This post was originally published in August 2015 and updated in August 2020. Each and every one of these restaurants is still open. Each has taken measures to abide by new guidelines due to Covid-19, so you might want to click on the website links to check for hours, socially distanced rules and reservation requirements. …
Oh, Da Nang. I just love that city. I was lucky enough to spend two months there over the summer and when it came time to leave I just didn’t want to. Da Nang tends to get passed over by tourists in favor of the ultra-popular town of Hoi An, which is a short 30-minute…
I have a thing for quirky travel destinations so when I found out that Hue was home to a creepy abandoned water park, I just had to go. The water park opened in 2004 and was operational for a few years before mysteriously shutting down, despite the fact that it cost millions to develop. It’s…
I have fond memories of my Ha Long Bay cruise. I visited what is now one of Vietnam’s most famous destinations 13 years ago when Aaron and I were baby backpackers. Like every other budget traveler, we booked a super cheap Ha Long Bay cruise on a rickety junk boat and spent three blissful days…
To be perfectly honest, I was hesitant to go back to Hoi An. I last visited 12 long years ago. My memory of what is now one of Vietnam’s most touristy destinations is a sleepy riverside village complete with picture-perfect French colonial buildings, cute little cafes and tons of fishing boats bobbing in the river….
Before I moved to Beijing in 2016 I was really, really nervous. I was in desperate need of helpful Beijing travel tips because I was very confused about what it would be like. I expected to experience major culture shock, apocalyptic pollution and insane crowds. But the moment I landed in China’s capital, I was…
Despite the fact that I’d visited Bali five times in the past five years and lived in Jakarta I’d somehow never traveled to mainland Lombok before. I’d tinkered with the idea of visiting Kuta, Lombok (not to be mistaken for the party town of Kuta, Bali), once or twice but I always figured it was solely a…
When I first heard of the Con Dao Islands in Southern Vietnam I was immediately obsessed. Admittedly, I knew next to nothing about them, but the pictures looked pretty damn amazing. So, without doing all that much research, I booked a spur-of-the-moment flight there just a couple weeks ago. What can I say? I’m a…
It’s insane to think about. I’ve been traveling to Bali for the past four years. I’ve visited this island a whopping six times, spent a total of six months here and thoroughly explored seven different areas of the island. Yet somehow before my recent trip to Amed, I had never traveled to northern Bali. How…
After moving abroad in July 2014, I started compiling monthly roundup posts about life as an expat in Asia and all the nitty gritty that goes on behind the scenes here at Travel Lush. You can find all of my previous monthly roundup posts here. Much of last month’s roundup highlighted the frustrations I was feeling with expat life…