A Life of Travel: Thank You Italy and Hello Malaysia!

Author

Derek Baron
June 17, 2025

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It's Tuesday and it's time for a travel newsletter...

update

My trip to Puglia, Italy was, naturally, perfect!

As is often the case, this was a trip with Georgiana. Somehow we’ve gotten in the rhythm of trying to squeeze in an Italian trip each year. Last year we went to Sicily and now it was time for Puglia…

Our base was a rented house by the beach in the tiny community of Pantanagianni. And our days were spent like this:

  • mornings on the beach only 50 meters away

  • afternoons/evenings visiting beautiful villages and towns

  • dinner at a great restaurant to eat as much fresh Italian food as possible

  • evening walk, possibly with some pistachio gelato (okay, always with gelato)

  • late evenings sipping amaro and chatting back at the house.

Towns we visited included Monopoli, Polignano a Mare, Alberobello (famous for the trulli houses), Locorotondo, Ostuni, Brindisi, Bari and more!

Here’s some notes from the trip:

  • Puglia is a relaxed region and not particularly overcrowded with tourists (at least not in June)

  • I really loved the local orecchiette and cavatelli pastas (some might say I got addicted)

  • the town of Monopoli should be visited by anyone going to this region

  • if you go to Monopoli, you should eat here (so good!): Il Quadrifoglio

  • if you go to Puglia, you should try this excellent local wine: Ilmo Primitivo di Manduria

  • Italian drivers are some of the most aggressive drivers anywhere

  • it’s a good idea to sometimes skip a major sight, drive to a random Italian town that gets almost no publicity and just wander around (we did this several times and it worked out wonderfully)

  • the local shortcrust pastry, pasticciotto, can be found everywhere stuffed with various fillings, and they are also addictive

  • the small, non-touristy coastal town of Savelletri was a real highlight, with locals playing chess, a laid-back fishing village vibe and great seafood

Puglia… definitely a success!

After Italy, I flew to Berlin to visit a friend that I’ve known since my days working on board cruise ships in Hawaii. Yeah, that was quite some time ago 🙂 

I hadn’t seen my friend in 18 years! Since she’s from Berlin, I had a great tour guide as we hung out in the city one day and then took a day trip to Potsdam. With 1200 acres of peaceful parks, over 150 historical buildings (including several ornate palaces such as Sanssouci) and a quaint Dutch Quarter, Potsdam is certainly worth visiting. And it’s only a short 40 minute train ride from Berlin.

After Berlin, I came back to Lisbon. But my 90 days in the Schengen Zone are almost finished so I’m heading to Southeast Asia for a bit. (For many nationalities, you can only stay in the Schengen Zone - a collection of 29 European countries - for 90 days out of any 180 day period.)

I’m flying out to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Thursday.

I’ve been to Kuala Lumpur several times over the years and always enjoy it. For now, the plan is to stay there for at least one month. With a lot of work stuff going on, it’s time for a routine and a break from bouncing around. So that’s the idea for now!

A great day in Alberobello, Italy!

quick quote

“The entire self-help industry in one sentence: Do what makes mornings exciting and nights peaceful. Will this make me excited to wake up? Will this let me sleep in peace? Everything that fails both tests is noise.” - Shane Parrish

updates: wandering earl tours

Here’s some great stuff happening this week…

And of course, we have plenty of other carefully designed, once-in-a-lifetime trips to choose from…so as always, be sure to take a look :)

If you have any questions at all send me a message and I’ll reply right away!

book recommendations

I’m reading an excellent book right now - Think Like a Rocket Scientist.

This book really gets my brain thinking in new ways and as a result, I need time to process the ideas that arise. That makes this book perfect for reading during the day.

At night, I like to read a little before I go to sleep. But I’m having trouble finding a good fiction book.

Do you have any recommendations for a good FICTION book?

around the globe

🏞️ One Minute Park
This is very cool. Open the website and you are transported to a random park somewhere in the world via one minute videos. Every minute, the park you are watching changes.

📫️ An Incredible Mailman
This is the beautiful story of Jonny Breadmore. He has been hand delivering letters and postcards from a local post office in the Galapagos to people all over the world. It continues a tradition that started in 1793.

🇸🇬 The Best Airport in the World…Gets Better
Singapore’s Changi Airport is quite a place. It’s an airport that I have no time spending half a day in! And it’s about to get a new Terminal that will take its impressive experience to an entirely new level.

🇫🇷 Most Beautiful (Cat) Town
The French town of Gordes has been mentioned as the most beautiful town in the world. Is it because of the cat posters everywhere??

🖼️ Curious Museums
Here’s a really good list of some unique museums (although not all qualify as museums) that you can visit all over the planet.

✈️ Don’t Stand Up Early
Turkey has announced fines of up to $70 for airline passengers that stand up before the plane comes to a complete stop at the gate.

🎨 Art and Accommodation
This collection of hotels that intertwine art and guest experience is full of appealing places to stay!

🇳🇱 Why Amsterdam Looks the Way it Does
This short, informative video explains exactly why the city of Amsterdam has its canals and unique style of buildings.

🥘 Very Old Restaurants
An old tavern in Madrid, that first opened in 1702, is claiming to be the world’s oldest continuously operated restaurant, setting up a battle with the famous Spanish eatery, Sobrino de Botin, for that title.

where in the world?

A big congratulations to the only person who guessed the location of the photo in the previous newsletter! Here’s who guessed correctly:

Corina O.!

The specific location is the fishing town of Mbour, Senegal, located south of Dakar. It’s a bustling place to say the least, with so much constant activity happening on the water, on the beach and in all of the lanes and streets behind. Everywhere I went were crowds of people offloading fish from boats, selling and buying fish on the beach, filling up trucks with fish, getting in and out of small ferries, selling all kinds of food, transporting goods on donkey carts and kids playing football wherever possible.


This week’s photo:

It’s time to guess…where was the below photo taken?

If you have a guess (the more specific the better), click reply and let me know. Anyone who guesses correctly will be mentioned in next week's newsletter 😄 

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Thank you so much for reading!

Derek
(my middle name is Earl)

Travel Insurance: My personal recommendation for affordable and reliable travel insurance is Safety Wing. It was created by travelers, for travelers, and it's rapid growth in popularity is well-deserved.

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