Welcome back to Breakfast with Lisa & Josh!

It’s been a beautiful and extremely relaxing week in Koh Phangan for us, and in equal measure it’s been a quite stressful week for the wonderful people of Thailand that work in the tourism sector. Omicron is here, and the tourism industry that just recently came back to life has been cut down before it even got a chance to get back on its feet.

Just a few days ago, after seeing that Omicron cases made their way into Thailand, the Health Minister here decided to shut down the Test & Go scheme. It was a way to fly into Thailand, get tested upon arrival, and then be able to go quarantine free after your results arrived. This was really working - every day we would see more and more people flooding into the major ports like Phuket and Koh Samui, and then trickle from there out to the rest of Thailand. There was an air of hope from the hotel owners, restaurateurs, and tour operators - it really felt like things were going to start going back to normal. For a lot of these people, they hadn’t seen any real consistent income for the better part of 2 years. That’s a lifetime in the tourism industry, doubly so for boutique hotel owners.

The only current option for coming here (once all of the existing Test & Go codes expire on January 10, 2022) is to fly into Phuket and quarantine for 7 days in the sandbox there. After those 7 days, and a negative COVID test, you’re good to go.

Only a few problems - there’s absolutely no way for people from North or South America to fly into Phuket directly. Also, most people just do not seem willing to spend their precious few weeks off quarantining and doing the incredible amount of paperwork required to travel here. In just a couple of weeks, the air of hope we had for the reopening of tourism here seemed to totally disappear.

As we’re traveling around talking to people and filming, we naturally ask questions to those that live here about how they feel about the changes. It’s a mixed bag of people being glad that this is all being taken seriously intertwined with a growing worry that this just might be the final straw for many of their businesses and associated jobs.

To be clear, I don’t have anywhere near enough information or context here to have an actual opinion on this, I’m just reporting on what I’m seeing as we travel around Thailand. A week ago, things felt hopeful, even joyous - now, the worry and uncertainty is back for those here that work in the tourism industry. It might just feel like the rug has gotten pulled out from under them just as they were starting to find their footing in this new normal. And as I’m writing this, that’s exactly what I’m feeling as we close out 2021.

We spent a relaxing YouTube-free Christmas Day decorating our tree with paper ornaments, watching the best holiday movies (Die Hard and Love Actually—can you guess who picked which?) and having a potluck of our best local night market finds in our hotel room. But with all of that, our minds felt elsewhere—thinking about our friends, our families, and heavily on the topic above.

Sorry for the downbeat, quite serious tone of this whole email. My heart and mind are with the people that are around us right now, but also the entire world, as we grapple with what feels like a replay of 2020. I can imagine it feels like everyone, everywhere—healthcare workers, teachers, those working in hospitality and tourism, parents, grandparents— are struggling to find some light during this very weird, unexpected time. Thanks for listening - sending some good vibes to you all.

Our next stop is to head to Bangkok for New Years. We’re taking an overnight Ferry-Bus-Train-Bus tomorrow to make it there. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably.

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

This one is about our VERY bumpy ride from Koh Samui to Koh Tao.

We had to extend our visa to stay another month in Thailand. It was quite an experience. Check this one out :)

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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