Actually, I’ll be checking out the Middle East for the first time this year during a 24 hour layover in Bahrain 🙂 Looking forward to it!

How about going to the Middle East this year ? Try AbuDhabi or Dubai in the UAE.

Hey Jason, thanks for all the tips about Burma! I will definitely be checking back when I finally make it there. It has been calling me for quite some time now! Sounds like you’re having an amazing journey of your own, and thank you again for sharing some of your experiences with all of us! Happy travels!

Feeling envy about your Tomorrowland plans, hope everything works out for you there!

As far as Burma is concerned,I highly recommend finding out what you can about local holidays and festivals and, if you can swing it, to be there for one of them. I happened to be there for Thingyan (the Burmese Songkran), and it was so cool because it was not something travelers were planning their trips around and there seemed to be zero Western/backpacker influence on the festival and its events–it was all so local and authentic and overwhelming in so many good ways. I also recommend renting bikes (cycle or motorbike, whichever you prefer) and cruising through villages in the areas surrounding popular traveler destinations like Inle Lake. There are still loads of people living in these areas who have not seen Westerners in person or on a digital screen, and the unadulterated curiosity on their faces (if it is something you can process in the midst of dealing with your own curiosity and fascination at observing them in their environment) makes for a priceless experience as far as I’m concerned.

Something cool about the beaches in Burma is that they almost all face due West and the sunsets can be spectacular, but given that you have already spent so much time in SE Asia and intend to in the future, I wouldn’t even bother with them unless you are dead set on experiencing them or somehow left feeling like you have time to kill. At least when I was there (“spring” 2012), there was not a lot of accommodation directly on the beaches I visited so you typically had to stay in town unless you wanted to shell out a fortune. + the beach culture in Burma is very different (again, I would use the word unadulterated because I think it has as much to do with how little Burma’s customs changed for the sake of travelers who can fuel their economy as it does with the customs themselves) from the beach culture in other parts of SE Asia. Most Burmese swim fully clothed and I had the sense that there wasn’t a beach party within 500 km of coastline on either side of me when I was there. They are beautiful, don’t get me wrong…but SE Asia has loads of beautiful beaches that I think are cheaper and more paradisiacal, regardless of whether you are looking for buckets and fire dancing or near-isolation from anything that is not completely natural.

Bagan (although I must add as a disclaimer that there has been some funky, borderline kitschy temple restoration going on here that baffles me and I hope will be or already has been undone before it becomes impossible to restore these temples to their former glory), the Inle Region (the region, not so much the town where everyone stays and the gimmicky boat tours), and Yangoon–definitely allow for a few days here: eat at the ChinaTown street stalls (food in Burma, for better or worse, is something I could write several essays about); see the Schwe Dagon, Sule, and Botatuang pagodas beecause they are splendid; seek out the trash alleyways and let me know if they are still there; and talk with the friendly Anglophones who strike up conversations with you because they’ve all got great stories and you will learn from them. Also, if you are interested in meditation at all, Burma is a place to learn. I don’t have first-hand experience but was so fascinated by what I heard and learned about it. When I went to Burma, travelers could get an additional month tacked on to their travel visas for free if they intended to spend some serious time meditating.

2014 has been an Asia year for me. I flew to India for a friend’s wedding in January and spent three months there and two in Nepal–a country that has stolen my heart and earned the title of my favorite. I’ve been in Thailand since the beginning of June and have another month here before I fly to the States for two months of weddings, catching up with family and friends, and laying the groundwork for my anticipated move to NYC in less than a year.

In mid-September I’ll fly to Sri Lanka to start the last six-month leg of the beautiful journey I’m on. I’ll probably be in South and SE Asia the entire time, trying to balance my desire to explore new locales with the magnetic pull I’ll undoubtedly feel to pass the months in places I already know and love.

It looks like we will just miss one another in Thailand. I hope your return here is everything you could hope for it to be, happy trails!!

Thank you for reading and commenting, Mitch! You should be very proud of your beautiful country. I absolutely plan to make it to Borneo one of these days… hopefully sooner rather than later!

Absolutely Mike! I’m going to try to do some more reader meetups once I’m on the road internationally again.

Yikes! I will keep that in mind. Yeah, bummer about Albany, that’s why I fly out of NYC for all international flights. But I just signed up for a Southwest credit card to start racking up points for domestic flights — they are one of the major airlines out of ALB.