Asia – NorthAmericanDarrell

Cebu, Philippines – It’s HOT!♨️😎

01/25/2026

by Darrell AirBnb Asia Buy me a beer Cebu City Countries Freedom 50 Personal History Philippines Siquijor/Dumaguete islands Travel bucket list Travels Deals

Schawetty

I talk about “slow travel” all the time, but it’s not just a vibe—it’s a filter.

The right place has to check a lot of boxes. Otherwise, it’s just a stop, not a home base, and here is what Cebu offers:

Affordability is non-negotiable:

$450 a month for rent

Meals under $5 USD

Movies cost around $5

Cheap road trips:

Uber/Grab/local bus are super inexpensive

Flights around Asia for under $100 (often less)

Ferries to nearby islands for under $20

Convenience matters too:

My Cebu IT Park neighborhood is open 24/7/365.
Meals. Movies. Groceries. Coffee. Everything.

Cebu hits the numbers, life stops feeling like a meter is running.

It’s built for call-center workers who operate around the clock, which means I can live normally at any hour.

No planning my life around business hours.

That’s the slow-travel sweet spot:

Productive Day One.

One-hour chair massage — $5

Movie ticket — $5

Favorite Korean BBQ – $3

Favorite noodle spot – $2

Old food photos (food was gone, quickly!)

And the big win?

I locked in a long-term, optional lease, giving me the option to settle in the long term.

Slow travel isn’t just about wandering—it’s about setting up a life that checks as many boxes as possible.

Day one delivered.

It’s been less than two days, so I’m trying to keep my expectations in check—but I’ve already started laying the groundwork for what’s next.

Two road trips are on the board.
Siquijor ferry to rope swing adventure? Locked in.
And Hong Kong for my birthday? Flight booked

That’s the beauty of this place: you settle in, get comfortable, and still leave room for spontaneous trips.

Home base on one end. Adventure, on the other hand.

Everything is inexpensive, keeping the options wide open!

Living life to the fullest in the Philippines!

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7-11 An Asian legend! Tokyo version!!🍥🍙

01/19/2026

by Darrell Asia Buy me a beer Freedom 50 Slow travel Travel memories Travels Deals Travels Stories

I was first introduced to 7-Eleven in Thailand, and ever since, it’s been a legendary five-star dining experience in my book.

People back home think of 7-11 as a place to buy gas, bad coffee, and regret. 🚽

In Asia? It’s a gourmet convenience store run by wizards. 🪄

Below is today’s lunch while listening to the Oilers game in Tokyo, Japan—$12.11 USD total, hot, fresh, and legitimately amazing. Just fresh local food, handed to you with a smile, and no tip required.

Where else can you eat well, watch hockey, and feel like you’re winning at life… from a convenience store?

Living life to the fullest—one sushi, ramen meal with a cold beer at a time.

They always say, “Don’t eat gas-station sushi.”
That advice was clearly written by someone who has never set foot in an Asian 7-11.

This stuff is better than most sit-down restaurants back home—and at about 25% of the price. Fresh rice, real fish, legit flavors. No price gouging. No regret.

I may or may not also carry a tube of wasabi in my pocket at all times.
Don’t judge me—you’re the one with tater tots in your cargo pants.

I might be wrong, but if you never tried it, I am guessing it might be you!

Milk and cookies before bed are for Santa.

North American Darrell finishes the night with 7-11 sushi, a cold beer, and the satisfaction of knowing that I absolutely won another travel day for pennies on the dollar.

Life is good, and 7-11 sushi makes it even better!

15 Countries visited in 2025📍🌎😎

12/31/2025

by Darrell All you can fly Asia Austria Bangkok Barcelona Countries Europe Freedom 50 Frontier - AYCF!Greece HCMC / Saigon Italy Koh Phi Phi London Madrid Mexico North American Personal History Philippines Rocky Point Rome Singapore Slow travel Spain Thailand Travel bucket list Travels Stories United Kingdom United States Vietnam Volaris - AYCF!Wizz - AYCF!

2025: My first full year taking a run at retirement!

2025 turned out to be my most traveled year ever—and somehow, I feel that I’m just getting started.

January – Vietnam
(HCMC, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue, Phu Quoc)

February – Cambodia & Thailand
(Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Koh Samui, Koh Phangan, Koh Tao)

March – UK & Europe
(London, Greece, Iceland, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy)

April – October–US & Mexico

(Mesa and Rocky Point—two incredible home bases)

November & December – SE Asia
(Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Bali)

Every trip felt different. Every move resets my brain. And somehow, it all worked out absolutely perfect!

2026: Already Booked (Of Course It Is!)

January to mid-April
Mexico, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Philippines

May to October (Homebases in Mesa/Mexico)

Volaris + Frontier all-you-can-fly chaos—route TBD, cheap is guaranteed

Nov and Dec– Europe by Rail-pass

Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Southern Spain/Portugal…
Eastern Europe is still being self-negotiated with my grade-three attention span.

Hitting the reset button, again …

08/06/2025

by Darrell Asia Buy me a beer Europe Freedom 50 London Mexico North American Philippines Thailand Travel bucket list

Freedom is great… but it turns out accountability pairs nicely with vegetables.

Traveling solo and being single is a great way to learn just how little supervision I actually need—and how badly I sometimes need it anyway.

Balanced meals become a suggestion, vegetables go missing in action, and there’s no one around to question why dinner is beer with a side of “I’ll fix this tomorrow.”

The upside is total freedom. The downside is realizing I am not, in fact, the responsible adult I thought I was, and carbs are my enemy!

I’ve been both versions of that guy more times than I can count. I buckle down, lose the weight, feel great… then get comfortable and slowly put it back on—sometimes a little, sometimes impressively.

Every time, I confidently declare, “This time will be different.”

And look—I know the track record. I’m fully aware of the evidence.

But still… THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT.

THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT!

There’s a saying: “You can’t outwork a bad diet.”
For me, that couldn’t be more true.

I’ve walked, run, hiked, biked, paddleboarded…
Paid for gym memberships most of my adult life when I wasn’t traveling…
Bought treadmills, steppers, rowing machines, weights…

I’ve also thrown away—or quietly watched expire—more supplements than I will ever admit to owning.

Thousands of dollars.
Endless effort.
All expertly undone by travel, convenience, beer, and the magical thinking that calories don’t count when you’re moving.

I didn’t lack discipline.
I lacked consistency… and apparently vegetables.

And yet—here I am again, staring down the same cycle, saying it with full confidence and zero shame:

THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT.

(History suggests otherwise.
Optimism insists otherwise.
We ride at dawn.)

In the summer of 2025, I finally put myself in a timeout and decided to combine everything I’d learned over the years—plus one major change.

I quit drinking and traveling.

Well… I switched to non-alcoholic beer and still went to Mexico—but that version doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic, so we’re going with the first one.

Still, the intent was real. Fewer excuses. Fewer resets. More structure. Turns out removing just one bad habit makes all the other “this time will be different” promises slightly less fictional.

Progress, not perfection. Even if I had to negotiate the terms.

Check out the non-alcoholic beer blog by clicking HERE!

(I review and list all of the best NA beers; take a look if you would like to see them.)

Here was my daily schedule for almost three months:

Wake up at sunrise and blog and YouTube until 9 AM.

One homemade latte to kind of break my fast.

Stationary bike and row for one hour at home.

Spend 2-3 hours at the gym/spa.

Get home, make a protein shake, and take my supplements.

Eat my only meal between 3 PM and 5 PM as part of intermittent fasting.

Drink non-alcoholic beer in the evening and watch a ball game a few times a week.

I did have a few couch days, but kept track of my gym progress diligently, which is key for me!

(I followed the above to a “T” on gym days shown below)

Credit card points game – #winning!

05/28/2025

by Darrell All you can fly Asia Hawaii Internet travel search tips Travels Deals

I’ve been back and forth to Hawaii several times over the last few years, mostly by stacking credit card points and being flexible with travel dates.

At one point, I even worked remotely there for four months, which was every bit as amazing as it sounds. Same workday… wildly different backdrop.

A few of those trips were on Hawaiian Airlines, where I signed up for their credit card bonus on the plane (yes, that’s a thing). The offer was 70,000 points, with a $100 annual fee that was waived the first year. Between that bonus and flying back and forth—and hopping around the islands—I ended up with 100,000+ points without much effort.

That’s really the theme here:
nothing extreme, nothing fancy—just pay attention to opportunities, stay flexible, and let the math work in your favor.

Hawaii doesn’t have to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip. With points, timing, and remote work, it can just be… life for a while. 🌴✈️

I’ve already burned some of the points over the last couple of years, but I still had 103,000 points sitting there—just waiting to be used.

So I put them to work and booked my February 2026 trip to Japan and South Korea.

And let me tell you… This booking is an absolute GEM.

This is exactly why I’m obsessive about points and flexibility. Credit card bonuses, strategic flights, and a little patience turned into a massive trip that would’ve cost a small fortune out of pocket.

Sunshine in Hawaii , neon nights in Tokyo , street food in Seoul
All powered by points.

That’s the game.

You read that correctly…

30,000 points.
Five bucks.
Plus tax.

That’s not a typo. That’s a credit-card-points mic drop. ✈️🔥

#NorthAmericanDarrell

This is where points nerd magic really paid off.

I was also able to transfer the remaining 7,500 miles from Hawaiian Airlines to Alaska Airlines to cover my flight from **Phoenix

So if you’re keeping score at home…

👉 Phoenix → Tokyo, Japan:
$11.20 total.

That’s not a typo.
That’s points, patience, and playing the long game.

This is why I preach flexibility, credit-card strategy, and thinking a few trips ahead. You don’t need luxury spending or manufactured nonsense—just consistency and timing.

Sometimes the best travel wins aren’t about where you’re going…
They’re about how little it costs to get there.

Three months looking out windows!

04/13/2025

by Darrell Accommodations AirBnb Asia Barcelona Europe HCMC / Saigon Italy London Madrid Rome Singapore Spain Thailand Travel bucket list Travels Deals Travels Stories Vietnam Wizz - AYCF!

I left Arizona on January 12th and didn’t return until April 7th, 2025, heading first to Vietnam and then bouncing across the globe. In order, I visited:

Vietnam → Cambodia → Thailand → London (twice) → Singapore → Greece → Turkey → Egypt → Italy → Spain

Eight of those ten countries were brand-new pins on my map, which made the whole thing feel even more unreal.

I spent the first three months slowly moving through Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. After that, I flipped the switch and went full chaos mode with my all-you-can-fly pass—whizzing (Wizz Air style) through London, Singapore, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Italy, and Spain.

Here’s the actual chain of planes, trains, ferries, and buses that somehow all worked:

Phoenix → Los Angeles
Los Angeles → Singapore
Singapore → Saigon (HCMC)

Saigon → Nha Trang
Nha Trang → Huế
Huế → Da Nang
Da Nang → Hoi An
Da Nang → Saigon
Saigon → Phú Quốc
Phú Quốc → Saigon

Saigon → Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh → Siem Reap
Siem Reap → Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat → Bangkok
Bangkok → Koh Tao
Koh Tao → Koh Phangan
Koh Phangan → Koh Samui

Koh Samui → Bangkok
Bangkok → Singapore
Singapore → Athens

Athens → Istanbul
Istanbul → Princess Islands (day trip)
Istanbul → London
London → Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
Sharm El Sheikh → London
London → Naples
Naples → Rome

Rome → Madrid
Madrid → Barcelona
Barcelona → Madrid
Madrid → Rome
Rome → Los Angeles
LAX → Phoenix

(That doesn’t even include all the local buses, metros, tuk-tuks, and 25+ ride share ((Grab/Uber/Bolt/InDrive)) rides along the way.)

Three months in Southeast Asia.
Then a rapid-fire lap through Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

It sounds insane written out like this—and honestly, it kind of was.

But that’s part of the fun.
And after traveling like this for three straight months…

Sometimes all you can do is drop a blog and watch miserable people be jealous.

This was, by far, the longest—and most expensive—trip of my life.

I blew through my budget. And once that happened, I made the call to keep going anyway, because I was already there. I ended up canceling my Eurail pass and coming home three weeks early to stop the financial bleeding.

At the time, I didn’t think I’d ever use my all-you-can-fly pass again, so I went into “see everything now” mode and stacked as many countries as I could. I still missed a few, which means there’s a pretty good chance I’ll give it one more run someday—especially since I’m not renewing the pass.

And here’s the truth:

I have zero regrets about spending money on travel.
Not at the end of this trip.
Not at the end of any trip.

What I do have is better awareness.

Travel is worth it.
The memories are worth it.
The experiences are worth it.

I just need to be smarter next time in Europe and use train travel—pace it better, plan a little tighter, and learn from the mistakes without losing the magic.

That’s not regret.
That’s learning and sharing.

NorthAmericanDarrell

Posts in category: Asia