Surf, sun, beaches, shopping, food, and culture, or, as Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in Eat, Pray, Love, a place of healing. Yet even if you add it all up together, they will still fall short of capturing the essence of Bali and the reason it has become Indonesia’s most popular destination. There is something about this island that must be seen with one’s own eyes, felt through the senses, and stored in the vaults of memory.

Sunset and chill at Seminyak Beach in Bali

Ordinarily, I’m not the kind of traveler who circles back to a place. Like many, I’d rather put the cost of airfare flying abroad toward discovering a new city or country. But something about Hoi An’s Old Town lingered with me, an appeal that made the idea of returning feel less like repetition and more like certainty.

Rows of beautiful shophouses like these fills the streets of Hoi An's old town

My first visit to George Town, some years before the pandemic, was little more than a quick fix; a shore excursion on a cruise that sailed along the Malaysian coast before returning to Singapore. I had barely three hours on land, just enough to sense the outlines of something intriguing: the smell of spices and coffee in the air, the pastel shophouses, the street art that tells a unique story. Ever since, the city has lingered in my mind like an unfinished conversation or an itch I’d been meaning to scratch.

Being playful with the murals on the streets of Georgetow

This Vietnamese Coastal City Ticks off a Year-Round Holiday Checklist: Beaches, Culture, and a Mountaintop Retreat.

As a war history junkie from an early age, I first stumbled upon the name Da Nang while reading over accounts of the Vietnam War. Not long after, a television series that aired in the Philippines in the early 1990s, entitled “China Beach”, taken from the moniker American soldiers gave to My Khe Beach, a slender stretch of Da Nang’s long and sunny shoreline, etched the city even deeper in my imagination. Those early mentions of the city shaped my understanding of Da Nang: once a pivotal site in a violent conflict, now transformed to a coastal city humming with life and drawing travelers from around the world.

The Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills

Traveling across the Philippines has long been my gateway to discovering the country’s vast pool of talents in creating crafts and heritage arts. From the intricate weaves of the Ifugao to the colorful Inaul cloth of Maguindanao and countless others, each piece tells a story of tradition and identity, passed down through generations. I thought I had seen it all—until I stumbled upon something new to my learnings in a laidback town in Iloilo province.