Travel Co Entreprenuer, TV Show host, Thailand old hand trying to look young. http://t.co/iue83dqKau
Bangkok, Thailand
Joined January 2013
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Feeling fortunate. Dinner with clients in New York who’ve traveled with us 5 times over 22 years. They count their trip as highlights of their traveling lives, which changed their perception of travel. It’s a good reminder of what our mission is: to push boundaries, elevate and inspire.
Going Global TV in Canada, you folks are fab! Thanks for this lovely summary of our quarter-century obsession with luxury-meets-local! goingglobaltv.com/local-as-l…
Going Global TV in Canada, you folks are fab! Thanks for this lovely summary of our quarter-century obsession with luxury-meets-local! goingglobaltv.com/local-as-l…
Conventional travel wisdom suggests avoiding northern Thailand during the green season. Fortunately, I have never been good at following conventional wisdom.
When I first cycled through the north in 1999 and the early 2000s, I found myself wondering why nobody had told me this was the most beautiful season of all.
Every bicycle ride revealed another valley, another misty mountain, another reason to continue. Somewhere during those years, I stopped thinking of Thailand as somewhere to visit and started thinking of it as home. The green season won me over.
25 years later, I still believe northern Thailand saves its finest moments for the green season.
#smilingalbinothailand #northernthailand #greenseason #greenseasontravel #thailandtravels
Monday am, reflecting on a gratifying and humbling week.
Coverage in Wallpaper* and Robb Report, & the honor of Smiling Albino named the #1 luxury travel advisor at the Travel + Leisure Luxury Awards.
Weeks like these remind me of the huge responsibility we have to our clients who trust us, to our team who pour their hearts into this work, and to our partners and suppliers across SEAsia who help us make the impossible look easy.
I may be the one quoted in the articles, but these recognitions belong to all of you. Thank you team, guests, stakeholders. You make me believe that everything is possible.
A great week behind us, but a greater mission ahead. Vamos!
An early business advisor told me a good idea was 3% of success.
After years building a company, I think he was wrong.
A good idea is closer to 1%.
The other 99% is training, reviewing, tweaking, improving, and repeating.
In our business, the magic guests experience starts long before a trip begins. It comes from investing time in guide training, preparation, and making sure Plan B-C-D are all on brand, and ready.
Ideas are easy.
Execution is everything.
Daniel Fraser retweeted
Rafa cannot be an inspiration. And I mean that seriously.
Watched the RAFA series on Netflix with my daughters this week. The 9 year old was okay and maybe even excited. The five-year-old had to be - let's say - firmly encouraged to stay seated.
I kept pausing to tell them where I was when some of these matches happened. The 2008 Wimbledon final - Nadal winning his first on grass, at dusk, in what many still call the greatest match ever played. The 2012 epic, which for a lot of people remains the most complete - for me a complete heartbreak. The 2022 comeback - a man who had been told his foot condition might end his career after his first few grand slams, winning not only his 14th Roland Garros but his second AO.
Each of those matches is etched somewhere specific in my memory. The emotions came back watching the documentary like they hadn't gone anywhere.
My daughters of course couldn't relate. They will grow up creating their own moments and their own memories. I hope sport is part of that and maybe even their own matches, who knows.
But I kept coming back to the thought I mentioned at the beginning as I watched the series.
Rafa cannot be an inspiration.
Nobody can look at what he did - the physical punishment, the sheer doggedness, the way he kept coming back when his own body was the opponent - and think: I can do that. He belongs to a handful of people across all of human history, in sport or any other field, who achieved what they achieved.
Holding him up as a template is almost unfair to the rest of us.
But here is what the documentary does show: At the absolute pinnacle of human achievement, he felt self-doubt. He wanted to give up. He lost hope. He questioned himself in ways that will feel familiar to anyone who has ever tried to build something or push through something hard.
And that is the more honest inspiration.
Court Philippe-Chatrier has the words engraved: "Victory belongs to the most tenacious." But the tenacity that matters to most of us isn't the tenacity to win the tournament. It's the tenacity to win your own inner doubts. To show up when everything in you is arguing for staying put.
Showing up isn't just how you succeed. Showing up is the success.
My daughters will figure that out in their own way, in their own time. I just hope they have their own version of those matches to look back on when they need reminding.
Well done Netflix. Made me cry.
Asked to update SCB app in person at branch. Brought passport, bank book, work permit.
Turns out also need passport that expired years ago?!
Unable to update app, I calmly walked out, took a deep breath.
Then killed 3 cats + hijacked a bus.
I feel I handled this reasonably well
Daniel Fraser retweeted
I’ve been struck by the virality of two interviews this month, one with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the other with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
AOC claimed that “you just can’t earn” a billion dollars, suggesting that every individual who’s achieved great wealth did so at someone else’s expense. AOC claimed successful people believe they’re “smarter, better” while viewing “the people at the bottom” as “uneducated, lazy, etc.”
Bezos responded by saying that “if millions of people choose your service, you’re going to end up with $1 billion.” Bezos said AOC was engaging in “an effective political technique,” namely, “when you don’t know how to solve a problem, create a villain, blame them.”
But Bezos went on to say that “the value to society and civilizations from my for-profit companies will be much, much larger than the good that I do with my charitable giving.” The message many seem to have taken from this is that his companies should be left free to do as they please because others benefit from their existence.
As an entrepreneur, I’d tell AOC that Bezos has a point: if you’ve taken risks, applied your time, energy and capital to build something from nothing and that something proves popular with the public, then you deserve to reap the rewards, however large they might be.
And like all entrepreneurs, I want as few regulations as possible governing my operations, and hopefully those regulations are sensible and not needlessly restrictive. But I accept that some regulations are needed because the actions a company takes can have unintended consequences.
Too many founders these days (mostly on the tech side) act like teenagers who’ve just discovered Ayn Rand. But it wasn’t mine owners who decided 10-year-old boys should no longer be sent deep underground. Truly unfettered capitalism has a pretty checkered history and acknowledging its potentially negative impacts isn’t out of bounds.
(Oh, and I’ve never felt ‘people at the bottom’ are lazy. Having grown up on a pig farm, I started a few rungs below bottom, and getting where I am today required a serious work ethic.)
Both sides of this debate can cite examples to support their arguments. As always, the answer remains somewhere in the middle, provided we’re willing to listen to each other.
Daniel Fraser retweeted
Beautiful article. "Friendship, however, has always depended on a certain irrational generosity. A willingness to waste time together magnificently. To listen to the same anxiety for the fifth time. To sit through silence. To remain available without agenda.
And perhaps this is why adult friendship feels increasingly radical. It resists the transactional logic modern life rewards everywhere else. Because a real friend offers something profoundly rare: unoptimised presence. Family is structured by blood. Marriage by institution. Work relationships by utility. Friendship survives purely through mutual choosing. Nobody has to stay. And yet some people do."
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…
Travel the world as soon as back in BKK you’re confronted with a taxi driver debating luggage size to add ฿20 to the fee. Why go through this brain damage? Just add ฿20 to the taxi fee and avoid the first impressions nonsense of petty costs + luggage. C’mon Thailand, up your game
Thank you Andrew Wood for this lovely tribute. Our hearts are filled with gratitude. |
Smiling Albino Marks 25 Years with Roaring Twenties Celebration at Hua Lamphong traveldailynews.asia/tour-op…
Daniel Fraser retweeted
In 2002 it felt like the biggest game ever. In 2010 it felt like the biggest game ever. And in 2026 it feels like the biggest game ever — again
One moment that shaped how we work today? Back in 1999, locals in Chiang Rai showed us places no travelers were visiting. It led to incredible discoveries and lasting friendships. Ever since, finding magic “an inch off the map” has been at the heart of what we do.
Former DMC+luxury MICE pros 👋
Looking for freelance event lead (4–6 mo.) to handle communications for a small incentive in Thailand.
Key requirement: excellent client service skills.
Research support provided.
BKK-based preferred (strong regional candidates too).
Keen? DM me ✨
Took 9 clients for canapés & drinks in LA. Ordered in advance, dined at opening hour 5 PM, paid a group surcharge + compulsory gratuity—yet felt like were an inconvenience + unwelcome. They wouldn’t make 2 bills due to “group policy”. What happened to hospitality, is it dead?
Absolutely and positively correct
“Roughly 70% of tourism revenue is concentrated in just five provinces, with demand focused on holidays and peak seasons — leaving most destinations with limited income.”
This is hardly new. Alongside other forward-looking industry leaders and organizations like @PATA_HQ, we’ve been advocating for visitor dispersion for years. The solutions are well-known; meaningful dialogue with the private sector can help government finally take decisive steps to avoid overtourism, protect natural and cultural sites, and achieve sustainable growth that benefits the whole country.
France, roughly the same size as Thailand, welcomes more than twice as many tourists who spread across the country. And the IT for time-slot management at major sites and museums has existed for decades. Time to implement it at the Grand Palace, Wat Chetupon, Wat Arun, and other iconic Thai sites.
bangkokpost.com/business/gen…
We’re honoured to be mentioned in @afarmedia’s (kudos @katromeyn) article on seeing Thailand without crowds at places like Koh Yao Noi, Nan, Khao Sok, and Bangkok: link in the bio @smilingalbino
smilingalbino #afarmedia #afar #travelblog #travelthailand
afar.com/magazine/how-to-get…
