Trip Preview

Steph and I have been talking about a two-week trip to Asia for a couple years now. I hadn’t been to Asia since winter break 2011 when I “met the parents” for the first time, and even now haven’t seen Steph’s parents in person since our wedding in 2014. Even though we discussed it for awhile, we’ve had trouble coordinating dates that worked for everyone. Also with a few job changes during that time, we haven’t both had enough vacation time until now. With Steph’s sister, Amanda, having her first child over the summer, we were also motivated by wanting to meet our niece Audrey for the first time.

We decided to split a proposed trip with a one week Taiwan family trip, and a one week sightseeing trip. We threw a few ideas around for other locations, including China and Hong Kong, but started to hone in on South East Asia as it seemed more affordable and more exotic for this stage of our life. With Amanda and Muyen currently living in Hong Kong, I felt comfortable thinking I would see it at some point. Thailand is often considered a tourists introduction to Southeast Asia, and it seemed affordable, and had a good mix of cities, culture, and beaches, so that’s where we ended up.

The full planned itinerary:

Wed 11/16 – redeye flight

Fri 11/18 – 11/19: Bangkok, Thailand

11/19 – 11/22: Chiang Mai, Thailand

11/22 – 11/25: Phuket, Thailand

11/26 – 12/4: Taiwan

12/4: back to LA

This totaled about two and a half weeks (including nearly 50 hours of flights), and 11 days off from work.  But as our first vacation more than an extended weekend since the honeymoon, we were pumped and ready to go.

We kept the individual itineraries pretty flexible, especially since there would be a decent amount of traveling within the trip. I booked two semi-full day tours - 1 in Chiang Mai, and 1 in Phuket. But otherwise we decided to play everything by ear.

Just a note on the expenses - for a trip of this size, the major expenses were quite reasonable, partially through the magic of travel points. As a Hyatt credit card holder, we had a voucher for a night stay at a Hyatt (up to category 4) that would expire at the end of the year. Fortunately there was a Grand Hyatt in Bangkok that fit the bill, so we used it on that. I also had a decent number of Hilton points, which covered our 3 night stay in Phuket. The one-way flight to Bangkok was only around $350, and we used American Airlines miles for the return flight. The dollar is pretty strong in Thailand so the domestic flights and the hotel in Chiang Mai, which we paid in cash, were all quite reasonable (the flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai was only $40, for example). In Taiwan, we would be staying with family, so that would cover any lodging costs there too. This means we had a lot of extra cash left in our budget for useless souvenirs. Always a bonus for any trip.