Hi Friend,

This is Maria from the Nerd Nomads travel blog.

A while back, you signed up for our travel newsletter, straight from our front page — no freebie, no catch, you just wanted to come along.

It’s been way too long since we’ve been in your inbox — and if you recently signed up, maybe we never made it there at all. Here’s why we’re back.

Today, more and more travel planning starts with AI. Sometimes it gets things right — but when it’s wrong, it’s spectacularly and confidently wrong, in ways that are sometimes funny, sometimes frustrating, and occasionally a real problem.

And what’s worse, the good stuff AI is summarizing is getting harder to find.

So we’re reaching out to tell you that we’re still here. Still traveling, still writing, still out there discovering the things you only find by actually being somewhere.

We’ve just spent five months on the road — Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and South Korea — updating our guides and planning new ones. We’ve come back with notebooks full of updates, wrong turns, new favorites, and a long list of things we wish we’d known before we went.

Because AI can’t explore the markets of Seoul for you. It can’t find that cozy mom-and-pop coffee shop that isn’t on Instagram, stop for a conversation with a local fisherman, or make the unexpected discoveries that end up being the best part of a trip.

And that’s why we’re bringing the newsletter back. It’s what we’ve done since 2014: real, first-hand travel writing from people who still get on 16-hour flights and figure it out in person.

Going forward you’ll get a mix of what’s actually useful: travel news worth knowing before a trip, plus our latest updated guides, tips from the road, and the odd deal when we spot a good one. Once or twice a month, and never more than that.

And if you’re planning a trip right now, hit reply and tell us where — we read and answer every one.

You’re already on the list, so there’s no need to do anything. But if travel’s not on your mind these days, no hard feelings — you can unsubscribe right here.

More soon.

Maria & Espen
— The Nerd Nomads

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