Welcome to Juanito’s Travels. Travel adventure stories and ideas to help plan your own independent travel adventures around the world. We’ve been all over the world and have stories and suggestions on itineraries, and how to plan trips to, and get around, heaps of countries including: Mexico, South-East Asia, Europe, Japan, India, Thailand, Iceland, Cambodia, Laos, Austria, Italy, Greece, Türkiye and Australia. Juanito’s Travels is a great place for independent, free-spirited travelers in their 40s and 50s who don’t want to do the whole organised tour thing.
Go to a beach in Vietnam, go to a holy city in India, go to temples in Thailand, go to a punk museum in Iceland. Go to lots and lots of places in Mexico and eat lots and lots of Mexican food in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico City, Mérida, Yucatán, Baja California, Chiapas, Guanajuato and the like. Have yourself tacos al pastor, birria, gorditas, tamales, tamales in tortas, an enchilada, a tejuino (even though my son says they are like drinking a tortilla), a paloma, a sopa de chaya, a sopa de tortilla. It’s easy to do by reading the pages and posts on this site!! So why are you waiting? Get that Mexican, or Icelandic, or Thai, or Cambodian, or Japanese trip planned and executed using Google sheets or just play it by ear. It’s easy like enchiladas (a Mexican saying facil como enchiladas!).
Hey, I love Mexico so much I fell in love with a Mexican and I married her but she tells me making enchiladas is not really that easy, but she still makes them on occasions because she loves me. And I love her, and Mexico! Viva Mexico!
So while enchiladas aren’t that easy, they are delicious and fun, and so can your next adventure be!
Avoid those package tours, have your own independent travel itinerary and spend the time you want to spend at a place, and go to the places you want to go!
Sometimes inspired by the late great Patrick Leigh Fermor’s travel adventures that started with him walking across Europe in the 1930s from Holland to the then recently renamed Istanbul (was Constantinople as the 1953 novelty song by the Four Tops outlines. The song written on the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans).
I’ve started a blog to document my wife and I’s independent trip to Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Austria, Italy, Greece, Türkiye, and Mexico for my 50th birthday, though I begin with catching up on a trip to Thailand, the UK, Ireland, France and India when I was in my 20s in 1995 – many decades before my 50th birthday travels.
Here it is: The 50-year-old backpacker blog. And here’s some of the Juanito’s Travels 50 yr backpacker blog posts so far: Chiang Mai, Songkran (Thai New Year); Ayutthaya, near Bangkok to Lonely Beach, Koh Chang; Koh Chang, Lonely Beach, Massages & Koh Chang Seafood; Chiang Rai, White Temple, Wat Rong Khun and a little more Songkran and Hanoi, communism, Bánh mì, bánh bao and bún chả, Ho Chi Minh (the man) and the struggle for Vietnamese independence, plus some ‘fans only’ links 😉.
Here’s some stories from Mexico: Mexico City, Xochimilco, Guadalajara, Merida, Day of the Dead Catrinas and Tequila Zoopa Doopers; the Mayan jungle ruins on Palenque; a little crocodile I saw in Cancun; some cheap tacos I had in Mexico City on my very first visit there; and an interesting adventure in Yelapa in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.
Here’s some from Japan: Hiroshima, monuments to peace, A-bomb dome, cherry blossoms & bats, Snow Monkeys of Jigokudani, and A wet & windy day at Tokyo Disneyland.
And here’s some more from other parts of the world: Out and about in Reykjavik, Iceland; from Dachau to Oktoberfest; lemons of Capri and pizza of Naples; Rome in 31,415 steps; Venice, Burano & Murano; a Dodger Dog at Dodger’s Stadium; F*ck Hollywood LA; Outback Australia; something about a trip I took to India in the early 90s; Hammerhead’s guide to Cuba; visiting Hobbiton and Kaikoura in New Zealand; and Hitchhiking from France to England with Beth.
If you’re looking for something longer there’s my novela-length The Adventures of Kosio & Juanito (& Corinne). It’s set in the 90s, when I was in my 20s, on the east coast of Australia.
I’ve also started experimenting with travel videos check out: Songkran, Thai New Year Water Fun, Chiang Mai, Thailand; Happy Fun Time Guide to San Cristobal de la Casa Chiapas, Mexico; and How to Get a Bus to Yelapa Jalisco, Mexico.
If you want to get in touch, send me an email or message me through one of the social media apps below. By the way Beth (of Hitchhiking from France to England with Beth fame above as opposed to all the other Beth’s out there), send us a message if you read this, haven’t seen you since that truck driver dropped us off in London.
Juanito’s Travels is now on TikTok, seriously better than 95% of the crap that’s on there now, check it out: https://www.tiktok.com/@juanitos.travels
