I’ve been dreaming about Vietnam ever since I watched Anthony Bourdain on Parts Unknown. Vietnam felt like one of Tony’s true loves—the kind of place he didn’t just visit, but listened to. He chased meals down side streets, sat on plastic stools, and showed that the best moments were always far from the tourist traps. Watching him there made travel feel quieter, more honest—less about seeing things, and more about understanding them. Vietnam wasn’t a backdrop for Tony; it was a reminder of how travel is supposed to feel.
Anthony Bourdain lived a life that blended food, travel, honesty, and deep contradiction—one that resonated because he never pretended to have it all figured out. Like me, I just go with the flow while traveling to a new place.
In 2025, I rented a condo for over two months in Vietnam—not as an experiment, but as confirmation. Five weeks in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), followed by a month in Hanoi. I wasn’t glued to either place; I took road trips, disappeared for stretches, did what I wanted. But I always came back to my own place. A real home base. Which, it turns out, changes everything.
This was slow travel exactly as I’d imagined it: living in the city instead of orbiting it. Falling into routines. Becoming a regular. Building friendships. Having days that felt both normal and quietly exceptional. Life didn’t pause for travel—travel became life.
At this point, I’m not pitching a dream or romanticizing a theory. I ran the play. It worked. And now it’s very hard to take seriously any version of life that costs more and delivers less.
Both apartments were under $400 USD per month, which quietly solves a lot of problems. With a stable, inexpensive home base, I could take road trips without uprooting my entire life. Most of my belongings stayed put, luggage stayed minimal, and travel stayed efficient instead of exhausting. I made side trips over Vietnam at the beginning of 2025 while taking my show on the road to Malaysia and Indonesia at the end of the year.
This is the underrated advantage of slow travel: logistics scale down while freedom scales up. Low rent means less financial pressure, fewer bags, and more optionality. When your housing costs are that low, movement becomes modular—you leave, explore, come back, repeat—without ever feeling like you’re starting over.
I made some side trips across Vietnam in early 2025 (Nah Trang, Da Nang, Vung Tau, Hue, and Phu Quoc). I then fully committed to the chaos and took my show to Malaysia and Indonesia later in the year kocking out two massive bucket lists.
It’s not a hack. It’s just better planning. And once you’ve lived this way, it’s hard to take expensive inconvenience seriously ever again, which is why it will be a massive part of my future travel items in Kuala Lumpur and Bali.
If you made it this far by chance and want to learn more about my slow travel plans.
You can read my blog on the topic by clicking
In the end, slow travel keeps the costs low and the adventures high—and that’s the whole point around here.