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My name is Kien and I’m an international photographer and filmmaker. Over the last 10 years, I’ve traveled to 70+ countries to find the most wonderful things to check off my bucket list. I hope to share that experience and what I’ve learned to help you do the same.
Guides
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Let's Be Adventurers
Bucket List: Lake Titicaca And Who Came Up With That Name?
You can try, but there really isn’t an elegant way of pronouncing the name of this lake that straddles Peru and Bolivia.
Happy Centennial: My Favorite NPS Memories
Today marks the 100th birthday of the National Park Services. And damnit, I am especially proud to be an American today.
An Evening Back In Time At The Mozart Dinner Concert In Salzburg
If you are planning to head to Salzburg, no doubt you will have learned in your research that Salzburg is the birthplace of famous classical musician, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Bucket List: Off The Beaten Path In Bagan
From my personal journal. “Our days are split in two. We go to sleep twice and we wake up twice. This morning, I’m up about an hour before dawn just as Evie is also waking.
Time Is Nothing: Around The World Time Lapse
After 343 days of traveling across 17 countries, I’ve finally compiled all the footage for my little show and tell slideshow.
Bucket List: Hot Air Balloon Over Inle Lake In Myanmar
From my personal journal. “Remember this moment, I tell myself. I close my eyes for a few seconds and try to etch the view into my memory.
Bucket List: Yankee Doodle Canyoning In Zion
1. Brick It: verb \ ‘brik it \ : To “Brick it” is to “sh*t a brick”, where one is scared to the point that one not only loses control of their bowels, they lose control epically, resulting in something akin to a brick being dispelled and left behind.
Traveling Back In Time To Venice
Venice is one of those cities that is busy and bustling, but mostly with travelers of the sort that lug around large suitcases over cobblestones and carry spare selfie sticks.
Travel Thoughts & Tips
Ultimate Guide To Sayulita 2024: Mexico’s Hidden Gem Surf Town
Update 2024: Sayulita has seen quite a bit of tourism uptick over the last few years. While the charm is still there, one notable thing I’ve found is that accommodations can be booked up much earlier than I expected in the past.
Why Quitting My Six Figure Job Was Easier Than Choosing An Ice Cream Flavor
Growing up, my family didn’t have much money, so we never took any holidays. What I knew of places like Paris, Cairo, New York, or Venice, I learned from hopping from one casino to the next whenever we drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
Iceland Bucket List: Dry Suit Snorkeling Silfra In The Winter
It was a little hard to wrap my head around it at first, but in the middle of Iceland is a fissure filled with some of the clearest water in the world.
Honest Reviews: Table For One At The Old Lahaina Luau
Here’s my disclosure: I’m not your typical cultural performance and buffet dinner type of guy, and a luau is a typical cultural performance and buffet dinner type of deal.
How To Actually Travel Well for $50 A Day
There are plenty of guides out there that teaches you how to travel on the cheap. You’ve seen it. Travel for under $50 a day.
Bucket List: Salina Turda Underground Amusement Park in Romania
Close your eyes and imagine a gaping volume of emptiness and darkness deep underground. Now imagine a string of neon lights descending in a geometric spiral down this vast space.
How To Visit Iceland’s Vatnojokull Glacier Blue Ice Cave In March
Deciding to go to Iceland is the easy part. Choosing the time of year to go is much harder. During the summer, you can get nearly 23 hours of daylight, which opens up all kinds of possibility for traveling at different hours of the day.
All The Times Things Fell Through And I Never Told Anyone
I’ve had some amazing experiences and projects that have taken me to some grand and odd corners of the world. Quite a few things happened by luck, like my private audience with the Dalai lama, or having my first travel video go viral.
Bucket List: Shooting An AK-47 Kalashnikov in Bratislava
The last time I came to Bratislava, I tied up my hair in a top knot and painted my face to look like a kabuki samurai.
Visiting Cortina d’Ampezzo Summer/Fall 2024: Read This First
Cortina d’Ampezzo is one of the premier destinations in the Dolomites and an ideal home base for some of the best climbing and hiking in the Dolomites.
Review: Onsen SF Brings Japanese Bath House To San Francisco
I’m so deeply traumatized by the cold in San Francisco that when there was mention of a new Japanese style spa opening up here, I had to try it for myself.
How To Take Better Travel Photos: Exposure
This is the first in my series of write-ups on “How To Take Better Travel Photos”. In this series, I’ll do my best to cut through all the jargons and break down the different elements that make up a good photograph.
What To Do If You’re Sick Abroad While Traveling
Travel to enough places, and you’ll eventually find yourself writhing in extreme pain from a bout of food poisoning, or some other illness.
Death And The DC-3 Plane Wreck In Iceland
One of the popular attractions for visitors to Iceland just happens to be is a plane wreck out in the middle of nowhere.
A Virgin Guide To Surviving Your First Burning Man 2024 Edition
It’s been exactly a decade since my first trip to Black Rock City and I’m pretty sure that I’m no longer carrying any playa dust on my body.
LOCAL TRIBE DE MEXICO: Reviewing Sayulita’s Newest Boutique Hotel
For my 3 month stay in Sayulita, I rented an apartment right in the heart of the town next to Yolanda’s chicken.
How To Get Backcountry Backpacking Permits Yellowstone
The first thing you should know about Yellowstone is that the national park sits on a volcanic caldera. Essentially, the whole place is a giant super-volcano and it’s not one of the happy dormant ones.
Fuji X-T4 vs Fuji X-T3: Why The Older X-T3 Is Still Relevant In 2022
When Fujifilm announced the Fujifilm X-T4, the little grey cells in my head got together and put together a plan that eventually led to my switch from Sony to Fujifilm –
My 10 Year Search For The Perfect Camera Brought Me Back To APS-C
In 2015, I fully committed to switching from my Nikon DSLR system to a Sony mirrorless system starting with the Sony A7II.
Demystifying The Dolomites: How To Plan A Fall Trip
The first time I heard the word Dolomites in passing, I confused it with the Annamites in Vietnam and then promptly forgot about it for years.