Take Your Big Trip | Travel Advice, Inspiration, and Stories

My Big Trip to Southeast Asia had all the diversity of any Indochina loop tour: temples of Angkor Wat, bike rides around the scenery of Laos, and Halong Bay and beach side bliss in Vietnam.

Lovely Luang Prabang, riding the river in Vang Vieng, and the golden temples of Vientiane – All beautiful and special. Laos is worth of a visit  – I hope these photos inspire you to take your own Big Trip to Laos.

Originally published on March 30, 2010 during my third Big Trip around Southeast Asia. Sitting with J at 7 o’clock at night and gorging on delicious pizza pretty much erased memories of the entire day sightseeing in Vientiane, which was a very good thing. During the day we had some unfortunate experiences, including an expensive [...]

Luang Prabang is quiet, quaint and polite. It’s the well-traveled librarian older sister of party girl Vang Vieng and loyal, happy Vientiane. Luang Prabang is on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mekong and the Nam Song rivers, which stretch throughout Indochina. It’s spotted with Wats (temples) that are hundreds of years old and [...]

J and I actually considered NOT going tubing on the Nam Song river after our Bucket o’fun night out in Vang Vieng. We actually tossed around ideas, between our two twin beds at the Orchid hotel, of staying in, having a massage, and nursing our hangovers. But no! We were in Vang Vieng, the town [...]

There were two things I knew about Laos, aside from tour book descriptions of it as a land locked country in Southeast Asia: 1) That’s where the Hmong population, a large immigrant group in Wisconsin, is from  and 2)It holds a very pretty town, nay a UNESCO Heritage site, Luang Prabang in the northern province.  [...]