Day 323– February 24, 2015

I want to end my year away with one last big international trip. If I return to an office that allots precisely three weeks of annual vacation, I want before the counting begins to savor unfettered travel. Where to go? Europe lies so far east from California across both the Atlantic and all of the United States. What about going west, not just to the surf of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, but to Asia?

Yesterday, Greg and I booked flights to Ho Chi Minh City. For two weeks at the end of March, we will traverse Vietnam and pop over to Cambodia to tour Angkor Wat. I’m excited to eat well, simmer in tropical heat, get lost, and most importantly feel far, far away.

Friends may scoff that I’m traveling with Greg – didn’t we just break up? We have a history of travelling well. We navigated Portugal, Turkey, Germany, and the Netherlands. We can’t let relationship troubles get in the way of banh mi sandwiches and Khmer ruins.

I restart my travel-planning machinery. I need to figure out Vietnam visas, set a provisional itinerary, chart out internal flights, and book hotels. Some of the most fun traveling is this at-home, early stage in which anything is possible, but some things bode more promising than others.