My Yearly Travel Rotation

This is the second part of my article about Where to Live When You Can Live Anywhere, which explains how I came up with these destinations. Here is the current default travel rotation that me (French) and my girlfriend (Thai) follow.

June-August: 🇪🇺 Europe

Requires a Schengen visa done in 🇹🇭 Bangkok (Thailand) for her.

1 month in 🇫🇷 France

It is important for me to spend time with my family and close friends from France at least once per year. France is lovely in June, because it was a shit show for the last 8 months before that. People are super happy to go out, have picnics in parks, there are music festivals, the music day (Fête de la musique), it's just a great time to be there.

2 months exploring 🇪🇺 Europe

Europe has so much to offer. Central and Eastern Europe have plenty of options of cheap, fun, safe, and developed cities. However, when I scout for new cities to live, I typically don't go further North than the horizontal line of 🇨🇿 Prague (Czech Republic) or 🇺🇦 Kiev (Ukraine), since it gets too cold for me there.

September-October: 🇰🇷 South Korea

Europe starts getting colder in September. 🇰🇷 Seoul (South Korea) is nice until the end of September, and Busan and Jeju Island have good weather until the end of October, so that's a solid option (except that is has typhoons 😐). The 3-month visa-free entries that they offer to Thais and French people is a blessing for us.

Alternative: Staying longer in 🇪🇺 Europe

Flying to South Korea is a big trip, and if we can avoid going so far, we will. Next year we'll try to stay longer in Europe, outside of the Schengen area. We plan to make visas for her for 🇭🇷 Croatia, 🇧🇬 Bulgaria, 🇷🇴 Romania, or 🇺🇦 Ukraine.

🇪🇸 Spain is a great country that is still warm in September and October, so that's probably where we would go during that time. That's where I used to go when I was on my own, since I can stay in Schengen countries without limit.

🇹🇭 November-December: Chiang Mai, Thailand

Chiang Mai has perfect weather between mid-October and mid-February, affordable headache-free housing, great safety, great food, great people, great everything. For French people, with a visa exemption entry, you can stay for 2 months, and with a tourist visa, 3 months. That means I have to get out of the country to make a new visa.

🎄 Christmas Visa

Every year around Christmas time, I have to get out of Thailand, and will spend about 10 days in an other country to make a Thai visa, which is a great opportunity to visit friends in neighboring countries such as 🇻🇳 Vietnam, 🇸🇬 Singapore, or 🇭🇰 Hong Kong.

🇹🇭 January-February: Chiang Mai, Thailand

The idea is to stay in Chiang Mai until the beginning of the burning season (or "smoke season"), which is when farmers burn rice fields in Northern Thailand and neighboring countries to clear the land. This causes a horrible cloud of smoke that pollutes half of the country. This season starts around mid-February and peaks in March and April. So we need to migrate somewhere else in March!

🇹🇭 March: Central Thailand

My girlfriend's family lives near Bangkok and in Surat Thani, so it's a good time to visit them and make visas for her in Bangkok.

🇻🇳 April-May: Da Nang & Hoi An, Vietnam

Requires making 3-month eVisas for both of us.

Da Nang is a big coastal city with everything a city has to offer, plus the beach. Hoi An is a beautiful small village near Da Nang with a lot of tourists. Alternating between Da Nang and Hoi An is pretty nice and keeps it fresh.

That's it!

After Vietnam we come back to 🇪🇺 Europe and start a similar trip again, hence the term travel "rotation". Of course every year is a bit different from the others though. This only serves as a default baseline. It can also vary a lot depending on new visa requirements regulations. Every year some countries open or close their borders so we keep an eye on that to seize opportunities to discover new places.

Feel free to take a look at the map of all my travels, and our current plans.