bangkok

“You have to taste a culture to understand it,” according to travel writer Deborah Cater, and she’s quite right. After all, what is travel without experiencing new tantalizing tastes? What is a visit to Philadelphia without a Philly cheesesteak? Or to Maryland without crab cakes? Internationally, one simply must taste gyros in Greece, Peking duck in China, and massaman curry in Thailand.

Amazing beaches, delicious food, and affordable prices; Bangkok, Thailand has everything you want and more at an affordable price. Some people travel off as little as $30 ($1 converts to about 30 to 35 THB) per day.

One of the hardest decisions to make when traveling is how to remember your trip once you get home. The perfect souvenir can help to rekindle the experiences of your trip long after your sunburn has faded and you have recovered from jet lag. However, finding that perfect souvenir can be tricky. One place many people wouldn’t think to look for amazing deals is large markets, commonly known as bazaars. Found in every corner of the globe, bazaars can be indoor or outdoor, open seasonally or year-round. Each bazaar sells authentic specialty products for very low prices that tourists often pass over because they don’t know what to look for or what constitutes a good deal. Check out what a few bazaars around the world are selling to see where you can find high-quality items for economical prices.

During one of the hottest and most humid months of the year in Bangkok, Thailand, Nikhita Bhatia sits in the back of a truck in heavy traffic while the merciless sun beats down upon her head. Beads of sweat slowly drip down the side of her face. As the truck comes to a brief stop, she is bombarded with buckets upon buckets of ice-cold water from the passengers in a neighboring truck, instantly cooling her down and giving her goose bumps from head to toe. But without missing a beat, Bhatia picks up her own water bucket, armed and ready to fire back.

In 2008, Jodi Ettenberg of Montreal, Canada, made the drastic decision to take a year off of working as a lawyer in New York City to travel the world—an adventure that has yet to end. Five years later, she is still traveling and documenting her stories on her popular travel website (legalnomads.com). Ettenberg’s experiences and writing have allowed her to rethink what happiness means to her and to pursue a career as a travel writer. She has even published a book, The Food Traveler’s Handbook, on how to eat safe, inexpensive, tasty food while traveling. Stowaway caught up with Ettenberg between locations in India and Bangkok.