.” Kind of cool, right? Game changer. Um, someone said, “Question. Is solo travel an effective way to develop self-reliance? Oh, absolutely. In terms of developing better judgment, developing the habit of thinking through potential impacts of doing this or that. Yeah. I mean, self-awareness, um, confidence, um, you’re always making your own decisions. So, of course, your brain is always like getting practice with like decision- making. Um, so between confidence and decision-making, yeah, those are skills that definitely come about. Now, I’m not going to say that having friends or having people around you isn’t a great thing because being around the right crowd, you know, that’s uplifting. It can uplift your soul. Like, you could go from solo traveling to having your best friend come out and meet you somewhere and then all of a sudden like you’re like, you definitely feel like you just got a an energy uh injection of like happiness and power and euphoria. I’ve had that happen when my friends come out and visit me or my family. I mean, you know, it’s like so yeah, you you know, like those kind of things can be uplifting for sure. But the the amount of like self-development that comes from solo travel is yeah, it’s undeniable. I mean, you’re 100% the captain of your own ship. There’s you’re on your own when you’re in a foreign country. I mean, when I’m down there in Lee Golf or if I’m down there in like, you know, southern Palawan or Mindanao or any I’m just using Philippines as an example because that’s where I’m at, but if I’m in Krabby or Cowock or Cowok all alone, dude, it’s me. I’m not saying me verse the world, but it’s like you got to make your own decisions because you’re in a foreign country. It’s not danger. I mean, it’s not like scary. I mean when I was in Sri Lanka, you know, going around Sri Lanka. Sometimes you’re like, well, me and this driver are going to be spending all day. He’s going to show me all around Sri Lanka today. It’s just going to be me and him, whether it’s daytime, nighttime, in the middle of the jungle, wherever we’re at. Or sometimes I’ll get onto a boat and I’ll be like, man, we’re out here in the middle of the Andamin Sea and it’s just me and the boat driver right now. It’s like, I didn’t tell anyone I was out here, so wow, what am I doing out here? Me and some guy in the Philippines, whatever. um you know and so yeah I mean you do kind of I don’t know how sometimes I’m like I don’t even know if that’s a safe idea actually but I’m not necessarily recommending it but I’ve been doing it for a long time and um done it many times. Um I think you know you have to like really feel confident with the the driver uh or the person who’s going to be taking you for a ride. I will say that I mean one of the good things is about Grab or Uber. I mean when I was in Romania I was trying to get the uh or I went from Romania to Bulgaria crossing the border and I was like wow this could be a little bit interesting. I got to get the c I got to get the taxi going to the border with Romania and then I got to cross the border and then when I got over there I got to find a Bulgarian to take me across to get me to Turkey so I can get to Istanbul. So, I was kind of like, oh man, that’s, you know, a lot of decision- making right there. And it’s kind of like, you know, you, of course, every single taxi, every single country has the same thing. It’s like, I said this on my uh Twitter or my ex, I said the two things I noticed everywhere in the world that I’ve been, every place has pigeons or doves. Those birds are everywhere. I don’t know how that I don’t know how not like other things are not very common everywhere. Like it doesn’t matter where in the world I go, I always see pigeons or doves and then taxi scams. Um I mean even here in Manila, I got scammed at, you know, I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but yeah, they scam me at 3 in the morning because they can. And it’s not like a bad scam, it’s like a petty little thing, but uh you know, it’s annoying. It’s whatever. Um even in the US, I’ll come across like you know, guys at Fort Lauderdale airport, they’re always the yellow taxi. So, I always like to get into Ubers or Grabs or whatever the ride share app is at the time, Bolt. Um, those things kind of like cut out the riff raff if you can use those. Um, they they cut out the decision-m process of like having to vet someone and be like, “This guy’s going to be the one taking me the next 40 minutes or whatever.” You know, someone said 250 MB. That’s better than most American hotels. Yeah, because it’s Starlink. I Have you guys ever used Starlink? Starlink is incredibly fast. Um, all I can say, look, I I might have thrown that 250 MB out. I just remember it might have even been 300 or it could have been 150. I felt I fel I just know it was lightning quick. Like to upload a video that was four 4 gigabytes took like 10 minutes or or like 7 gigabytes took like 10 minutes. I was like, “Oh, this is great.” And I’m out here in the middle of the ocean on Maliposca Island and they had a typhoon. They This is typhoon season in the Philippines. They get like they’ve already had like two typhoons since I’ve been here, man. Someone said, “Jeff, it’s been raining here in Mesa for literally 4 days.” Oh, dang. Dang, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of rain for Phoenix Metro. Um, someone said, “Question, is Guatemala safe for solo travelers? I’ve heard it has pollution problem. Is that true?” I didn’t find Guatemala to be unsafe necessarily. Um, so I walked around Guatemala City. They have like they have like different districts or I think it’s called like district 8 district 7 like wherever you’re getting a hotel like go on chat GPT and say like what are the safest parts of Guatemala City or like what is the safest way to get from Guatemala City to Lake Ailon? What’s the safest way to get to Tikall. I mean Guatemala looks small on a map but getting around Guatemala takes a long time and the roads are very windy. There’s not too many places in the world where I went where I got motion sickness by sitting in a taxi or in this case a van. Um, Guatemala, the road from Guatemala or from Antigua to Lake Ailon made me like motion sick, you know, and it’s it’s crazy because, you know, you travel enough, you could go a long time without ever getting seasickness. I was in the Navy for a long time. I never got seasickness the whole time I was in the Navy. But one time I was out in Australia. We went out at 7 in the morning fishing for mahi mahi. I guess you could say dorado dolphin fish, whatever. They they say a fish that’s got a lot of names. Anyway, so I went out there with my friend. He’s a old man and his buddy. And it it was early in the morning like we we took a camper down to like Byron Bay in Australia down and I remember he was telling me he’s like, “Yeah, that’s Mount Warning right there.” And I’m like, “Why do they call it Mount Warning?” And they’re like, “Well, when Captain Cook was coming down here, they knew that by the time they got to Mount Warning that the seas were going to be high and that the Great Barrier Reef was around here.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” So, like I was already like kind of a little bit funked out, but the guy he said to me, he goes, “Oh, so you were in the Navy? You never got seasick before?” And I was like, “No.” He kind of like plants a seed in my head. Next thing I know, I’m like out on the boat just like holding on to the back of the boat just like, “Dude, I’m seasick.” I was like, “This is bad. I’ve never been seasick.” Like, it was to the point where I almost felt like I wanted to jump off the boat and swim back to shore. I was like, “You can’t do that in Australia, man. They got great white sharks out there.” So, I was just like, “Dude.” And I was like, “Well, even if I jumped off the boat and tried to swim to the shore, there’s no telling like how that would work out.” Like, so that was a bad idea. But I was actually seasick. So, you know, I’m just telling those stories because, you know, you can be one of those people who’s cocky. You’re like, “Oh, I never get sick or I never get scammed or anything like that.” But I’m like, the more you travel, dude, you’d be surprised. It can happen to anybody. It doesn’t matter how OG you are. It doesn’t matter how many countries you can you’ve been to. Those kind of things come up. Whether it’s motion sickness, uh, uh, seasickness, scams, pickpocket, I mean, you know, all these people are like, “Oh, I never been pickpocketed. Wouldn’t happen to me. I’m the type of guy that, man, they come up to me, I’ll punch him right in the jaw. Next thing you know, he gets pickpocketed.” You know, I’m just saying like always remain humble. I would say it’s a big thing. Someone said, “Yeah, I thought I was unscammable until I dealt with tuk tuk tuk tuks in Bangkok.” Yeah, that’s true. I mean, it’s like I said, I mean, I’ve been to how I don’t know how many times you guys probably seen my other channel, Vert Cam Travel. I show arrivals into airports. People always come on my channel and they’re like, “You’re so dumb. You got scammed.” I’m like, “Dude, I probably been to like I don’t know, hundreds of airports.” I mean, I’ve been to a hundred countries. Not every one of them I went, but like Bangkok, I’ve you could probably see like at least five Manila arrivals on the channel. You could probably see at least like five or 10 Bangkok arrivals or Qualore or whatever airport I’ve been to many times over. Dude, it’s like it is what it is, man. you get there, you know, sometimes you don’t even want to sometimes you’ll just accept the scam because you don’t want to deal with like you’re coming off a flight like that flight from Bangkok to Manila. It was like a midnight flight. It was a little bit delayed. You know, you get to the airport at 10:00. You take off at 12:00. You got a little bit of a delay. It’s 1:00 by the time you take off. You arrive at like 3:00 in the morning, 4 in the morning. You get off, you know, you go through immigration lines. By the time you get there, you’re like, they’re like, “Oh, 1,200 pesos. That’s like $20.” You’re like, “Dude, I don’t care if it’s $20 or $5. I don’t care if the going rate is $5 or $20. It’s worth it to me to save my sanity than trying to search around the airport at 3 4:00 in the morning trying to find a way to save $15.” Like, you know, it’s like I mean, I’ve paid5$10 a day just to have faster internet, you know, like some So sometimes, you know, you just accept the the price gouging. That’s what I call it, but people will call it a like it’s like the same thing with the tuk tuk in Bangkok. You know, you could you could be looking around. It could be like middle of the daytime, three or four o’clock in Bangkok, right? Hot as heck. Bangkok can get hot, especially outside of rainy season. They’re coming out of rainy season. Rainy season Bangkok stays pretty neutral. But the second the rainy season goes away and the sunshine comes, 3:00 in the afternoon, Bangkok, that sun is hot. We’re talking Bangkok hot. Like I’m from Phoenix, Arizona. You can play around with me and say like, “Oh, you’re not used to Bangkok hot? You think that’s hot? I’m from Phoenix, Arizona. I’m like I am from Phoenix. I’ve been to Dubai. Like Bangkok at 3:00 in the afternoon in like I don’t know, April. Oh my gosh, that is like intolerable. Like if you if you’re outside for any longer than two hours walking around Bangkok from like 2 to 3 in the afternoon, it’s too hot. So, if a tuk tuk’s right there and he tells me he’s going to charge me 350 bot to go down a road and I can’t find a taxi anywhere and Grab’s not picking up the ride, I’ll just get scammed straight up by the uh tuk tuk driver and be like, “Just take me get me out of here by this, you know, like that.” So, I mean, it’s one of those things, you know, you got to play your cards right. You got to you got to take your losses and take your wins as they come. I mean, if if if you’re going to sweat about 350 bot in my case, like, right, like sometimes it’s just about principality. You’re like, “Oh man, this guy’s obviously ripping me off.” So, it can like really annoy you. Like, sometimes it could be just a matter of difference of like three to five dollars. And you know, in your mind, you’re like, “Dang, they’re ripping me off.” Like Vietnam, that’s a perfect example. Like some guy tried to charge me like 500,000 dong to go from like Hanoi to like the hotel that I was at and it was 500,000 dong which I think comes out to I don’t know like maybe 12 bucks 15 bucks but is way more than what I paid to go down there. I think I only pay like 120,000 dong to get down there. So that’s the currency Vietnamese dong. And I was just like dude that’s four times the price in my mind. I’m like that’s a sc I’m like that’s a rip. But really, if you zoom out and you you’re like, why are you sweating? Why am I sweating five or $6? Because in my mind, I’m like, that’s the principle of it. It’s like the fact that they are doing that to me, you know? So, those are the kind of things you got, like I said, I mean, you got to roll with it. You got to roll with the punches. Someone said the road from Pi to Shang Mai had so many turns I was getting a little motion sickness. Dude, that is true. That I mean, I haven’t been to Pi. They call it the I know what you’re talking about. They call it the pie hole, right? Like you get into pie and you’re like in the pie hole, which is like the backpacker place. I went to Shanghai, but instead when I went to Shanghai, I went up to um Shang Rai, but Pi is a place I’d like to go, but I can only imagine because even the road from like Shang Mai to, you know, even the road going around Shanghai, going up to the temples, going up the mountains. So, I know what you’re talking about. I could see how Bangkok could get you. I mean most of the time in Bangkok I don’t or I mean I’m sorry in Thailand I don’t really get too far off the path like even when I went up to Ean this is a route if you want another route going the opposite side of the country I went from Bangkok to Uban Rachantani which is Korat and then from Korat you go to uh Kanken and then from Kanken I went to uh Udantani and then from Udantani I went to Nong Kai and then crossed at the Nonai to Lao border crossing went to ViTen which is actually really close to Thailand. Like the capital of Lao is really close to the Thailand border. It’s right there on the Meong River. And then you go up a little bit and then into the country a little bit. You go into like Luong Purbong or uh Vonvang in Laos. I mean, it’s a whole different experience. I’ve only been to Cambodia once, but I I was wanting this year I was actually planning to like do my border run because to to Cambodia and and so like but there was a war this year. So I was like, well that that that whole border seems like a little bit contentious. So I probably will skip on that right now. but the other direction. So I uh so I always end up just going back down to Malaysia down to Singapore is like the route that I keep taking just because of like all these other things. But when I went to Lao, the reason I don’t keep going back to Lao is because they take up a full page in my passport with the visa. So I was like, “Oh, if I go again, are they going to take up another full page with the visa?” And it could be because I did the visa on arrival that the only two places I’ve ever seen do that were Vietnam and Lao. They take up a full page. They like put this big stamp on there and I was like, if I if I let every country do that, I would have no I would be needing to get a new passport like way too often. I’ve been to 24 countries this year. So, I love countries that don’t put um stamps in the passport. That’s why I’m looking forward to going to Australia. They’re not putting p stamps and passports. Thailand went away from like outbound departure stamps. So, I’m happy about that. The people who are not happy about that are the people who collect passport stamps. They’re like, “Dude, like when I went to um the Caribbean, for example, I went all around uh Angila, St. Martin, and uh St. Barts. There’s like three island countries that you can get in a small proximity by ferry. But I was I was going in and out like you get you get one when you’re arriving to St. Martin, you get one when you depart St. Martin. You get one when you arrive in Angila. You get one when you depart Angila. Then you get one again when you go back to St. Martin. Then you get one when you depart St. Martin. You get one when you arrive in St. Barts. You get one when you depart St. Barts. And then you get one when you arrive back into St. Martin, which is what I did. So I was like, “Oh, dude. I can’t be doing that.” I was like, “Man, y’all really need to be stamping the passport that much. Like you guys are small little island nations.” Like, so Singapore is one of my favorite places because you can easily get into Singapore. Like, when you arrive into Singapore, you’re not going to have a line. There’s no line. It’s all e-gates. They don’t put a stamp in there. Same with Hong Kong. It’s like real smooth, seamless uh arrival and departures. Like limited lines. I like airports where you’re not standing accused. That’s the problem with Manila is like, you know, this airport, Nino Aino, is known as one of the worst airports in the world. um because of long lines also lack of aircon but uh it depends on what terminal so I have to be selective like I think I got to go for the new terminal sometimes I’ll even pay for the fast track like just get the business class pay the extra $100 for the business class flight just to avoid like standing in some long line for an hour and 15 minutes but they don’t really have fasttrack at uh Nino Aino so my hack for that is like arrive into Nino Aino and and go up to Clark up in Angeles where the airport is like huge, modern, brand new, great aircon, all that. But they only have limited flights. So, it was supposed to take the the pressure off of Manila, which is it’s about a two-hour taxi ride. The hack in Philippines, if you need to go long distance, you just leave uh at night, in the middle of the night. So, you go in the middle of the night and then the traffic’s not so bad because if you’ve ever been to Manila, you know, like from basically 6:00 in the morning until 10 at night, Manila is just jam-packed traffic jam. It’s like Jakarta. Um, someone said question, what are your top two or three benefits of solo travel from your experience? Well, I would say confidence and decision- making are two brain exercises that benefited uh me. um saving money was something in a lot of cases I felt like you know I was saving money and hassle stress sometimes when you travel with people it can just be stressful I mean if you ever wanted to know they say if you ever wanted to like know if you should marry someone travel with them first um because that will push you in ways that regular life won’t. So travel can be quite stressful for pretty much anyone. Any a lot of people, it doesn’t matter who you are. Like you travel, you’re going to feel a little bit different stress. And when you travel alone, like you’re pretty much making all those decisions or are dealing with it on your own. Thanks to the 23 people who smashed up the likes. Frank says, “I wasn’t so crazy about pie. The nature was pretty good or pretty cool. It seemed to be packed with Yeah. And massive. Oh, a lot of parlors. Okay. It wasn’t my thing. Bangkok was cool. Bangkok’s a big city. I mean, we just made a video called um the 10 best places to stay in Bangkok because a lot of people when they come to Bangkok, you know, like at least for me, like the first few times I went to Bangkok, it was just to Sukum Vit because Sukum Vit’s got enough going on whether it go all the way from like Syiam Soy 4, which is Nana, all the way to Soy 11, which then they built up Soy 22 area, which is where the hemisphere mall is, and then you go past that, you’re on Tongor, and then you go to Echimite. So that just sukum bit right there has got a lot of stuff going on and then you find out like then there’s like a which is like another north to south road and then you got tonglor which is a north to south road you got echi which is a north to south road of course soy 11 is but then you’re like oh but wait there’s more to Bangkok than just sukum bit you’re like oh there’s salom okay or a lot of people who are just backpackers they just end up at Kon road okay road that’s where backpackers end up because why not that’s the place for the young people to go is Kson or And you know going to Saleom. Salom is a nice place. The uh the waterfront that’s where a lot of people go. I actually don’t stay along the waterfront but you know they got the icon mall. They got Aiatic. Then they got the water taxis that’ll take you up and down the Sha Pria River. Um but you know another thing is like the first few times I came to Bangkok I thought well okay you if you wanted to just drive somewhere without having to hit the airport you would go to Patio. Well, oh, come to find out, you go in the opposite direction, they got Huah Hin. So, I was like looking on the map, I was like, “How do I get to Huah Hin?” Went to Huh Hin. Now, I prefer Huah Hin. And the thing I like about Huah Hin is Huah Hin’s the next stop from Bangkok on the way down the Malaysian Peninsula, which takes me down to Chan. If I wanted to go to Chan, I can go to Kottow. I can go to Copanyang and I can go to Kosamui on the ferry. Of course, I would stop in Kottow because if you see Kottow up front on the on the boat, you’re like, “What is this place?” You know those those places where you’re like, “Oh my god, what is this place?” It’s like it’s like Kottow like just pops up out of the ocean and on a blue blue sky day, you’re just like, “Whoa, Kottow.” Like, “Let me off the boat here in Kottow, buddy.” But, you know, if you end up on the wrong side of you YouTube, you might be scared to go to Kottow. But I went to Kottow. It was cool. Um, reason is because it’s called it’s got a it’s got a unique nickname. I’m not going to get into it. Um but uh it’s it’s because it’s a bit dangerous they say but there’s a lot of backpackers that go there and it’s a party place but uh you know from Kottow and about a hour away is Copanyang and uh the thing about island hopping in that area of the Gulf of Thailand is the seas the seas can get quite high. I mean you know you’re almost like oh man is this going to be the moment when the the ferry uh doesn’t make it. You know, it’d be like raining and the waves are like coming up over the the side of the windows and you’re like, “Whoa, man. We’re are we like sinking or are the waves just really high?” Uh so, I mean, I’ve seen that happen with uh the waves out in Gulf of Thailand. It’s it’s a little bit ominous in Thailand. I’ve been out there on some when some rainstorms struck and I’ll just I’ll look back at the whether whoever the captain is and I’ll be like, “If he’s nervous, I’m gonna be nervous.” So, I always like look at the captain. I’m like, “How’s he looking?” And you know how them the boat drivers are, they’re always confident. Always confident. But you know, if they ever look like nervous, that would be like the the telltale sign like, “Hey, give me the life jacket. I need a life jacket like right now just in case.” Whenever it’s raining or any high swells, you should always have a life jacket on anyways. I mean, anytime you’re on a boat, you should have a life jacket on, whether it’s a longtail or whatever. Someone said a question, “Have you ever been to New Zealand? If so, what’s your take on it? Yeah, I’ve been to New Zealand twice. Um, it’s great. It’s expensive. Um, I’m not a big fan of expens expensive places. I mean, there’s some places like the UK, like I’m sorry, the UK is probably the most expensive place on in the world. Like, they try to say that Singapore is the most expensive place in the world, but in Singapore, I can I can ride a train for like $5 a day and take me anywhere around Singapore. I can eat food at a hawker for like$3 to5. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, my hotel might cost me anywhere between $75 to $200 a night. But yeah, okay. I mean, you could get cheaper. You can get like a capsule hotel. So, no, Singapore is not that expensive. In London, you won’t find a meal for cheaper than $15 to $20 at all. And we’re talking like a basic meal. Uh transportation is expensive. A Grab or one of those taxis is expensive. Uh Scotland was probably even more expensive than than London. um in particular in uh Edinburgh. I was like blown away how expensive Edinburgh was. Um but New Zealand’s one of those places and the reason I bring up transportation and food is because like those are additional costs on top of the the uh accommodation. So that’s the downside of New Zealand. But as far as if you got the money, I mean New Zealand’s great. Like I went all the way down to Queenstown. I even went all the way south to Deneden. Deneden is uh an interesting place down there. It’s it’s you know you’re in the southern hemisphere so you’re quite low. You’re almost like how close is Antarctica from here? Do you guys have a a sail that goes down to Antarctica? Can I can I go to Antarctica from here? It’s like when I went to Tasmania and Hobart. I was like because Hobart’s on the southern part of Tasmania. So you’re like do you guys go to Antarctica? Is this like the moment where I can forward progress down to Antarctica? And you’re like looking at like well Antarctica is actually quite far away from here. So how do you get to Antarctica? Well, probably the closest I’ve ever been to going to Antarctica was down in South America when I was down in Chile or Argentina. They have Tier Del Fuego and then they have Patagonia. In that area, they have this place called Ushawa. Um, that was probably the closest that I’ve had ever been to like going to Antarctica. And I I was like, dude, why would I want to go to Antarctica? See snow? No. I mean, if I wanted to do that to myself, I’d probably just go to Alaska. So, yeah, Antarctica for a bucket list destination, cool. Like, anyone who tells me that uh Antarctica is on their bucket list, I’m kind of like, why? Why? What are you going to see there? But it’s it people want to go because it’s like the South Pole, you know? It’s like going to Alaska, just going to the Christmas town up in Fairbanks or whatever. Someone said, um, yeah, as far as the the benefits of I love these questions. These are great. If you guys got questions, keep shooting them at me. Someone said the the top two or three benefits of solo travel. Yeah. Be beside getting that brain exercise, having the moments of solitude, and like being able to think for yourself and think to yourself and like meditate and like, you know, being on your own schedule. Those are benefits. Uh, I mean, you know, you could make a pros and cons of solo travel. Uh, definitely something. But ju just getting back to the New Zealand thing, I would say, uh, if you go there, Auckland’s beautiful. And I went I went all the way down on a bus down from Auckland down to uh, well, Wellington. I went to Wellington and then I caught a ferry over the Able Tasman straight. Abel Tasman is the guy who’s named who they named Tasmania after. And I ended up in this place called Pitcarn. Not Pitcoin. Pitarn. Let me see what that place is called. It’s a town um New Zealand. It’s a be they go through like the fjords because the South Island has the fords or whatever. I I I never know how to say it. It’s like archipilago. Archipelago. Like you know, everyone’s always trying to correct me because I still don’t even know what it’s called. But uh I went to this uh this town. Let me see where it’s at. Um in the north part across from uh Pikton. That’s why it’s called Pikton. Yeah. It’s I was like hoping to see some like on that ferry ride. I was like, am I going to see like, you know, orcas and killer whales? Cuz some of the best sightings I’ve seen are either in like Vancouver Island, British Columbia, or around like Port Angeles in the PNW or New Zealand, maybe Argentina. I’ve never been down to the part where they had them down in Teruego, but you know those orcas that come right up next to the shoreline. In some cases, they even beach themselves to grab a seal. But yeah, that that was I didn’t see any of that down in New Zealand. Um, and from Pikton, I actually took a train. So, they have a nice train and I went to Christ Church. In my mind, I had this idea like, oh, I need to go to Christ Church. I have no idea why I wanted to go to Christ Church, I guess, because I remember there was like the Christ Church air uh earthquake that happened. But then I was like, that’s a really nice name, Christ Church. Then when I got to Christ Church, I was like, okay, what is there to do at Christ Church? Well, uh, go to a casino. There wasn’t much to see in Christ Church, but it’s a cool place. I mean, yeah, it’s good. And um the Queenstown though is nice. Um did I go to Lake Takapo? I went to Lake Tapo, but I didn’t go to Lake Takapo. I don’t think they got a few different places down there. I went to a couple different lakes. I should make a full New Zealand travel guide. But yeah, that would be cool. Someone said, “I have Japan booked for February. I’m thinking my next big trip will be New Zealand, but those beaches in the Philippines would be nice. Are there any beaches in the Americas that compare?” Yeah, in the Caribbean. In the Caribbean, I’ve seen some just phenomenal islands. Like, I don’t know if you’ve seen our St. Kits and Neas video, but that’s an interesting place. It’s not really known for its beaches, but St. Kits is one island and then NeAs is another island. Um, NeAs is like a volcano and I think St. Kits is too, but they have like this really amazing like British fort. It’s made of stone on St. Kits, but like I said, I mean, they’re not the southern part of St. Kits is really nice. They have this place called Reggae Beach. Uh, people on St. Kits are really nice. I don’t know why I just recommended St. kits. But I mean, it’s like I island hopped all over the Caribbean. Number one is you could pick up a lot of countries on your like list. On that particular trip, I went Bahamas, British Virgin Islands. Well, I went um Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, Barbados, Martineique, St. Kitsan Neas, Angila, St. Martin, and uh USVI, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic. That was all on one trip. Not in that order though. And uh yeah, and it’s weird because you like you would think, well, okay, I’m in uh St. Martin. Can I fly to St. Kits? Yeah, you can. But okay, from St. Kits, can I fly straight to I don’t know, looks like Antigua Barbuda is like real close. How do I get there? Can I take a ferry? Or you know, what’s the easy way to get there? You can’t take a ferry. They didn’t have a ferry there. Um, so you had to like fly there and there’s no direct flight. So I was like, “Okay, from St. Kits I’ll fly to I think I flew to Barbados and then from Barbados I went to St. Lucia and then I took a ferry from St. Lucia to Martineique because remember I try to avoid airports anytime I can just because I prefer that. Um, but you mentioned the Philippines, man, it’s a rough ride, man. It’s a rough What I’m saying is like it’s not like Thailand. I mean, they got like these slowm moving fairies and usually they’re pumping out diesel fuel and I don’t know, usually I need like a red horse or a San Miguel light before I get on that, you know, like for real. Um, but Japan will be cool. I mean, you could you could go all around Japan on that Shin Ken. the the train stations in Osaka and um Tokyo are just so crowded with people. Even Kyoto um but Kyoto is probably the best place in Japan if I’m going to be completely honest with you. Uh if you if you do go around Philippines, uh I mean my favorites I’m actually going to make a video the best places to go in Philippines. That’s my next video. Um, that’s going to be something you should watch. So, look out for that. Probably this weekend it’ll come out. Um, but my top five for Philippines. I mean, there’s a there’s a couple hidden gems that I’m that are on my radar. Like, Philippines has 7,500 islands and like beautiful islands. Like, oh my gosh, I’ve probably been to like 30 to 40 of those islands. Um, but uh so not all of them are considered like a new a new island, right? So like if you go to like Pungla, it’s a new island, but it’s part of Behol. So when someone says they want to go to the Behol, they’re talking about Pongla Island, which is separate from Behol, the actual big island of of Behol. Or like if you go to Camotees, that’s I think part of Lee or like Malapasca or Bantayan, that’s part of Sabu. Um or Sumalan Island is part of Sabu. So I mean it’s like you know so you’ll you’ll be in like Malipasa but people will say oh you went to Sabu. Uh but yeah I mean there’s so many places like Philippines is it’s like Indonesia. Indonesia has 10,000 islands. Those ones are harder to get to. Like right now I feel way more confident getting around Philippines and exploring here just because there’s so many islands. First time I was ever introduced to the Philippines like this was I was in the Navy. Uh we were coming back from uh where were we coming back from? I think we were coming back from like Afghanistan on a ship and uh you know because you cross we go from San Diego to Afghanistan and then Afghanistan back to San Diego. So you like it’s called transit and the transit took like 20 to 24 days something like that. Well, I remember it was a beautiful day on the flight deck and we were transiting through the archipelago of the Philippines and we were going through there and I wanted to be on the flight deck. I didn’t care. I just wanted to be on the flight deck because there the captain’s like, “Yeah, we’re transiting through the archipelago of Philippines.” But I didn’t know exact I didn’t know the geography of the Philippines. I didn’t know where we were at. I just knew we were in like the southern part of the Philippines. And I remember looking out there and I was seeing like these islands off in the distance and just like you could see the white sand and you could just like some of the islands had like smoke billowing off them and I’m like dude what is this place? This is like where Robinson Caruso was man. I was like man I’d be I’d love to come back out here to the Philippines and explore. I was like maybe like 25 at the time and sure enough I did. So but I still haven’t gone to all those islands. I still would love to know the route that we took when we went through all those when we were transiting through all those islands. But uh yeah, there was just so many islands out there because, you know, there’s a lot of different little islands along the way. Some of them are inhabited, some of them aren’t. Uh I think it was the area north. I want to say it was the area north of Mindanao, but it could have been the area south of Mindanao in the Sulu, which is the area that’s a no-go zone. So, I’m still trying to find out where I was. Um Shane says, “Hey mate, I love watching your videos from Australia. We plan many trips abroad from your videos.” Nice, Shane. Uh so, where in Australia are you? That’s actually on my radar in the short term. Australia. I haven’t been down there for a while. I’ve only been to Australia twice. Um there’s a couple I’ve been to most of the big ones. I haven’t been to uh K, canes, cons, however you want to say it. Darwin, Xmith, which is the Kimberly area of that that part of the country. I mean, I’d love to do like a full circumnavigation of Australia. That’s like one of my ultimate like road trips. There’s a few places that are like the ultimate road trips, but Australia’s got it. Even if it was the Great Ocean Road, I don’t really know if I could do the whole country of Australia. That’s like huge country. I mean, that would be great, though. I mean, there’s a lot to see out there and it’s a lot of no man’s land. I know that it’s very sparsely populated. Uh, someone says South Australia near the Barrosa Valley. Wow. Yeah, Perth. I love Perth. The first time I went down to Perth, I was like, “This is a cool place.” They’re like, “Oh, it’s the most isolated big city in the world. It’s closer to Jakarta than it is to Sydney.” And I was like, “Wait, let me check that on the map. Is that true?” I was like, “Yeah, I think that checks out. It looks like it’s closer to Jakarta than it is to uh Sydney.” And then I flew across there on my favorite airline at the time, which was Virgin Australia. I don’t even know what happened to Virgin Airlines. Like that was like the best airline back in like when I first started traveling. The first time I ever flew on Virgin Australia, I was like, “Dude, I’m going to fly.” I was like, “Richard Branson owns this.” I was like, “This Richard Branson guy knows how to do air travel.” like he was, I think, a pioneer of air travel, but they like they cancelled Virgin America and they replaced it with Alaska Airlines and instantly went downhill. Like Alaska Airlines was is a nice airline by American standards, but crappy compared to Virgin or what it was in like the mid like two like around 2015, 2016. Virgin was like But I guess I don’t know what happened. I mean, maybe they weren’t profitable. I don’t know what it was, but that was like the best airline. And I flew that from Perth to Melbourne. I arrived at Melbourne on a redeye like 6:00 in the morning. And I was like, it was cold. So cold. The hotel wouldn’t let me check in because I was way too early. And I just remember being like, cuz you know what, my grandfather, he’s from Melbourne. He’s a Richmond Tiger fan if you know what I mean. And so I have family in Melbourne. And I was just like not that was a terrible first impression of Melbourne. But it was crazy cuz my grandfather said he used to tell me stories about how when he was a kid he used to there wasn’t enough rooms in the house so he had to sleep on a balcony and he used to tell me how cold it was. So I guess that was like a family initiation. I had to know like wow Melbourne gets real cold. It’s like a weird type of cold too. It’s not like really cold on the Celsius. It’s just cold in just like a wicked windy cold. At least for me it was. Um I also wasn’t dressed for it. But Perth Perth was great. Melbourne first impression wasn’t that good. As as I got a place started meeting with our family, I started to like Melbourne a little bit more. Second time I went to Melbourne, I liked it even more. Melbourne’s I think considered one of the best cities in the world. I think livability or at least it was a few years ago. And then I went up to Sydney and then I went up to Gold Coast, Brisbane, blah blah blah. also did Adelaide, Tasmania. Australia’s a lot of places in Australia, man. I would say my favorite probably in Australia, Perth. And I want to go south to Margaret’s River, go down to like uh what’s that place? Espiron. I seen the water down there. Just looks great. And I want to swim in Perth, but I know they got some big sharks out there, man. That’s the thing with Australia. It doesn’t even matter if you’re in like waist deep water. You you’ll see like a story like Aussie Australian man uh first fatality of the year waist deep water off the coast of Perth and you’re like what got him like what was the shark? They’re like witnesses say they saw a four or five meter great white or dorsal fin which appeared to be like a great white. I’m like man great whites will come that close to the shore down there. I don’t know man. This I mean obviously this is a little bit of like a fish story but I mean that’s pretty much what I heard about Australia but you’re in South Australia near Barrosa Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. Swim with the whale sharks. Yeah, that that whole place Western Australia just interests me from the top down. I’ve told people about the Kimberly, but I also told people about Xmith. I hope I’m saying it right. That place caught my attention more than anything. And uh I don’t know what the other town is. I want to say Broom. Is Broom up there? So where’s Xmith? And then Broom. Do you know about those ones? So that but if you look on the map like that is total no man’s land. I mean that is the true Wild West at this point. The US Wild West has been settled. I wouldn’t say the same about Australia’s Wild West. I mean Australia is so huge. so huge and it’s so sparssely populated. It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Unbelievable. Um, boom. Right up there at the top. Yeah. So, yeah, Australia getting one of those camper vans, VW, whatever. Going from I mean, you could say pro I would probably start from Brisbane and just go up Queensland, you know. Um, I mean, you can help me with the route, but like to go up, you know, KS all the way up there. I I don’t know if I’d go past KS all the way up to that place, Barnaga. I mean, I think that’s even close to like um Papa New Guinea, right? Like Australia and Papa New Guinea. I mean, there’s a couple islands that you could hop and you might just be in Papa New Guinea by that point. I mean you you can’t tell a difference between the islands that are New Papa New Guinea and uh you know Port Moresby um which is a little bit further away but uh from KS I don’t know if I’d go up to the tip there is unless you think it’s worth it. Um it looks like it would be a lot of backtracking to get up there but that you know could be interesting. I just don’t know about that peninsula up there on the north and then go all the way across which looks like darn near no man’s land from KS all the way to what Burketown. Um they have the welly island over there and then really just no man’s land probably lots of driving until I get to what uh where’s Darwin? Oh all the way to Darwin. I don’t really see anything out there. Maybe the Kacadoo National Park. Um, yeah, Darwin. I even thought about like doing my international arrival into Darwin just to not do a long flight. Um, I always said that like if I was in Asia and like World War II started, where would be my bugout destination? Whether I was in Bali or whatever or Singapore and I needed to bug out of Asia, where would I go? I was like, “Well, I’ll just hop skipping and jump over to Darwin.” I was like, “Australia. How far away is Darwin from Bali?” I was like, “All right, looks close enough. That would be like a nice little bugout.” Um, but Australia is probably the bugout destination if you’re in this side of the world. I don’t know. What do you think of that? Uh, the drive from Brisbane to Darwin is nothing special. Yeah. So, I mean, that’s the problem. That whole route right there looks like I mean from Port Douglas over uh from from Darwin down to Broom or to X. Yeah, to Broom. What about the drive from B Darwin to Broom? It’s It’s really hard to say. Um Brisbane to Darwin is 2100 miles. Ouch. That’s quite intense. Oh my gosh. I’ve been going for an hour and 21 minutes. Okay. Well, either way, I’m gonna see about making that trip one day. That’s on my my list. Oh, that’s good to know, Shane. So, Western Australia, that that’s an interesting spot. Or uh we’ll see. So, anyway, thanks to everyone who smashed up the likes and uh thank you, Shane, for all the information. I’m going to get going. I’ve been going for an hour and 22 minutes. I will see you guys on the next one. Thank you.

Ever wondered what solo travel really feels like behind the YouTube videos?

In this video, I open up about the truth nobody talks about — the loneliness that can hit while traveling alone. Solo travel is one of the most freeing, empowering experiences in the world… but it’s not always sunsets and smiles. Sometimes it’s eating dinner alone, missing friends back home, or wondering why you ever left.

👉 In this episode, I share:

What solo travel loneliness actually feels like

Why it happens to every traveler eventually

Simple ways to stay connected on the road

How to turn loneliness into self-growth and confidence

Tips for meeting people and finding your travel tribe

Whether you’re backpacking through Southeast Asia, road-tripping across the U.S., or planning your first solo adventure — this video will help you prepare mentally and emotionally for the journey. 💪

If you’ve ever asked, “Does solo travel get lonely?” — this one’s for you.

Island Hopper TV takes you around the world to the premiere travel destinations. Our virtual travel guides from across America to Asia, Europe and Australia have assisted many world travelers in educating themselves on their next destination to travel or even vacation. Stay tuned for our latest travel video.