I am currently on the coast of Vietnam and it is blazing hot. We left Ho Chi Minh City two days ago and took a quick flight north to Da Nang. You can see more on stories and Instagram here.
Nighttime Exploring
The “feels like” temps are hitting 115 degrees during the day here. It is insane, but I’m learning how to alter routines to make the best of it. Instead of crushing 9 hours of sleep at night, you have to sleep a little during the day so you can enjoy the very early morning around sunrise and the hours after the sun goes down. I’m becoming more nocturnal than I’ve ever been. It is crazy watching people go about their day to day lives in this heat, but I don’t want to miss anything.
Packing Cubes
I swear by these. We can organize in different ways every time we pack to make sure that we are maximizing space and we know where everything is. There are one million different options and I would encourage anyone that travels at all to buy some. I don’t think you’ll go back.
Vietnamese Coffee
I did not know that Vietnam was the second largest producer of coffee in the world. It is such a big part of their culture. A traditional Vietnamese coffee is a super strong blend over ice with condensed milk and it is a delight. It is pretty sweet, but the cold drink in the morning is amazing and I don’t think I could handle the strength of the coffee without the sweetness. I still have coconut coffee and egg coffee on my list of things to try while here, so I will report back on what I think the best is. I’m going to have to figure out how to recreate these when we kick start real life again eventually.
Passionfruit
The fruit here is better. The bananas are amazing, the dragonfruit is wonderful, but the passionfruit is my favorite. The restaurant we ate at the other night in Danang brought out one for each of us for dessert. When we settle in Hanoi for a week, I’m planning to buy a whole bunch just to cut open and eat with the spoon.
Spotify
We did Apple Music for three months because it was free and we are trying to conserve money wherever possible. It was horrible. We hated the way the app worked, the curated playlists were not great and we were so excited to go back to Spotify after the trial period was up. We listen to a lot of music while writing, on travel days and just while hanging out and I’m so happy to be back to Spotify.
Every Single Product We Packed
I am so insanely proud of the packing for this trip. I just shared a post about all the toiletries and necessities we packed on our travel website that took me an embarrassingly long time to put together, but we have used every single thing we brought and nothing is wasting space. PLUS if you decide to purchase any of the products we shared on that post, you will help us give back to the wonderful island of Bali because I’m donating everything I make from Beautycounter to the places we visit to help support local organizations doing awesome stuff.
Shop Beautycounter using this link. They have a pretty amazing promo happening for the 4th of July weekend – if you spend $175, you will receive a discovery set of one of their skin care lines (Countermatch is my favorite) so it’s a great way to stock up on reef safe and healthy sunscreen and other products AND try out a brand new skincare line that you may fall in love with.
Holler at me if you have any questions and thanks in advance for any support.
Having Friends Here
We have two friends that made the trek from New York City to Ho Chi Minh City to spend two weeks in Vietnam with us. It has been so fun to have other adults around all the time to laugh and talk and catch up with. Plus, it’s fun to experience new things with friends. We have a full week left and are super excited for the other stops we have planned in Vietnam.
Tell me what you are loving lately.
