Happy Holidays! A look forward, and back

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Seasons Greetings! Happy New Year!

If you haven’t seen it — above is our official Earth Vagabonds 2024 holiday greeting card. As always, it features a ‘beach trash tree’ decorated with refuse collected on whatever beach we are currently visiting.

This year, Zhongao Beach on the Taiwanese island of Lambai (also called Xiaoliuqiu, Saioliouciou, Lambay, Lamey, and more). Lambai is a coral outcrop just offshore of the Southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung.

Finding the tree trash was a slight effort; Lambai beaches are quite clean. But sadly, plastic is everywhere — so it took just a few minutes to scrounge up what was needed. (FYI, we always disassemble and properly discard the tree components at the end of the day).

More positively, hundreds of endangered Green Sea Turtles call the coral beds of Lambai home — and we were amazed at how easy and enjoyable snorkeling with these huge prehistoric beasts is. Here’s a link to my recent full blog post.

Year in review

Next, check out the video on our YouTube channel; crafted by my dear wife, Ellen. A Christmas ‘gift’.

Wow! Thanks, Ellie. What a year! What a video! I watched it repeatedly. I just HAVE to post and share it. It choked me up. We are so blessed to be living this dream.

Even after nine years — it still doesn’t feel real. I’m sometimes afraid I’m going to wake up — late for work. Bahhhhh!!!

Planning ahead

Actually, in recent days, I’ve been making more plans — booking more Airbnbs. THAT is my work/job now! Coming up this winter, several stays around Malaysia.

I just checked: we’ve spent six months in total over the past six years in Malaysia. It’s obviously a favorite spot (a convenient Asian air ‘hub’ with free 90-day visa on arrival for US passport holders). Here’s a few pix from our past visits, including the beach trash tree from 2018! Ahhhh the memories.

In my opinion, Malaysia (a federal constitutional monarchy [like England] and secular Muslim state) is one of the most developed “developing nations”. It is also a great mix of cultures, religions, rural/urban, old/new, islands, jungles, mountains, beaches – and excellent healthcare and public transport options. Further, accommodation, activities, food & drink are available at every price point. Plus English is widely spoken (Malaysia was a British colony). All perfect for Earth Vagabonds like us!

We love Malaysia (though it can be very hot & humid) and look forward to another long visit. We start in early January at one of the few Airbnb units we’ve returned to repeatedly.

This time my amazing 80+year-young mother will be joining us — her first time to Malaysia. As seen below, she was with us in India the last two winters. We plan to sandwich a tour of Sumatra, Indonesia into the schedule with mom, too. We give thanks for mom’s continuing health and strength. Heck, she can hike better than I can!

I’m sure Ellen will be collecting lots of new photos for the 2025 travel album/video. Incidentally, in most photos, you can see me taking photos too… lol. Hey – I was a professional photographer (news) in my previous life! I’m proud to say, I have nearly 160,000 travel pics stored in my Flickr account. (Not ‘works of art’ – street photos).

Anyway, happy holidays to all again. I’m gonna rewatch Ellen’s 2024 review video — and keep planning, keep dreaming. Here’s hoping 2025 brings your dreams to fruition too.

As I always say…

Be thankful and generous, happy trails & more beer.

Life is NOW!