In the past few days, Steve and I have been looking back at our three and a half month stay in Taiwan, figuring out what has worked out well, and what mistakes we’ve made that we definitely want to avoid on the rest of this trip. Hindsight can be twenty-twenty, but you have to be willing to look in the rearview mirror, assess your decisions dispassionately, and be candid about where you made the wrong calls. Here’s our attempt at doing that!

Know Your Priorities
People travel for different reasons, and one thing we haven’t done a great job of is really prioritizing our reasons. What Steve and I like best about travel is being able to soak up a particular culture, its idiosyncrasies, and hallmarks. We like to grab a meal on the street and talk endlessly about how you order a meal in China and the endlessly amusing subway jingles in Tokyo. Equally fun is people-watching, like comparing the different school uniforms and bags of Taiwanese high school students. We also want to have plenty of time to read books and plan our own projects (for Steve, websites and games, and for Connie, grad school and social enterprises).

Continue reading Travel optimization and other lessons from Taiwan. →