Trapani has its own airport, or you can land in Palermo and catch a transfer to the port of Trapani (roughly one hour of travel).

The Egadi islands are three, from the biggest to the smallest: Favignana, Marettimo and Levanzo.

Favignana

Favignana is the biggest islands of the three, with a quite nice town. It has roads so ideally you could drive around the island, but is best visited by boat, like all Egadi.

Besides the famous Tonnara (a place when once tunas where captured and processed), the gem of the island is CALA ROSSA, which is without any doubts one of the best bay-beach of all Sicily (and Italy and I dare to say the whole Mediterranean Sea)

Cala Rossa

You can there by land, as you can see from the aerial perspective, but the shore (like almost everywhere) is rocks, so best to rent a boat or join and excursion.

Favignana Cala Rossa

Visiting Favignana by boat allows you to find your own secluded bay in the island, where to enjoy one of the best waters to swim you can find.

favignana egadi

The rocky shores were once limestone (“tufo”) quarries, and the rocks were removed and transported using small boats: this stopped few decades ago, even if a small quantity is still extracted today, and very, very expensive.

Marettimo

In Marettimo you can already start to forget about roads and cars! Half of the coast is a marine protected area, and it is has only one small town, where you can find few restaurants and accomodation. There is a beach reachable by foot heading west from the town, you can see the way in this drone hyperlapse.

The island if famous for the many sea caves, which can be explored by one of the many boat tours available, usually lasting from a couple of hours to half a day.

Marettimo cave

The most impressive bay of the island is Cala Bianca, which has one of the best seabeds and color of water around.

Marettimo cala bianca

Levanzo

Levanzo, with less than 6 km² of surface, is the smallest island of Egadi, and definitely my favorite one to stay.

There is only a tiny little village in the whole island, 2 restaurants and probably no more than 5 options for accomodation, and that’s why I believe it to be a true gem.

This is basically all the populated area of the island:

Levanzo town Panorama Drone

There are three beaches easily reachable by a short walk from town, all rocky ones, you won’t find sand beaches. First one, 15 minutes walking west of town, is Cala Faraglione, which has a small rock offshore.

levanzo cala faraglione

The other two, on the east side of town are Cala Fredda and then Cala Minnola.

I strongly recommend you to do a boat tour of the island to see the wild north side (with Cala Tramontana), and organize from here your trips to Favignana and Levanto.

My reco as boat tour is “Franco e Alida“, a formidable couple where he’s the sailor and she’s the cook: we had the best time in our holiday with them!

Here’s some night shots of this amazing place:

And this is the hyperlapse, a feature of the DJI Mavic 2 PRO which I really start to love!!!

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Let me give you a feeling of the place with this footage!

During the planning of our Mexican trip (check the previous post on Teotihuacan pyramids), it has been an hard choice between Isla Holbox vs Isla Mujeres, and after a long research we have decided for this beach-town island. Why? Mainly to avoid the crowd.

Isla Holbox From Above: the town in foreground, Punta Cocos in background

Before describing I have to say to everyone that’s making the choice: if you are looking for pristine, blue waters crowded with corals and fishes, HOLBOX IS NOT THE CHOICE!

We loved this place, but for many other reasons, not if you are a snorkeling fan and looking to spend your time swimming and looking for fishes. This mainly for the really shallow waters and the green not-so-transparent water: amazing, but not ideal for snorkeling.

Beach near town

Holbox is the perfect destination if you are looking to relax walking on the beach, eating good food, avoid crowds, stay in the nature, enjoying the sunsets, avoid cars and pollution, sleep in small and family-type hotels, and finding a piece of beach where you are (almost) alone.

Beach in Punta Mosquito, north of the island, reachable by bike and walking

Easiest way to get here is ask your hotel a transfer from Cancun Airport: it is 2 hours of car-bus, than less of 1 hour of boat and a short golf cart transfer to your hotel. For a roundtrip transfer Cancun-Holbox consider around 130 USD.

I strongly recommend you to stay in a hotel ON the beach, and the best choice in my opinion is Casa Las Tortugas: it is in town, yet has one the best private beach in front of it, at a reasonable cost.

You can move around Isla Holbox in 3 ways:

1. walking: consider that from town to the far west point (Punta Cocos) is 30 minutes by walking
2. bike: you can rent a bike everywhere, and it is the best way to move
3. taxi cart: they take you everywhere and quite cheap: from town to punta cocos is 100 MXN

It is easy to orientate: the north part is Punta Cocos, a beautiful beach perfect for sunset on the sea:

Then there is the town, full of shops and restaurants. And also of wall arts, which I found amazing. You can walk around trying to collect as many of them!

I can recommend to places to eat: for tacos, burritos and traditional mexican food go to Taco Queto,  it is delicious and for a good price. For more fancy dining, and wonderful breakfast (like huge pancakes and french toasts) Básico. In any case, try the local beer “Los Peleones”!

Local artesenal beer “los peleones”

Moving east, comes the wild part, until you reach Punta Mosquito.

Here’s the crowd is very very few, and you can make some amazing wildlife encounters, like for example the jurassic Horseshoe Crab, completely harmless, and an endangered species.

Horseshoe crab hiding below the sand, in shallow water. Don’t step on them!

Dead horseshoe crabs on the beach

You will find many of them lying on the beach upside down, dead, unfortunately. If you find one still breathing, it easy to help him flipping back, and guide him back to the sea:

I was amazed to find also eagles, like these couple of black-and-white hawk eagles, protecting their nest nearby.

Black-and-white hawk eagles

The view here is the best of the island, just beach, nature and wildlife, and very few tourists. Definately a perfect place to spend you holiday!

Punta Mosquito

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In the package you can’t do a walk among the hanging bridges, and see the cloud forest from a slower pace! Beware of the heavy rains in Monteverde, otherwise you will literally drawn like we did!

On the way down from Monteverde, you could stop to Puntarenas for a 1-day tour to beautiful Isla Tortuga, a small island famous for snorkeling and water sports. Best way to visit it is with the beautiful catamaran of Calypso Cruises:

On the way down from Puntarenas you can’t miss a crocodile tour in Rio Tarcoles, a national park along the massive river Tarcoles. You really can see them from an extremely close point of view and watch the guides feeding them, watch the video on here!

Next stop is Marino Ballena National Park, the best spot in Costa Rica for whale watching, and worth sleeping 1 night.

On the way down to Corcovado National Park, you should stop to have what I considered the best meal in Costa Rica, in a very nice restaurant along the way down, called Ballena Bistro.

Ballena Bistro Costa Rica Restaurant

Ballena Bistro Costa Rica Restaurant

Corcovado National Park is one of the most remote places you can visit in Costa Rica, but it is definitely worth while. Main village to access there is Carate Beach, a group of hotel and hostel right on the beach. Here you can mainly chill out in the jungle and walk along the endless volcanic beach: beware that you cannot swim here, at all!

costa rica carate beach

costa rica carate beach

If you are lucky, you can witness the green turtle nesting right on the beach, without any tour or ticket entrance, just right there on the beach. We’ve been that lucky, and this is what we saw right when we arrived in Carate:

The 1 day hiking activity to Corcovado National Park allows you to see different wildlife, according to your luck. Consider an 6-7 hours of walking, under a very warm climate, so be prepared.

Most beautiful sightings of the place are macaws, in Carate there are tons of them, and you can see in the sky always a couple of them flying around. Or even upclose like below

During the walk in Corcovado we were followed by menacing, angry White-headed capuchin monkeys, marking their territory:

We also spotted colorful frogs:

And a tarantula spider:

From the solitude of Carate Beach we went back north to Manuel Antonio National Park, one of the most famous parks in Costa Rica. The beach in the main town is mainly for water sports, not so good for swimming, while the beaches inside the national park are quite beautiful.

Costa Rica From Above: Manuel Antonio National Park Tombolo

There is an high chance of spotting sloths, which I found the most funny and interesting animals of Costa Rica!

Last stop of the travel was Tortuguero National Park: the main reason to visit it is to spot the turtles nesting during the night, and visiting the river canals around. Honestly, since we experienced a turtle nesting in front of us in Corcovado, this part of the trip was not particularly exciting.

On the long way from San Jose to Tortuguero (bus+boat) we stopped for another species of sloath, smaller and cuter than the usual ones!

costa rica pescart sloath

Best thing for us was the night tour for spotting nocturnal wildlife, and the presence of beautiful red frogs!

Thanks for reading and follow me on Instagram or watch the videos from my travels on my Youtube Channel!

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Right south of world-famous Costa Smeralda, this area has been declared a protected area only in 1997.

It can be easily reached by Olbia Airport, from which you can easily go in all the coast within half an hour, but you must rent a car, no other way of moving around.

Let’s start from the town of San Teodoro, the south limit of this area, which is a good place to find an accommodation and start exploring the area. It has also a very very long white sand beach, called La Cinta

La Cinta – San Teodoro

They are also building a port, which gave me a wonderful occasion for an aerial shot like this one, created stitching together 16 photos.

Geometry Port Sardinia

Also very this one, which should be some kind of factory, unfortunately I couldn’t understand of what!

Industrial Mixtape Sardinia

Moving north 20 minuted by car you will get closer to the heart of the park, with the twin beaches of Lu Impostu and Cala Brandinchi.

Lu Impostu – Sardinia

Lu Impostu Sardinia

To access to both of them, there is a public parking lot, which costs around 15-20 euros by day.

Cala Brandinchi is also famous as “Piccola Tahiti” (small tahiti), due to the very shallow, green blue water, which is one of the best of the area, and perfect for walking and sunbathing. Swimming here requires a long walk toward the sea!

Cala Brandinchi Sardinia

Cala Brandinchi

Cala Brandinchi is the beginning of Capo Coda di Cavallo (Horse Tail Cape), a peninsula facing the Islands Molara and Tavolara, heart of the Marine Park.

The head of the peninsula has a wonderful beach called Spiaggia di Punta Est:

Spiaggia di Punta Est Sardinia

The water is so blue that makes a paradise for aerial photography (and for everything else)

Capo di Coda Cavallo Sardinia

If you find yourself in a windy day, I recommend you a tiny bay which is protected by waves and wind, Cala Suaraccia, also called Le Farfalle (Butterflies).

Cala Suaraccia Sardinia

North you will finally find Isola di Tavolara, also famous for being the “world’s smallest kingdom“: you can get here with a public ferry from Porto Cesareo.

Enjoy this paradise and remember to always respect the nature!

Isola Tavolara Sardinia

Isola Tavolara 2 Sardinia

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If those are your search criteria, Tioman Island is the place to go. It can be reached both from Kuala Lumpur and Singapore: from Singapore, it will take 4-5 hours of bus and 1-2 hour of public ferry. I strongly recommend to book through WTS, the only operator that offers combined tickets bus + ferry, that will save you the hassle of looking for the right tickets.

I was lucky enough to find a deal in the most beautiful resort on the island, a luxury eco-lodge called Japamala, situated in the south coast of the Island. Arriving to the resort you realize how isolated and peaceful your holiday will be, since only a private boat can get there.

The bungalows are IN the rainforest jungle, with a view to the sea:

From the beach, a pier connects to a small bar-restaurant, which you can also use when there is low tide. The whole beach is surrounded by a colorful coral reef, so you can swim directly from the beach on high tide, while use the pier on low tide. The coral reef is REALLY on the beach, probably 10 meters from the sandy beach.

Even without your snorkeling mask, you can just look down and see the corals from above, as the water is completely transparent.

Next to the restaurant, in front of the beach, an artificial pond is the favorite fishing ground for huge lizards that nest nearby, long 1.5 meters, quite impressive to see!

Tioman is perfect for snorkeling and diving excursion, even if just staying in your resort will grant you wild encounters like sea turtles, which are very frequent in the area. Anyway, if you want to do just 1 boat trip to explore the island, Coral Island is the place to go.

Coral Island aerial view

Coral Island is one the north-west side of Tioman Island, and it is easily reachable within 1-2 hours of boat, depending where you are staying on the island.

If Tioman is a paradise, this is a step further: a completely inhabited island with isolated beaches, coral reefs and you, that’s all.

The color of the sea switches from light to deep blu, with the green jungle in the middle.

I found this place as one of the best preserved marine park I’ve seen in the world, with a unique mix of peace, nature and astonishing sea life. No more can be said of this paradise!

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Let’s start with the beaches, the most famous ones are Copacabana (more touristic – common people) and Ipanema (more fancy one), and crowd is always present from sunrise to the stunning sunsets. On the point between the two beaches, there are rocks where you can sit, sip a freshly made cocktail and enjoy the sunset.

The best is to rent an Airbnb or an hotel just in front of the beach, so you can wake up early and enjoy a beautiful sunrise on the beach:

Rio de Janeiro is more about experience than visit, but there are some things you can’t miss. First one is obviously a visit up to the statue of Christ the Redeemer, which is done by a railway. It is always particularly crowded, but the scenery is breathtaking.

Exactly on the opposite side of the beautiful landscape, stands the hill Pan de Azucar, or Sugar Loaf, on top of which you can reach using a cablecar quite scenic.

Once you reach the top, you can walk around and find different views of Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema and Copacabana beaches.

Copacabana Beach

If you wait up until the sunset, you will enjoy a beautiful one, with Christ the Redeemer just in front of you.

Downtown Rio de Janeiro is worth visiting for the famous Escadaria Selarón, a famous stairway painted by Chilean artist Jorge Selarón. They connect the neighborhoods of Lapa and Santa Teresa: it does not look like a safe area, so visit during the day and be careful of your belongings.

Look around the steps for different quotes from different countries, here’s one of italian 50s actor Totò:

The area around is full of interesting wall paintings – graffiti – which often criticizes the government and the state of poverty of the population.

Last but not least, you can’t visit Rio de Janeiro and not experience and see the life in the favelas. It is not someting you can do alone, so join one of the many NGO that organizes guided visit to them. We visited the favelas of Rocinha, Brazil’s biggest favela, with Favelatour.org.

You will hop off the bus only in specific points, and you won’t walk inside the favelas. There are tours that do that, but it will take almost a day to dedicate to this experience.

Rio de Janeiro is full of viewpoint, if you find a good driver it is worth to dedicate half a day to drive around the nearby jungle, uphill, and discover new prospective to view this beautiful city.

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1. Fly to Phuket, and then a ferry to Phi Phi
2. Fly to Krabi, and then a ferry to Phi Phi.

The main port is Tonsai Pier, in the south of the main island, called Ko Phi Phi Don, where all the hotels are located. The other island is called Ko Phi Phi Lee, and it is where the famous The Beach is located.

Tonsai Pier

From Tonsai Pier you can choose to stay around the south of Island, where most of the life happens, or move to the north, where the Laem tong beach, an isolated part of the Island reachable only by boat, and hosting only 4 or 5 resorts.

Laem Tong

My drone footage will help me to show you how is this place:

From this part of the Phi Phi, you can organize an half day snorkeling tour to Bamboo Island, renting a taxi boat for around 20-30 euros.

This is probably the best part of the island, pristine water, amazing corals.. it is truly a paradise! If you want to approach and stay on the beach you will have to pay a tax of 400 baht per person (12 euros)

Bamboo Island

All the island has beautiful and hidden beaches, better seen by renting a long boat, which will take you everywhere, and you pay by the hour. An example is this amazing beach, which I have seen before by boat, and I then reached by drone for taking this amazing shot.

The Jungle Beach (Nui Beach)

And this a shot of how short actually is Phi Phi Island, this is all the south of it, at the end you can spot Laem Tong.

South Phi Phi Island

For getting to the famous The Beach from Laem Tong it is around 45 minutes by Long Boat, and I strongly suggest you to leave as early as possible, since from 8.00 am hordes of tourists assault the beach.

The Beach

Close to The Beach there is also the Pileh Lagoon, quite fascinating and beautiful for a swim!

I suggest you to add at your Phi Phi Islands vacation at least 1 night around Krabi, coming or going to Phi Phi Islands, and spend the night at the fabulous Railay Beach, around 45 minutes from the main pier.

Railay divides into Railay East, where a kind of muddy lagoon is not so attractive, and Railay West, a beautiful beach with nice resort. Best part is taking a 10 minutes walk to Phra Nang Cave Beach, which is truly astonishing.

In the foreground below you can see the Phra Nang Cave Beach, and behind it, on the other side, Railay East and the pier.

In the forest between, there is the best resort of Thailand, the amazing Rayavadee.

Phra Nang Cave Beach

Behind the small mountain in the middle, you can spot Railay West.

Phra Nang Cave Beach

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