What another crazy year it has been with over 50 flights, 25 countries and driven around 10,000KM in Australia and Africa! We haven’t been too eco-friendly, travel does make our carbon footprint quite high but we also do our best to give back in other ways and that’s what matters the most. We hope your year was wonderful and that you were able to enjoy every moment of it and still go through the harder times. Find in our year in review what we have been doing this 2019, we love having this as a good diary to remember ourselves what we have been up to! Happy New year to each and all of you.
January: NYE in Vietnam and Getting fit in Thailand
It’s weird how that every year passing by, our NYE is getting more chill haha. We entered 2019 in Hoi An, chilling at our friend’s place. We have just spent a week in Vietnam and it was a good idea to be based there for the beginning of our year.
As we have planned to get fit, because we love fitness in general, we headed over to Bangkok where we took the time to visit a few places we have never seen before in town. We visited Wat Benchamabophit, went to the tallest building in BKK @kingpowermahanakhon and then went to eat delicious royal Thai cuisine at @baansuriyasai. Good cuisine also doesn’t need to cost a lot, it was affordable and most important SO DELICIOUS. We also are a lot of street food, as usual, including my favourite which is MOO PING, pork on sewers which cost only like 10 THB. We stayed at the hotel Siam@Siam Bangkok right by the National Sports Stadium and then moved on to stay at Krudam and train hard. We trained an intensive 10 hours of running, skipping, shadow boxing, gym, kicking and punching 🥊. All that being great components of a Muay Thai training camp. It was great to train with Krudam and the motivated team. We booked our journey through MuayThaiOk.com and if you ever come to Thailand and feel like a little beating, check it out! 🇹🇭🥊 We then jumped on a cheap Air Asia flight to Phuket to join our dear friends Danae and Kayleigh for an amazing 10-day full program at Phuket Cleanse.
Are you planning to go to Bangkok? We have a Bangkok 3-day itinerary that can help you plan your trip!
While we were in Phuket, we also made sure we took some time to go see the local market and take a little boat journey with HYPE Boat Club out to the waters. It was great fun to do a day trip on the Andaman Sea from Phuket.
February: In Orlando with Disney and Visiting Mexico for the first time
After a beautiful time in Asia, Disney flew us from Bangkok to Orlando, Florida with Emirates for this #EndlessDisneyMagic Media Trip. We are so happy to be able to join such major trips. It is truly one of the most magical places on the planet! When I first came to Disney World, I was not sure if this place was for adults, but I am now 100% convinced that this is a place for everyone. We haven’t managed to stop smiling for the whole trip as every corner has something new and magical to discover! We visited the Animal Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood’s Studios and the Magical Kingdom. A major highlight was the Kilimanjaro Safari Park with Lions, Rhinos and Giraffes. After 4 days with the Disney team, we hopped on their Disney Cruise.
With the Disney Cruiseline, we sailed into Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas! We enjoyed a day on land taking a million photos as there are streets of colours everywhere and the locals will always greet you with a smile 😊 . If you book the same itinerary we did, you get to go to Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. Although it is only one day, we actually wish we had longer because of the beautiful blue waters and all the attractions! It is as good as the Maldives and Cuba. When we returned to Orlando, we went to relax a bit for a few nights at the Four Seasons Orlando, a MUST if you are staying in Orlando. It is within the lands of Disney world too, making all the transfers so easy to go to the park. After spending some time with the Disney family, we quickly realized it is not an experience just for kids and families but also for couples like us!
We then headed to Mexico, our first time ever in that country! For the occasion, we flew to Cancun, where we rented a car to drive the Yucatan Peninsula with our good friend Nick. We drove in 2018 from Londo towards China with him and it was a no brainer while we were in the US to get him on board to follow us in Mexico! There, our mission was to see our final 7th Wonder of the World, Chichen Itza
After our trip to Mexico, we flew back to Orlando where we visited some family and went to watch a game of Mitch’s favourite NBA team, the Golden State Warriors. Huge thanks to our friend Dana for getting us the tickets! Warriors lost, but we still enjoyed every single bit of the whole journey!
March: Back to Dubai, visited Singapore for a campaign and then go back to Thailand and Vietnam
Coming back to Dubai is always fun. We love this city. It was so busy we did a whole lot of thing including hosting our Nikon Social Event at the beautiful Ritz-Carlton Dubai. We stayed at this resort and absolutely loved it so we made it an idea to host our event there and challenge other photographers to snap this destination.
We also went to Abu Dhabi to celebrate our 59th month anniversary at the @abudhabiedition for a curated wellness weekend with the visit of @TomAikens. We had a ton of great foods at the @marketauhedition and @oakroomabudhabi. Wellness weekend retreat with Michelin Star chef @TomAikens. Our weekend was full of health and fitness activities combined with eating delicious healthy food. It was very balanced and we didn’t deprive ourselves of wines or cheeses. We did yoga and kayaking through the mangroves with @seahawk.ae etc. It was a great last weekend in the UAE before we headed to Singapore for a campaign with a brand. It was so fun to go around Singapore and snap photos in addition to building this guide on how to spend 3 days in Singapore.
April: Went to South Africa and drove to many countries then visited Mozambique.
May: Visited Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles
June: Went to the Maldives and spent from downtime in Dubai
July: Spent the month in Montreal, Canada
August: Road Trip to Gaspesie Canada then visited New York then back to Dubai and Abu Dhabi
September: Back in Vietnam as speakers at a conference and for a press trip and fit in a last-minute trip to Taiwan
October: Went to Hong Kong, then Manila in the Philippines with Cathay Pacific, then Australia and a wedding in New Caledonia
November: Drove the Australian East Coast and went to a Cruise with Royal Caribbean to Vanuatu, New Caledonia and New-Zealand
December: Singapore, Thailand and Penang in Malaysia
December has gone by so quickly! We ended our cruise in Sydney on the 4th of December and went to Bondi for the last beach day before flying to Singapore.
There we spent a few days and I had to fly to Thailand for a project and might as well attend the Wonderfruit festival eh? In Bankok, I stayed at the Movenpick BDMS hotel and went to EmQuarter for some shopping. Then went to food at a local Thai place and then headed to Sing Sing Theatre, a quite fun place to party in Bangkok. It was fun to spend some time with the Tourism Authority of Thailand team. The rest of the trip was spent at Pattaya, where we all stayed at the beautiful MASON PATTAYA. We had dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in Pattaya at the M Gallery hotel. In Krabi, we were able to discover some hotels and Islands on a boat tour by Vacation Village. My favourite activity was probably the time we spent at Wareeka Spa, 1 hour inland from Krabi.
After Thailand, spent a few days in Singapore getting some work done before we headed to Penang in Malaysia. We took the bus from Singapore to Penang and it was such a swift journey! We sure tired but it was incredible. We ate a whole lot and we really recommend you to go.
Here are 5 reasons why you should visit Penang!
