Welcome back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

My ears are a total mess right now, but I’m very happy about it, if that makes any sense at all.

After leaving our island paradise of Koh Samui, we took a VERY bumpy speedboat to another island paradise called Koh Tao. Koh Tao is basically known for one thing - scuba diving. And that’s exactly what we’ve spent the last 5 days doing - Lisa was getting her Advanced Open Water certification, and I was just along for the ride diving wherever she went. We had such an amazing time diving - I had really forgotten just how much I enjoy it. The last time I went scuba diving was on this very island, 4 years ago. What a different world it was then.

We met up with the amazing people at Simple Life Divers (the dive shop that I always use whenever I head to Koh Tao, they’re the best) and they got us ready to dive and into the water straight away. We did our refresher course (like I said, it had been 4 years, it was time to go over hand signals and skills again) in a pool, and then went out to see what these famous dive sights looked like after 2 years of no tourism. And, I have to say, I was blown away by what a 2 year break did to the coral and reefs of Koh Tao. Everything was so vibrant, so colorful, so filled with fish activity - it was like the clock had been reversed and everything was just thriving under the ocean.

We dove around, saw some pufferfish, massive groupers, Little Nemo’s (clownfish), and thousands and thousands of other fish. The coral was like a fireworks show on the bottom of the ocean - every color you could possibly imagine, and more down there, with sealife big and small darting around. Scuba diving is truly entering another world.

The only downside to the whole thing is that my ears always, always end up infected the first time I come back to scuba diving. I’m sure it’ll pass in a few days, and it was totally worth it, but for now it feels like my ear is the itchiest thing in the world.

I have to say, now might be the absolute best time ever to come and see Koh Tao. We got private, personal scuba dives from a divemaster with 5000+ logged dives, in one of the most beautiful diving locations in the world, for a rock-bottom price. What more can you ask for?

Today we are getting on a boat to head to Koh Phangan, where we are going to spend Christmas exploring that beautiful island. I don’t have much to say about this place, because the only experience I have on it is the famous Full Moon Parties, which means that I haven’t really seen any of it at all. I’m really excited to go to a new place, one that I’ve never been to. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to go to somewhere new. I’m ready. I just wish my ear was a bit more ready.

THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT (IN CASE YOU MISSED IT)

When we hit 100,000 subscribers, we're going to give away a trip around the world to one of you. Yep. We're literally going to send one of you on a trip around the world once we hit 100,000 subscribers here on YouTube.

One of the biggest reasons we started this channel was to inspire and show others that they CAN travel. On top of that, we wanted to help people actually do it and show people it is possible. Because before we did it, we didn’t think it was either. We decided the ultimate way to make this happen is to also just give people the means to actually travel.

While it still seems so far away, we have never felt more excited about a goal. As we get closer to our goal, we will smooth out the details aaaand we'll definitely need to work with an accountant to figure out how to do this - anyone know a good one? 🙂

We know, more than most, that the biggest hurdle to taking a trip is the finance part of it. Sometimes it is hard to know where to even start. We know that we're incredibly lucky to be able to do this, and we think that this experience, and all that travel we've done, has been life changing for us in the best possible way, and we want to make it our purpose to give away the gift of travel as often as we can, as our channel grows.

So, all of the money that we make from this channel above how much it costs for us to keep eating (all those kebabs), traveling, and making these videos, will go towards sending one of you on this trip around the world.

So, stick around. More info to come as we get closer to this goal - we can’t wait :)

Videos this week

Our last few days in Koh Samui were spent going everywhere we could on the island so that we could report back to you exactly what it’s like there right now. What’s open, what’s closed, what’s changed forever? I needed to know.

We also made a video about the overall experience of what it’s like to travel during COVID right now, especially internationally. It’s a new normal, and honestly everything has just gotten harder. Here’s the reality of travel right now.

So, that’s it for this week. More videos coming soon!

See you next Sunday…ish :)

- josh (and lisa)

Oh, and if you want to learn how we afford to take all these trips after quitting our jobs last year, you’ll likely be interested in our Skillshare course on Travel Hacking and Frequent Flier Miles. It’s been really taking off lately, but we still have a few uses of this link left for those of you who want to see the class for free. It comes with a free month of Skillshare, which is more than enough to watch our class and any of the other great courses on there!

Check it out here: https://skl.sh/3wstHhf

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