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Our last blog post was October 18th 2025, written about a place we visited on the 28th of August 2025; a lunch spot on the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. We were swimming in the river that separates the two countries, with camels as our lunch guests. We smelt like petrol, were visiting mechanics daily and made some lifelong friends. What a chapter that was! Central Asia really took it out of us, and the blog was one of the casualties of that intense period of travel.
Since we last spoke, we’ve visited Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, South Korea, Japan (Josh), USA (Alice work trip), Hong Kong, Indonesia (specifically the islands of Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa), Malaysia, New Zealand (Alice), Australia (Alice work trip) and Thailand (Josh). We finished our overland trip in Hong Kong in December, and since then have had some time living a more settled routine based in Kuta on the island of Lombok in Indonesia. We’ve been lucky enough to have friends and family come and visit us in multiple places, and we’ve both also had a bit of remote work going on as well.
We now have flights back to New Zealand booked on September 8th, and we’ve got a bit of travel planned between now and then. We really wanted to bring you along on these final months of our adventure (for now), so we hope you enjoy a few more blog posts in your inbox as we come to the end of our trip! We’re not traveling overland anymore, which gives us much greater flexibility, but also some serious decision paralysis. In retrospect we are very grateful for the time we spent traveling without flying! It was a unique way to create a strong sense of direction and purpose that I don’t think we truly appreciated until it was over.
I’m writing this in a sleeping pod in Changi airport, Singapore, waiting for our connecting flight. We left Kuta yesterday at 7:30 PM, and had a short flight to Singapore which left at 1 AM. Now we’re here for about four hours before we leave again at 7 AM. A terrible flight schedule for sleep, but we’re both just excited to be on an adventure again. Overland travel never had the awful connection times and whack timezone shocks, but I guess this method is more efficient.
It feels weirdly reminiscent of our stop in Changi in February last year, on our way to Sri Lanka! That time we cleared immigration to search for our favorite coffee (Arabica), have a “budget meeting” and visit the famous fountain. This time, we’re sleeping in a corner. So much has changed and I feel pretty emotional looking back at how we felt last time we were here. I imagine that will be a recurring theme of the next two months; big emotions, lots of reminiscing and an urge to soak up every last moment.
Our first stop this trip is Taipei, Taiwan. We have about two weeks planned in Taiwan before traveling onward to China. After that - we’re doing what we do best - making it up as we go along.
Can’t wait to bring you along on the journey again.