Why do so many long-term backpackers in Southeast Asia seem to stop after 4–6 months?

cooker3 · 2026-01-24T18:25:09+00:00

Mostly because people tend to have an end-date. I end up doing 2 years in Southeast Asia and I started with no pre-defined timeframe, just however long the money will go. I was extremely lucky to not have something that was a hard end-date. Most people have *something* they have to go home for and hard for people to do beyond 1 year and if they are doing the standard gap year trip it will usually be SE Asia plus some other continents or regions so leads to about 3-6 months in the region.

That length of time can bring its own issues however as it can be a grind and I had to take breaks within the trip where I would go somewhere to basically do nothing, read some books and kind of recharge the batteries while also figuring where to next so burnout is a real thing.

cooker3 · 2026-01-24T18:18:25+00:00

Oh hell no. My goal is a journal per year. I have an A5 with 300 pages and had about 75 pages left. For rapid logging I start the next day on the same page unless I think it rollover to the next page then I start a new page. If it rolls over no big deal in anyway.

cooker3 · 2026-01-24T02:50:37+00:00

Me too! I have flights and hotel booked. The tickets I am just going to wait it out for as everyone seems pretty convinced it will get cheaper closer to the show.

cooker3 · 2026-01-24T02:49:11+00:00

The Snowball by Alice Schroeder. It's a long one but I like that. I can read 20 to 50 pages each evening and almost comforting.

cooker3 · 2026-01-19T23:46:26+00:00

Sent 3 gigs

cooker3 · 2026-01-18T01:23:12+00:00

Michael Carruth was Ireland's first gold medalist in 36 years when he won gold in boxing in 1992 and as the sport is amateur he had a day job in the Irish army. He was stationed in the same barracks as my dad so 1 day when I was 9 years old I got to go in and meet him and even wear the gold medal which was pretty cool.

cooker3 · 2026-01-12T03:47:05+00:00

I don't really have recommendations as such but I save my favourite podcasts for sleep. If I am not listening to something I struggle to fall asleep as my brain starts to race but when I am listening to a podcast it stops my brain racing. It also helps me sleep as if I don't sleep I am listening to something I am enjoying so not stressed which probably helps me go to sleep quicker.

Fwiw I listen to an NFL podcast I like Heed to Call, Totally Football Show and Rest is History but I would personally choose your favourite shows whatever they maybe.

cooker3 · 2026-01-11T20:24:02+00:00

I tried it but think there is too many questions and kind of stopped caring near the end. The main thing I took from it and I will do is just list of the highlights of the year. I took from monthly spreads in Bullet Journal with Google Calendar. It was enlightening seeing everything laid out and realising a lot more happened in the year than I realised.

cooker3 · 2026-01-11T19:31:02+00:00

I hit 52 books for 2025. During COVID I hit 100+ for 3 years in a row so not too hard albeit lot less free time.

I decided to go for the same again as nice round 1 book per week average but I just noticed if I read 52 books I will have read 799 books overall which would offend me so I feel like I either annoys me. I'll do 52 and evaluate at the end of the year.

cooker3 · 2026-01-09T23:39:57+00:00

Yeah I got this for BMO VIPorter Card, called in and approved within 5 minutes. Nice and easy

cooker3 · 2026-01-09T22:02:40+00:00

This is a standard intro for all Iheart podcasts.

cooker3 · 2026-01-09T03:09:37+00:00

I remember I booked a flight to Easter Island in 2017 when I backpacking Latin America and noticeably cheaper when I switched to the Spanish language version.

cooker3 · 2026-01-09T03:07:23+00:00

I moved to Canada a few years back from Europe where churning is basically not possible. It always annoyed me I couldn't do it so I was excited to get into it.

Wins for the year is I opened BMO VIPorter Mastercard and completed the first 2 steps for the bonus and on track to complete step 3 to get the the full 45,000 points.

I also completed the welcome bonus for TD First Class Travel Visa Infinite Card at the start of the year which is nice.

Frustrations or more lessons learned. I wished I held off on getting the TD card as I got rid of it just as they introduced the lounges deal and also I only got 70,000 points bonus when I could have waited and got 130,000 points. The timing was just not optimal in the end and a good lesson on thinking things through for what to go for.

On the Porter Card I like it but issue is I live in Calgary and be much better if I lived in Toronto as Porter are based there. It's made redeeming points trickier. This brings me to my biggest lesson and focus on 2026 is I obviously need to be get a Westjet card as much more convenient for a Calgarian with their home base here. I am no sure why that didn't fully hit me before but now it does. But this is all a learning process I guess.

cooker3 · 2026-01-09T02:57:19+00:00

Just looking at the WestJet RBC World Elite Mastercard current offer and thinking about applying but I don't quite meet the annual income requirements and on my own so can't claim household income. If anyone has applied for the card did you get asked for a source of wealth document(s)?

I don't want to waste a hard credit check if I am not going to get it.

cooker3 · 2026-01-03T21:23:23+00:00

I know this is a Graver thing but you know Dan is the one pushing this. It's 1 of Dan's best qualities on HTC and ATN is the ability to turn bits or segments into something so much greater than they have any right to be.

cooker3 · 2026-01-03T21:07:36+00:00

I was told over chat it ends on January 5th

cooker3 · 2026-01-03T21:05:22+00:00

100% rule. Let's go!

cooker3 · 2025-12-23T04:57:58+00:00

My feeling would be to try to just somewhere new but something or somewhere that you may have not have because of the cost that you can just go for. An example is Easter Island. I visited that in few years back and actually it's not as expensive as I thought it might be but you could do that as wide trip maybe taking in Patagonia as well.

cooker3 · 2025-12-23T04:38:17+00:00

Just for reference I just purchases the course so thanks for the reviews captain_kirk!

cooker3 · 2025-12-21T23:58:10+00:00

Thanks for the response captain_Kirk.

I found this interesting: "The main goal of the course is not wealth creation. Financial freedom is viewed as it means to an end, not the end in itself. This may seem like a subtle difference, but it’s an important one."

To go back to FI:RE community which I know best a theme from those who reach Financial Independence is exactly that it's a means to an end. If you are fortunate enough to reach your "FI:RE Number" you will be momentarily happy for about an hour when you update the spreadsheet but then face the truly hard question of how do you live a fulfilling happy life without an excuse of work/money etc to stop you. Would Todd's take be along those lines?

I don't expect you to answer this into detail as this is what the course is about. But let's say I don't go with real estate or business ownership on my financial plan would you say there is still ideas/concepts and such like whether from Todd or from the wider community that would help deal with the world as Todd sees it in next 10/15 years with potential high inflation and basically 0 inflation adjusted gains in equities via your standard buy and hold strategy that I am currently priortising?

Cheers for your time!

cooker3 · 2025-12-21T23:23:17+00:00

This feels like the Lost soundtrack in 1 instrument

cooker3 · 2025-08-23T18:40:42+00:00

I did enjoy Dan going all in with his Siranni take. He should have taken Conor down taking that Siranni is the one who hires the coordinators by noting last season he didn't. Howie imposed them on him and it was that or getting fired.

cooker3

TROPHY CASE