Author: Ethan Brooks

Yes, Malaysia is worth visiting, especially if food, cultural variety, tropical scenery, islands, and independent travel matter more to you than building a trip around one famous attraction. What surprised me most was how different each part of the country felt. Kuala Lumpur was busy, modern, and humid. The Cameron Highlands were cooler and slower. George Town made me rearrange plans around food. Langkawi felt easy and developed, while the Perhentian Islands offered a much simpler beach experience. The harder part was planning the route. Malaysia looks manageable on a map, but trying to combine Kuala Lumpur, Penang, the highlands,…

The Perhentian Islands looked straightforward to plan at first: choose a beach, book a room, take a boat, and spend a few days snorkeling. Once I started putting the trip together, a few decisions mattered much more than I expected. Choosing Perhentian Kecil or Perhentian Besar mattered more than choosing the nicest-looking hotel. The beach mattered too. There is no normal island-wide road network, boats are an important part of getting around, and the northeast monsoon can completely change the experience. My biggest takeaway was simple: choose one good base, stay at least three or four nights, and leave enough…

If you are searching for the Korean national food, the simplest answer is kimchi. This fermented vegetable dish is one of the strongest symbols of Korean cuisine and a familiar part of everyday meals across South Korea. I knew that answer before visiting Korea, but I did not really understand it. I had eaten packaged kimchi at home and thought of it mainly as spicy fermented cabbage served beside Korean barbecue. Once I started eating around Seoul, that description felt far too narrow. Kimchi appeared beside grilled pork, rice, dumplings, soups, noodles, and bubbling stews. More surprisingly, it rarely tasted…

British food made much more sense to me once I stopped treating it as a checklist of fish and chips, pies, and oversized breakfasts. I expected plenty of potatoes, pastry, sausages, and gravy, and I certainly found them. What surprised me was how regional the food became once I traveled beyond the most familiar classics. A smoky bowl of Cullen skink in Scotland felt completely different from a warm Welsh cake, while an Ulster fry in Northern Ireland stood apart because of its soda farls and potato bread. The biggest takeaway from my trip was simple: British food is much…

Some of the most famous churches in the world are recognizable long before you learn much about their history: the enormous dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, the extraordinary towers of Sagrada Família, the Gothic façade of Notre-Dame de Paris, and the colorful onion domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral. After spending time around famous churches and cathedrals on my travels, I learned that reputation and visitor experience are not always the same thing. Some buildings impressed me far more inside than they had in photographs. Others were absolutely worth seeing, but crowds, queues, ticket choices, and poor timing could change the…

Travel Indonesia for the first time and the hardest part is not finding somewhere worth visiting. It is deciding what to leave out. That became clear while I was moving between Java, Bali, and the islands farther east. Indonesia looked surprisingly manageable when I planned the route on a map. In reality, a short flight or boat crossing could take up most of a day once I added transfers, check-in, waiting time, traffic, and delays. My biggest lesson was simple: Indonesia works better when you treat it as several trips rather than one enormous destination. Java gave me temples, trains,…

The best places to travel solo combine easy transportation, plenty of things to do alone, comfortable dining, manageable costs, and enough opportunities to meet people when you actually want company. Japan, Portugal, Thailand, Singapore, Ireland, and Iceland stand out for different reasons, while Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Vienna, Seoul, and New York are particularly easy to explore without a car. Solo travel also made me look at destinations differently. A beautiful place was not automatically a good place to travel alone. Hotel costs hurt more when nobody was splitting the room. A remote beach could feel peaceful for a day and isolating…

The best places to visit in December depend less on finding one perfect destination and more on deciding what kind of December trip you actually want. For some travelers, December means warm water and a beach. For others, it means Christmas markets, snowy mountains, skiing, or the Northern Lights. Travel farther south and the season flips completely: December brings summer to places such as New Zealand, Cape Town, and Patagonia. That seasonal contrast is what makes December such an interesting month to travel. While comparing December destinations, one distinction mattered more than expected: “warm,” “festive,” and “snowy” do not mean…

America does weird road trips better than anywhere else. A giant ball of twine, half-buried Cadillacs, a building shaped like an elephant, and a palace decorated with corn sounded ridiculous when I first started saving stops on my map. That was exactly what made them fun. Some of my favorite roadside attractions barely took 20 minutes. I pulled over, stretched my legs, stared at something completely unnecessary, took a few photos, and got back on the highway smiling. Others looked far better online than they felt after a long detour. That changed how I planned the rest of the trip.…

Barcelona was one of those cities where I kept forgetting the Mediterranean was right there. One minute I was walking between apartment blocks, cafés, old neighborhoods and busy streets. Not long after, I had sand under my feet and the sound of waves replacing the traffic. My first mistake was assuming Barcelona beaches basically meant Barceloneta. They do not. The city’s shoreline is split into several beaches and bathing areas, and moving just a little farther along the coast changed the experience more than I expected. Barceloneta had the famous energy and crowds. Bogatell gave me more room to actually…