Reset search
South Pacific & AsiaSouth Pacific & Asia
SatelliteEdit route

South Pacific & Asia

January - June 2025
Current
A 144-day adventure by Kyran Read more
Currently traveling
+3

List of countries

  • Japan
  • Singapore
  • New Caledonia
  • Vanuatu
  • Tonga
  • Fiji
  • New Zealand
  • Show all (10)
Categories
Backpacking, Couple, Solo travel
  • 45.3kkilometers traveled
Means of transport
  • Flight38.2kkilometers
  • Bus2,534kilometers
  • Camper533kilometers
  • Car468kilometers
  • Train205kilometers
  • 4x4129kilometers
  • Ferry92kilometers
  • Hitchhiking90kilometers
  • Walking82kilometers
  • Bicycle72kilometers
  • Motorboat46kilometers
  • Hiking17kilometers
  • Swimming2kilometers
  • Paddling/Rowing2kilometers
  • Motorbike-kilometers
  • Tuk Tuk-kilometers
  • Caravan-kilometers
  • Sailing-kilometers
  • Houseboat-kilometers
  • Cruise ship-kilometers
  • Horse-kilometers
  • Skiing-kilometers
  • Cable car-kilometers
  • Helicopter-kilometers
  • Barefoot-kilometers
  • 155footprints
  • 95days
  • 2.4kphotos
  • 427likes
FollowCalendarShareBucket list
Oldest first
  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    1
    Day 74–77

    Tokyo Airbnb

    April 2 in Japan ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    We stayed in a super cute little Airbnb in the suburbs of Tokyo for 3 nights as we explored the city.
    A tiny little apartment, with a loft for the bed, it had everything you needed but was definitely Japan sized lol. It was nice to have a place out of the city, as it was a nice neighbourhood to walk around, and easy to get to and from with the train!

    It had a few vending machines just outside the door and a konbini just a 7min walk away. Maybe it’s because it Japanese, but everything is so cute and quaint here, even the busses and roads lol    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    2
    Day 73

    First Day in Japan!

    April 2 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    Finally made it to Japan! After a 48 hour journey from New Caledonia I was so so tiredddd but also so excited to finally see Sophie!

    I figured out which train to take, loaded up my Suica transit card, and trained out to our Airbnb in Asaka (suburb of Tokyo) where Sophie was waiting for me. Crazy to be cold again! It’s 10°C and rainy here, something I haven’t felt for a long time!

    This country is awesome haha, exactly like you expect. All the announcements and signs are first in Japanese then English sometimes, everyone is so polite, the trains are dead silent even when packed, there’s vending machines and convenience stores literally everywhere, the tiny suburb streets are so cute, and all the food is so good!

    After a much awaited reunion, we chilled at the Airbnb, got our bearings (Sophie had also spent the night at the airport because her flight landed after the last train), and went out for a delicious conveyor belt sushi dinner where some of the dishes were only ¥100 (CA$1.00) for two pieces of nigiri! And it was all just ordered on an iPad which we could switch to English sometimes we didn’t even have to talk to anyone lol. What an awesome country

    After dinner, we stopped at a konbini (convenience store) FamilyMart, to grab some snacks and drinks. A local came up to us and chatted for a bit in broken English. He was wondering why tourists would come all the way out to Asaka, kind of the boonies of the suburbs lol.

    An early much needed sleep tonight and off to explore Tokyo tomorrow!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 72–74

    SIN Airport & Travel to Japan!

    March 31 in Singapore ⋅ 🌩️ 26 °C

    After packing up my stuff for hostel check out at 10am, I chilled at the hostel until my shuttle pickup at 8:30pm, as my first flight wasn’t till 12:30am. I got some find penguins done, used the kitchen, showered and had a nice chill day. The shuttle came to pick me up at the hostel and worked seamlessly to get to the airport at 10pm.

    While waiting in line to check my bag at the NOU airport, the first troubles with my water damaged passport happened. I got asked to step out of the line and go to another counter to deal with my passport. Not much was explained to me and I was a little stressed, but it turns out they just wanted me to sign a form saying if anything happened or I was denied entry into Singapore then it wouldn’t be Noucalin’s (the airline) fault. Fine by me as long as they let me on the plane lol. I got my bag checked and boarded the plane at 12:40am!

    First a redeye Aircalin flight to Singapore, with a 7h layover in the Changi airport, and then a couple of Cebu Pacific flights to Clark airport in the Philippines (with a 10h overnight layover) and then on to Tokyo Narita!

    I slept the whole first flight, except for when the food came, which was much needed although was of course still feeling groggy when we landed in Singapore at 7am. Good flight experience with Aircalin, decent food, but not the most extravagant.

    Changi airport was awesome, definitely the fanciest airport I’ve ever been to. They have a butterfly garden in the airport (but airside of not my terminal so didn’t get to see it) as well as a climbing wall and what they call “The Jewel” which is a huge mall with so many food places, multiple interactive exhibits, a sort of suspended trampoline net park, and an indoor circular waterfall that it’s famous for. After finding some luggage storage, I spent my layover walking around the jewel and admiring everything. Very nice ~7h layover.

    I checked in to my next flight, and successfully managed to walk on with my heavy backpack as a carryon. Cebu Pacific is a decent budget airline from the Philippines. They even had a fun quiz game mid flight where you could win a pencil case lol.

    Everything was going well until I landed at Clark airport CRK in the Philippines. I was all ready to pass through customs and have a little nap in my hotel that I booked for my 10h overnight layover. But when I got off the plane, there was someone holding my name on a card, and they took me aside and told me I couldn’t leave the airport. Because of the ticket I bought, or cebu pacific regulations, the layover had to be spent airside and I couldn’t go through customs. Nowhere on the ticket or online did it say anything about this, and I was quite peeved as I had a nonrefundable hotel booked for the night. I tried to get more info and tried to convince them to let me leave but they weren’t budging.

    Oh well. I guess this was my original plan anyway. And I have my blowup mat and a small blanket and pillow with me. But still annoying for it to be a surprise. After they brought me through to the departure gates, I spent the next hour texting Agoda customer service trying to get my hotel refunded. Thankfully after a lot of back and forth, the hotel agreed to refund me, and so I didn’t have to spend $50 on an empty hotel room! Very thankful to Agoda. I got an email saying “canceled and refunded due to natural disaster” lol.

    I ate some not too expensive airport food, and enjoyed the loud thunderstorm in the spacious clean terminal. I found a corner in the downstairs part that seemed to be under construction and set up my mattress to nap for a few hours before getting up at 3am to catch my 5am flight out of there.

    Because I didn’t pass through customs, to ensure I left the country, a gate agent had to take photos of me all the way until I boarded the plane lol. Very strange experience overall, but finally I got on the plane and had a sleepy uneventful flight to Narita Tokyo airport!

    Finally in Japan!!!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 70

    Centre Culturel Tjibaou

    March 30 in New Caledonia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Finally today is the day to visit the cultural centre. Except apparently the busses don’t run at all on Sunday! Could’ve guessed that lol.

    So taxi it is, even though it’s a bit pricey. I borrowed someone’s phone at the hostel to call a taxi and caught one over there for about 1500F. My taxi driver was an older French lady who was a big fan of the fact I had a Canadian accent lol. She asked me if I could feel the tension of the country, and honestly I could. You can kind of feel it everywhere. So we got talking about the recent political turmoils around independence and the recent riots.
    As far as I understood, there was a last referendum on independence that happened during Covid, and the kanaks felt they couldn’t properly campaign due to their mourning traditions so decided to boycott the vote. Then the French government said they wanted to unilaterally allow anyone who lived in NC to vote, whereas right now it’s just those who have lived there for many generations or 10+ years. This would have greatly diluted the kanaky vote and so there was riots that turned quite violent in May. The country is still recovering from this and the curfew was just lifted a few months ago.
    But my taxi driver’s take on it was quite interesting to hear. And I think a lot of the white inhabitants of New Caledonia feel this way. But she was basically saying that they’re all liars— there was the possibility to move the date of the vote, they knew they were going to lose the independence vote so boycotted, and basically have just been dishonest about their means etc. Which may be true but there were some very not so subtle tones of racism in all her explanations. The French already think they’re better than everyone. Add racism and generations of civil unrest into it and of course there’s so much subliminal racism and segregation. It’s a very interesting vibe and something I felt from most white people i talked to.

    Anyway, the cultural centre was very cool and a neat highlight of Kanaky culture with different exhibits. It was founded by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who was a pioneer in creating and promoting a Kanak identity after the atrocities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in NC. He set up a festival in the 80s highlighting kanaky culture, called Melanesia 2000, which was a huge success and really gave them a joint identity and voice. Politically, he led and helped found the main independentist movement of NC that still exists today and is almost single handedly responsible for the 30 years of peace NC had from the late 80s. But lots of radicals opposed what they viewed as his compromising with the white government, and he was assassinated by a fellow Kanak, disagreeing with an accord he had signed.

    The cultural centre had a nice garden to walk though highlighting some of the 28 indigenous languages of NC, and a Kanak village with very tall thatched roof huts built in a traditional way.

    I caught another taxi ride back, with not such political conversations, and cooked the last of my spaghetti    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 70

    Marché de Nouméa

    March 30 in New Caledonia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Today I got up early (ish) to catch the local market, which happens every day except Monday, until 11am. It was a cool experience, very much like some other markets I’ve been to in the past few months, with lots of different local produce and some imported produce and baked goods and whatnot. But all quite pricey haha. There was even a busker playing guitar and singing, and some food stands set up. Felt like a cross between a Canadian market and South Pacific market lol.
    I didn’t get any produce, but I did buy a few takoyaki from a stand to snack on. I’ll be having lots of that in Japan soon!

    After exploring around a bit and watching most of the stands close up, I walked back to the hostel to make lunch and then head out to the cultural centre!

    https://strava.app.link/likxdHm9kSb    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    1
    Day 69

    Aquarium des Lagons

    March 29 in New Caledonia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    The bus system here is so useless lol. They’ve just reduced the bus lines and schedules so no buses run between 8am and 1pm, and then when they do it’s once every hour.

    So I waited at a stop near the hostel to catch a bus to the cultural centre, making sure to not miss the first afternoon bus. And then when it came I was told I could buy a bus ticket on the bus, even just with cash. The bus driver was very stubborn and wouldn’t let me on, and told me I had to go back to the main station to buy a ticket at the machines. So I guess I’ll take a bus in an hour. I walked a few blocks back to the main station only to find out the single fare tickets are only valid for an hour! And they’re 500F (CA$6) each! How are you supposed to catch the bus if you’re stuck on the other side of town?? All the other multi fare options were more than twice that amount just for the card no fare included. A very strange system indeed, but I have a slight feeling it might be in place to make the busses slightly more “elite” and less attainable for less affluent people? Who knows…

    Anyway, as I decided to change my plans and visit the aquarium instead of the cultural centre, a bus going that direction stopped at the station and I had time to buy a single fare ticket. I guess the universe decided today was an aquarium day.

    The actual aquarium itself was awesome! Not huge, but lots of different tanks showcasing freshwater, mangrove, tidal, reef, deep sea environments and more! And really well put together. I only paid 1200F for the student price and spent a good three hours there haha. They even had a turtle exhibit outside, with three types of sea turtles! A nice relaxing air conditioned place to spend the afternoon. And fun to see so many of the fish I’ve been seeing while snorkeling, but up close and from dry land haha. I also bought a beautiful sea turtle sticker from the gift shop.

    As I couldn’t buy a bus fare back, I decided to walk back as it was only about 4 or 5km. A nice sunset walk along the water, and of course stopped at the McDonald’s along the way to compare.

    https://strava.app.link/uP7OEZz7kSb

    Probably the worst McDonald’s cheeseburger of the trip, however the caramel cheesecake that I got was delicious and well worth it.    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 68

    Musée de la Ville & First Day in Nouméa

    March 28 in New Caledonia ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    I decided to take today easy and just explore the city center at a leisurely pace. First stop though, was the currency exchange place so I could switch the last of my vatu into pacific francs.

    After that, I found a little cafe restaurant and bought the cheapest food I could find, a little hotdog with cheese and sauce. New Caledonia food prices are definitely the most expensive of the trip, it’s kinda crazy how expensive food is here. Even compared to French Polynesia which imports a lot of the same products from the same places.

    With some food in me, I walked around the central square, Place des Cocotiers, and stumbled across the Musée de la Ville de Nouméa. It was still early ish in the day and I had it on my list of things to see in the city, and the student price was only 100F (CA$1.20) so I went in a spent a few hours there!

    It was a relatively small museum but well done and a few different cool exhibits, highlighting the history of New Caledonia and of Nouméa. New Caledonia has basically been in a semi constant state of political and civil turmoil since its inception. The indigenous population, the Kanaks, were extremely poorly treated by the French, and the French to this day aren’t very keen on the whole reconciliation thing in their stubborn French way. There was some periods of peace, facilitated by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, a Kanaky politician who was really a huge figure in establishing peace and common ground between the French Caldoches and the Kanaks. But recently that peace has kind of deteriorated because of a few different things the French government has done. Interesting to learn a kind of over view of the 20th century history. And you can still feel the tension in the air, even just walking around the city. It doesn’t feel dangerous, but you can definitely tell there’s so much engrained racial segregation in just the activities and places people hang out. Obviously not overt, but it’s still noticeable

    The history of noumea itself was cool too, post-world war it had a huge rapid expansion in population which needed lots of new housing and infrastructure. There was also a piano on the top floor which was nice to play! I haven’t played piano since I left home lol.

    After hanging out at the museum, and in its garden, I went to the grocery store around the corner to buy some food for my stay. Definitely not eating out, but even groceries were expensive. I got some deals on soon expiring/just expired products lol. Ate a tuna sashimi lunch (the one cheap thing relative to home) in the park and wandered down by the waterfront, before heading back to the hostel and making yet another spaghetti and hotdog dinner!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 69–73

    Auberge de Jeunesse Nouméa

    March 27 in New Caledonia ⋅ 🌙 24 °C

    I got to the hostel, not having actually booked a reservation, as their online system wouldn’t let me book same day and I tried to do it past midnight yesterday. But the advertised price on their website was also cheaper than the booking.com price so I figured I would just pay in person.

    It turns out that they have the strangest reception hours of any hostel I’ve ever seen, open only from 8am-11am and 3pm-6pm. As I got there at 8:30pm, no one was there, but thankfully someone hanging out outside the gate told me the code to get in. I guess it’s times like this that looking like a tourist is handy haha.

    The actual hostel was quite nice inside and I was able to put my stuff down and look around. But I still needed to get a bed for tonight, and no one seemed to be around. Finally a lady came up to me asking if I needed anything, and I told her the situation. It turns out she works as a cleaner here, and offered to call the owner.

    After talking on the phone with him, and passing the phone to me, he basically said that he couldn’t accommodate me tonight. He was not flexible at all and seemed to just not want to help cause it was after hours. He’s like there’s no beds ready, it’s not set up it’s not possible, there’s no sheets on the beds. But like I knew there were free beds (there were actually so many) and I can just put the sheets on myself, it’s a hostel. After much attempt at convincing and pleading, and feeling a bit dejected, he still wouldn’t budge.

    So then I sat down and figured out what to do. I could just stick around and camp out in the common area of the hostel with my air mattress. Or I could book the next cheapest place close to here (which was going to be ~CA$130 and pretty fancy). As I was looking at hotels, a guy came up to me and was like “I can’t just leave you stranded with no place to sleep for the night” and he gave me the keys to a room and locker and clean sheets and said to pay in the morning. I still don’t know if it was the same guy as on the phone but I was very thankful. And with the cheaper in person price I saved about CA$20! And the whole four nights cost me about what the one night at the fancy hotel would have.

    Other than that kerfuffle, the hostel was actually really nice. It was on a hill overlooking downtown and had beautiful views of the city, which really has similar vibes to colonial Caribbean (or so I would assume). Everyone got a little kitchen locker with their own plate, cup, bowl, and utensils, and a locker in the walk in fridge too. A huge kitchen, I was able to save some money and cook my own meals while I was here— it’s by far the most expensive country on the trip so far, even just for basic food!

    After getting settled in, that first night I made fried spam and instant noodles which I had brought over from Vanuatu lol    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 67

    NOU Airport

    March 27 in New Caledonia ⋅ 🌙 26 °C

    Welcome to New Caledonia, country number 23!

    Landed at La Tontouta Airport, which is New Caledonia’s international airport, about a 40 minute drive from the capital, Nouméa. There was what I assume was a French governmental plane just getting ready to leave the gate as we were disembarking, quite an imposing plane.

    Already, just stepping into the airport, it’s nice to be in a more developed country. As New Caledonia is still part of France, there’s a lot more development here, the airport is cool and clean, the roads are paved and smooth.

    I passed through customs, no problem with the passport, and got my bag and passed through biosecurity. I then had a shuttle waiting for me that I booked, as it’s really the only way to get into town at this hour. Not cheap (~CA$35) but not nearly as much as a taxi would be all the way into town. And they even had someone waiting with my last name written at the arrivals gate. It’s technically a shared shuttle, but because I was one of the last ones out, one had already left and I had this one to myself!

    The roads here are super good, like being back in New Zealand, but with French influences. Nice to speak French again as well. I got dropped off at the hostel that I’ll be staying at for the next 4 nights!    Read more

  • TravelerSouth Pacific & Asia
    Day 67

    Last Day in Vanuatu

    March 27 in Vanuatu ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    I got up and checked out of the motel, and finally collected my laundry which was air drying over night. I think they mixed up who’s was who’s cause they thought I had a heavy pair of jeans that wasn’t dry yet, but in the end I got my own clothes back lol.

    I was able to leave my bag behind the front desk for the day, as my flight wasn’t till almost 6pm. I went back to the roadside place for a breakfast of pork brisket which was very yummy.
    Walked around and used the last of my cash (other than 10000VT that I was saving to exchange in New Caledonia) on some groceries/snacks for later.

    Right as it started raining, I caught a bus up to the airport, a good 4 hours early haha. It was pouring rain but thankfully I stayed dry. I took the extra time to pack up the pochette for travel, and fold and pack my newly clean laundry. I got my backpack all setup for a checked bag and checked in. Very unique boarding pass for Air Calédonie. Also this airport has some of the most aesthetically pleasing signs for the check in counters. They’re all the same, and show the tail of the airline and the flight number in the same font, over the colour of the airline.

    Air Calédonie is New Caledonia’s domestic airline, but they also fly to and from Port Vila. I booked it through Aircalin, their international airline, cause they have a codeshare for this flight. But another little ATR-72 and a new airline!

    Saw a beautiful sunset over the clouds, goodbye Vanuatu! I liked Vanuatu but it definitely wasn’t without its turmoils. Very kind people, but definitely felt a bit like they see tourists as money machines. Not insincere, but not as unconditionally welcoming as Tonga felt, and definitely I didn’t feel like I blended in as much as in Fiji. Very good beef, and cool nature.    Read more

  • 2025© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Help Center
  • Legal notice