In addition, despite the fact that I try to find something positive about every place I visit, there are a lot of places I just didn’t connect with for whatever reason, or didn’t have enough time to visit. I think everywhere deserves more than once chance–so here are ten places I need to visit again!

Cambodia

Some real talk here: I kind of, um, hated most of my time in Cambodia (except for moments at Angkor Wat and in the Ratanakiri Province). Awful, right? After an amazing, action-packed month exploring Thailand, my cousin and I went to Cambodia and so many things went wrong. We were both really sick; we’d left our friends behind in Thailand and missed them (and their traveling skills); the endless heat and oppressive humidity was getting to me; we were there over Thanksgiving and the homesickness was out of control; and honestly, the locals seemed to harass us, hate us, lecture us, or be annoyed that we weren’t acting the way they wanted. I feel like all of these things combined together to make me hate it, and I couldn’t wait to leave. When we crossed to border into Vietnam–via a boat on the Mekong, on a visa that our couch surfing host had done incorrectly which would make us get detained later (but that’s a different story)–I let out a breath of relief. I know Cambodia is a beautiful, complicated, impoverished country, and I think I need to give it another chance.

Read more about Cambodia here. 

China

China is one of those places that, while I was there, I didn’t love it–but now that I look back, I think “WOW! What a great country!” China, partially because of the situation I was in while there (an internship working with earthquake survivors in Sichuan province) pushed my boundaries like no other, and therefore wasn’t exactly a comfortable experience. I witnessed tragedy, heartbreak, corruption, illness, confusing cultural norms–and was struck by the resilience and joy of the people, and the country itself. Oh yeah, I need to go back.

Read more about China here. 

Thailand

Unlike the Cambodia saga above, I just adored Thailand. The smiling people! The food. The diverse, gorgeous landscape. The sweaty, chaotic cities. The idyllic islands. Thailand pretty much has everything, and even though I spent a month there, I have so much left to see! Plus, E has never been, which is reason enough to return.

Read more about Thailand here. 

South America

Is it cheating to put an entire continent on here? I haven’t been to South America since I studied abroad in Peru and Ecuador in 2009. That study abroad trip was my first real time away from home, and my first solo travel, which means that a lot of my memories are overshadowed by my homesickness, my parasite (yep), my idiocy (even more yep), the reasons I left in the first place (struggles in school and relationships), and my sky-high expectations slowly crumbling beneath me. That being said, now that I’m more comfortable traveling–and (slightly) more comfortable in my skin–I would love to go back to South America. I mean, there is so much more of that giant continent to explore.

Read more about Peru here and more about Ecuador here. 

Panama

We spent only three days there on our honeymoon in 2015, on the island chain of Bocas del Toro. I…did not like it. I don’t know why. I found it overcrowded, dirty, and rather stressful. So maybe I do know why–but I have been to a lot of places that fit those criteria, and that didn’t necessarily bother me. I think the Bocas are exploding with tourism and are not equipped to handle it, and the environment is starting to suffer. It really is a beautiful corner of the world, though!

Read more about Panama here. 

Iceland

Two 17-hour layovers were not enough! Iceland has simply exploded onto the international travel scene, for good reason. I’d love to spend more time there!

Read more about Iceland here. 

Vietnam

Although I would go back to every country I visited during my tour of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, South Korea & Vietnam) the one that pulls me the most is probably Vietnam. I can’t quite put my finger on the why. It stands out in my mind as the most beautiful, but it’s also the place where, as we were traveling so quickly, my cousin and I missed a lot of gems, or just stayed for a day or two. It’s funny, because we had some visa issues and did not leave the country on good terms–but I’m still dying to go back. Or maybe that’s why, and I’m just contrary.

Read more about Vietnam here. 

Italy

Okay, I know Italy is on everyone’s bucket list or return-to list. There’s a reason Italy is one of the most visited spots in the world–and I’ve only seen a few little corners! I haven’t even been to Rome or Florence. I think I haven’t been in a rush because a) Italy is expensive; b) Italy is crowded; c) I will always want to go to Italy and d) Italy is a place I can travel to when I’m older, too. Now, this is usually the opposite of my travel philosophy–I always want to see it now, rather than later, because you just never know if you’ll get another chance, do you? Italy has been creeping higher up my list after our visit to Venice, and the fact that we have friends living all over the country. Not that Italy needs a reason to creep up anyone’s list–it is Italy, after all.

Read more about Italy here. 

Greece

I’ve told you (maybe too much) how even though it was a crazy trip, I completely loved Greece. And I’ve only been to Santorini and Athens–there is so much more to see! The combination of relaxed (sometimes too relaxed, admittedly) attitude, delicious food, ancient history, and beautiful scenery just hooks me in.

Read more about Greece here. 

France

I’ve been to Paris, and Lille, but I would love to get out of the cities and explore more of France. I’m particularly intrigued by Normandy. Truthfully, I didn’t “fall in love” with either Lille or Paris, and I think France deserves another chance! And I didn’t just choose it because it rhymed with chance! I also am part French, and like any true American, I’m eager to learn more about one of my self-assigned homelands.

Read more about France here. 

Do you have places you need to give another chance?

Linking up with Wanderful Wednesday and Faraway Files. 

The post Ten Places I Need to Visit Again appeared first on Amy and the Great World.

Hi, I’m Fairlie, an Australian blogger who is excited to be showing all Amy’s readers a glimpse of one of my favourite places in the world – Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. I blog over at 

Ho Chi Minh City, formerly called Saigon (and still widely referred to by this name), is the largest city in Vietnam, but it is not the capital of the country – that honour belongs to Hanoi in the North. Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is a rapidly developing commercial city in the semi-tropical South. It’s a city that literally never sleeps.

It’s a city of many contrasts: from luxury five-star hotels and resorts to the cheapest of backpacker lodgings or guesthouses; restaurants of a quality (and price) you could find in cities like London, Sydney or New York right through to inexpensive street stalls selling tasty morsels prepared fresh as you wait; from exclusive international brands and boutiques to the mass-produced goods available for highly negotiable prices in the theatre of the markets.

Plus, of course, there are echoes of the many past eras this city has stood through – temples, French colonial buildings and grand tree-lined boulevards, war remnants museums, and former-palaces-turned-government-buildings.

There’s something for everyone in Saigon.

We have visited there four times since 2010, the most recent time being earlier this year when we chose to spend a whole two and a half weeks specifically in HCMC. (I wrote this post on my blog about why we chose to do this.)

However, this was the first time that I had visited Ho Chi Minh City since I had an Instagram account. And it is interesting now to reflect back on what I chose to share on Instagram each day we were there. (My account, if you want to look at all the photos in their original glory is @feetonforeignlands.)

Free wi-fi is easy to find in HCMC. In our experience, most hotels offer it without extra charge, plus almost every restaurant and café we went to had wi-fi, and they were more than happy to give us the password. In many cases, the password was written on the menu.

This meant I was able to share a photo or two via iPhone every day.

Many times when I have been researching destinations, I have used an Instagram tag search to find photos and see what people are saying about a place, a sight, an experience or a restaurant etc. When I uploaded these photos, I used some of these hashtags to make my photos searchable for other people doing the same: #vietnam #HCMC #hochiminhcity #saigon #travelvietnam #vietnamtravel as well as specific tags that related to that particular photo.

While we were in HCMC, I was taking hundreds of photos each day! But, I didn’t want to flood my Instagram feed, and I wanted to keep a lot of photos fresh for when I wrote posts about the topic back home. So, when it came to my own Saigon experience, I tended to share the quirky shots, the up-close details, or the ones that told a little story. The collage photos in this post (above) show all the photos I shared over a two and a half week period, and below I have selected five specific ones to tell you the tales behind these particular shots.

Nail art

On our last morning in HCMC, my daughters and I found a nearby nail bar (Fame Nails) and wandered in to see if we could get nails painted. The girls were keen to get some toenail art, as they had already had fingernail art done at a different nail bar the day before.

The choices were totally overwhelming! Cards and cards of examples to choose from. Nail art started from 140,000 VND for a full set (about USD $6.50). Those ladies certainly earn their money – intricate designs, carefully painted with the utmost care. The lady who was doing my 11 year old daughter’s ‘fruit salad’ designs was laughing at how tiny her nails were to have to paint pineapple and strawberries etc on. It was a lot of fun, and a souvenir of HCMC that lasted for several weeks after we returned home.

Traffic direction

There’s a lot of construction work going on in HCMC at any time – it’s a rapidly developing city – but there’s especially a lot at the moment while they construct a new pedestrian precinct in Nguyen Hue Street, and undertake the major development of an underground rail system which dramatically affects the centre of District 1.

We had to walk alongside this construction site to go between our hotel (The Rex Hotel) and Dong Khoi Street, and for the first few days, there were no cones or traffic guidance, we just had to take our chances with the traffic (as you do on most HCMC streets anyway!).

So I was quite amused when this traffic direction system was set up after a few days. The cones were really handy to keep a pathway for pedestrians separate from the traffic, but I wasn’t entirely convinced by the dummy (whose arms waved up and down). It was entertaining, though!

Festive lights

Several years ago, we spent the festive season in the United States (Los Angeles and New York City) and I was blown away by the visual spectacle of the holiday season decorations in both of those places. But if you specifically want festive lights, Saigon leaves both of those places in the dark (pardon the pun).

The street lighting in HCMC really has to be seen to be believed. The grand boulevards, laid out by French colonial town planners in times gone by, are totally aglow with spectacular multi-coloured lighting displays. And as we’ve now been in HCMC for three festive seasons in the past five years, I can attest to the fact that they don’t just drag out last year’s lights and re-hang them. This past year’s lighting displays were themed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the south and national reunification (1945-2015).

Uh-oh…the Internet is broken

If there is one thing a travel blogger does not want to read over her hotel buffet breakfast…it’s that the Internet is broken. But that is exactly what happened while we were staying in HCMC.

The night before, the hotel had slipped a letter under our door, telling us that the Internet was out of action due to a breakage in the AAG submarine cable. The newspaper the next morning confirmed it. The cable in question apparently services about 70 per cent of Vietnam’s Internet traffic…so while it didn’t cut Internet to the country completely, it certainly slowed things down dramatically for a couple of days while they fixed it up.

I’ve since read reports that the cable breakage (which apparently happens reasonably frequently) is caused by sharks chomping through the cable (true story!).

Villa Song

Villa Song Boutique Hotel is a gorgeous river-side oasis of calm in HCMC’s District 2. It has just 24 guest rooms, so almost has the feel of staying in a (grand!) private home…which indeed is what it was built as. It looks as if it is a historic remnant of colonial Saigon, but in fact was built in the 1990s as a home for a wealthy Vietnamese family. Our rooms were compact, but super-luxurious, and the swimming pool area was fabulous. We spent hours reading books by the pool and at times we were the only ones pool-side.

It was the most expensive of our five Saigon hotels, so we only spent two nights there, lapping up the luxury.

Have you ever been to Vietnam? Do you Instagram your travel experiences? Do you like to check out Instagram tags before you visit a place?

The post Around the World with…Fairlie! appeared first on Amy and the Great World.

After this we bid adieu to our tour group and went hostel-hunting. It was my cousin’s birthday, and she wanted nothing more to spend it on an island! Good choice, Court.

We arrived at the main village, found a hostel with a gorgeous view (I won’t recommend it, because otherwise it was not so great) and searched for beautiful spots. We found cliff side trails and ended up walking the day away on the picturesque island. People were even swimming on some of those beaches, but I was content with the view!

Although Cat Ba isn’t often a stop for those visiting Ha Long Bay (and the Bay itself is a rightful destination in its own right), I would highly suggest that you stay there. While our little cruise around the Bay was awe-inspiring–I will never forget the strange islands rising out of the mist, or the entire families living on constantly floating boats–I loved getting to stay on land in the Bay, too. It was certainly one of my favorite stops in Vietnam. I’ll stop trying to convince you with words and let you see the beauty for yourself!All images are courtesy of me or my lovely cousin, Courtney. { 1 & 2: views from the hike / intrepid swimmers / a stormy day on the sea / a resort on the coast (that we could not afford!) / one of the many coves & some locals / the birthday girl / the view from our hotel / and, three photos of the killer sunset because, well, wouldn’t you??}

Once again, I am thrilled to be joining Bonnie, Tina and Melanie for Travel Tuesday! Join the link-up below and share your travel stories, too!

I am also overjoyed to be featured on Tina’s blog for my post in the link-up last week. Thank you so much, Tina, and to the other hosts for a great link-up.

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As we traveled north in Vietnam from Mui Ne, it really started to feel like December. This was even more evident when we took an overnight train from Hanoi up to the mountain village of Sa Pa.

The overnight train ride was rather unfortunate as we’d gotten sold tickets in the dirtiest, most crowded train car (this happened to us a lot) but it was bearable. Except for the bathroom situation and the four young Vietnamese men singing “Santa Baby,” I had a nice night on my third-level bunk.

In Sa Pa, even though there were no signs of it anywhere, I started to get really excited for Christmas. Still, it was freezing (for Southeast Asia) and we spent many joyful hours around fires with pho (please tell me you know what pho is!) and Vietnamese coffee, which is pretty much the best in the world…as basically they fill a cup with sweetened condensed milk and pour a splash of black coffee in. Sa Pa, besides being beautiful, is also famous for it’s market showcasing local artisans. We loaded up on some gifts such beautiful scarves, purses, and knock-off Ray Bans (maybe not so famous for those…).

We hiked around a beautiful little park, way up on the hill, called Ham Rong Resort. The views were unparalleled for a fifteen-minute hike, and we got a little lost, saw lots of rice hats and ogled at beautiful flowers. (It wasn’t so cold. It’s still Vietnam!). Sa Pa also has a lake. And a pretty little church! We attended a service here, where we sat on the wrong side of the church (the men’s side…who knew?),  got surrounded by another tourist family for pictures, and were flummoxed by the service. I expected Christmas carols and a service I understood and I knew…nothing, ha. The joys of traveling!

{photos: a rice terrace in the hills / the start of a hike / Sa Pa from above / one gardener / two gardeners / the top of the world / a winter flower / an altar with candles in a cave / another view / little miss moppet aka my cousin / another flower / the pathway / another view of Sa Pa / the famous knock-off Bans / Sa Pa from below / church-goers / I couldn’t get enough pictures of these mountains / I promise she asked me to take a picture / the lake / the main square}

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Although the weather in Colorado is still quite nice right now (what month IS this, Colorado??), I found myself pining for the simple beach life today. Whenever I imagine this life, one little beach town in Vietnam comes to mind: Mui Ne. Mui Ne, which happens to be one of the top kite-surfing destinations in the world (although after several months touring Southeast Asia, I was a little too broke for this…next time!), was a sleepy little town in December. We started with a ride on the best bus of Asia: empty, upper bed-seats, and a clean bathroom! The lap of luxury.

This luxury continued when we arrived in Mui Ne. We found a little bungalow to stay in, right on the beach, and spent several days swimming in the glorious water, watching the kite surfers crash, walking around in the beachy rain, eating Indian food, and shopping for beachy jewelry. Mui Ne is also famous for their sand dunes, which we couldn’t miss, so we rented a motorbike and rode to the dunes and a little waterfall called “Fairy Springs.” The motorbike, which we arranged through our hostel, was about five dollars for the day; upon arriving at the dunes, you can also rent “sand boards” and try your hand at surfing the dunes. I mostly crashed into the sand, but even if you are as athletically challenged as me, you must try it!

After the dunes, we also took our motorbike over to the hike/waterfall, which is fairly difficult to find. Two nice little boys offered to show us…however, I must warn you: adorable little Vietnamese boys will often decide they’re your “tour guides” and get a little annoyed when you, thinking you are just making friends, refuse to pay them handsomely for their “service.”     We fell into this trap a lot, as young naive girls eager to make friends…which is a common occurrence in any touristy area. Don’t worry, we did pay them!…but just a warning.

{photos: watching the kite surfers / the nicest bus / beach living / local flowers / a flower in my hair / the streets of Mui Ne / a flower in the river / our “tour guides” / the hike to the waterfall / Fairy Springs / a local along the coast / the famous sand dunes and little “Johnny” / dune surfing}

all photos courtesy of me, or my lovely cousin Courtney!

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