#18 PHILIPPINES

When I graduated from college in 2003, I moved to China to continue my Chinese language studies full-time. After a seemingly endless semester of having characters and tones drilled into my head, it was finally the Lunar New Year, and I was ready to escape the grey, bitter winter of Nanjing and head to the sunny Philippines instead!

I traveled with my friends, Zoran and Julia, to the island of Palawan because it promised to be an idyllic paradise way off the beaten back, at least back then. A few years earlier, a terrorist attack left several German tourists dead, and international tourists had been scarce ever since. But instead of chaos and danger, we discovered some of the most beautiful beaches we'd ever seen, and nary a fellow traveler insight.

The downside, of course, was the near-complete lack of tourist infrastructure. Even sourcing a meal required advance planning, often a day earlier, to secure a prized fish or grilled chicken. At least the local stores were well stocked with rum; otherwise, we might nearly have starved! This was also well before the era of digital cameras, so the following pictures are the only ones I've managed to hold on to after all these years. Note the lack of food photography, which is shocking for my habits!