Three Years of Salty Vagabonds: Japan, Grenada & What You Didn’t See
The Edit: Salty Vagabonds turns three. Started with a boat we built ourselves and a Clubhouse show, the brand has grown into 264 posts covering military hops, points stays, and slow travel across 19 countries and 11 Native American nations. This post covers where the name came from, our numbers, our most read posts of the year, and honest good, bad, and ugly stories from Guam, Japan, Grenada, and Australia. Featured in People, Business Insider, Wired, Deadline, and Adweek.
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Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| First post on saltyvagabonds.com | August 7, 2023 |
| Traveling full time since | 2018 |
| Published posts | 264 |
| Posts in year three alone | 144 |
| Countries and territories visited | 19 |
| Native American nations visited | 11 |
| Military hops flown | 26+ |
| Nights at Hyatt | 100+ (100 in a single year) |
| Trips to Japan | 3 |
| Imoova road trips | 3 |
| Cruises | 2 |
| Most covered destination | French Polynesia (50+ posts) |
| Books published | 1 |
| Featured in | People, Business Insider, Wired, Deadline, Adweek |
| Travel style | Carry on only for short trips, checked bags for extended stays |
Three Years? How Did That Happen
Our first post went live on August 7, 2023. It was a hotel review for Vive Cerritos in Baja California Sur. We had no idea what we were doing, and honestly it shows. But three years and 264 posts later, here we are.
Most of you found us through one post. Maybe it was military hops, maybe it was Bora Bora, maybe it was a Japan itinerary. So it felt like time to tell you who we actually are and why this blog reads the way it does.
Where the Name Came From
We built our 36 foot wooden catamaran ourselves in 2019 and 2020, then sailed her from Washington down to Baja, Mexico in 2021. We still own her. That’s where this whole thing started.
We were spending the winter around La Paz when we started a room on Clubhouse called The Salty Vagabonds Club. It was all about alternative living: boat life, van life, RVs, bike packing, living on the road. In May 2021 the show was picked for Clubhouse’s Creator First Pilot Season. Thousands of creators applied and about 50 were chosen. Clubhouse funded each pilot, and Deadline covered the lineup.
That’s when the name stopped being a room title and became the brand. “Salty” is the ocean, the salt on your skin, the salt from sweating your way through the tropics. “Vagabonds” is the moving, the sightseeing, the never quite settled part. And the S and V? That’s s/v, sailing vessel.
We kept the boat as part of who we are and built something bigger around it. What started as one Clubhouse room slowly turned into a full blog, then a brand, then the archive of guides you’re reading now. The name stuck with us the whole way, so we grabbed it everywhere: TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and the domain.
Why Our Guides Read Differently
Most travel blogs tell you where to go. We try to tell you how to actually get there and what to do once you’re on the ground.
That means the bus route, the train, the ferry schedule, the rental car counter. It also means knowing where the real deals are and how to stretch a points stay. How to fly military hops with kids and carry on bags only. How to road trip a whole country for next to nothing in a relocation van. Or how to house and pet sit your way into longer stays.
Slow Travel, Real Logistics
Beyond the how, it also means thinking outside the normal tourist box. Tahiti is a perfect example. Most people treat it as a pass through on the way to Bora Bora, but don’t. Instead, stay three days rather than one, because there’s enough on that island alone that you don’t need to leave it.
Then take the ferry to Moore and figure out how to get between the islands without defaulting to the most expensive option, including the overnight cargo ferry. Because we’ve spent two long trips in French Polynesia, almost two and a half months the first time and three months the second, we now have more than 50 posts on it, right down to what the trip actually costs and the free hikes most visitors skip.
We also slow travel. Since we try to max out the visa in every country, our guides come from months on the ground rather than a long weekend. We’ve done multiple six month stretches in Mexico alone. Then there’s Malaysia, which turned into a family favorite over several months. Add the Southern Hemisphere, the Northern Hemisphere, Europe, the Pacific, and road trips across the US, and that’s three years of guides written from actually living somewhere, not passing through.
And because Alex is an FAA certified pilot, aircraft dispatcher and drone pilot (Part 107), when we write about airlines and flying, it’s coming from someone who actually knows how the system works.
As Seen In
- People: Our family taking a military flight to get to our Disney cruise, a People exclusive, May 7, 2026 (link)
- Business Insider: Amanda quoted on TikTok’s launch of in app hotel booking and TikTok Go, August 2025. Her take: TikTok “slashed in half” the barrier to earning commission for creators (link)
- Wired: Featured in 2021 on The Salty Vagabonds Club and Clubhouse’s Creator First program, where Amanda said being on the app “has been a huge opportunity for small creators” (link)
- Deadline: Clubhouse’s Creator First Pilot Season lineup, May 2021 (link)
- Clubhouse: Meet the Creator First Finalists (link)
- Wonder Year: A Guide to Long Term Family Travel and Worldschooling: our family was interviewed for the boat life section and was published September 5, 2023
- Adweek: Named among the finalists in Clubhouse’s Creator First accelerator program, May 2021 (link)
Three Years by the Numbers
This is where we get a little nerdy.
- 264 published posts, and 144 of them came out in year three alone. Year one was 57 and year two was 50, so this last year we more than doubled everything before it.
- 19 countries and territories as a family (20 if you count the Conch Republic in Key West), plus Guatemala and Honduras for Amanda
- 11 Native American nations: Navajo, Hopi, Makah in Neah Bay, Quileute, Tohono O’odham, Ute Mountain Ute, Yavapai-Apache, Yavapai-Prescott, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, and Santa Ana Pueblo
- 7 countries in a single year
- 3 trips to Japan
- 26+ military hops across the US, Asia, and Europe
- 100+ nights at Hyatt, including 100 in a single year (World of Hyatt Review: Is It Worth It After 100 Nights?)
- 2 cruises: Margaritaville and Disney, which we caught free on a military hop
- 8 ferry crossings on 4 routes: South Island to North Island in New Zealand, Okinawa to Yoron and back, Tahiti to Bora Bora and back, and Tahiti to Moorea and back
- 3 Imoova road trips: Sydney to Cairns, Christchurch to Queenstown, and Queenstown to Auckland with a ferry across from the South Island to the North Island
- 1 published book
- Flights, hotels, and rental cars: honestly, too many to count
That book deserves its own spot. Our daughter Addison wrote and published A Thousand Flying Fish in August 2024 under our media publishing company. So what started with a boat and a Clubhouse room is now technically a publisher, and we could not be prouder of her.
On the Creator Side
Three years in, Salty Vagabonds isn’t just a travel blog. It’s also become a working creator brand.
Amanda is a Hispanic travel content creator, social media influencer, and lifestyle influencer. Between the two of us, we shoot all of our own photography and videography with professional camera equipment, so every destination we cover is captured in house. Alex is a certified drone pilot (Part 107), which means we can deliver commercial grade assets, including aerial content, that brands can legally license and use.
On ShopMy, we’ve held Icon status, the platform’s top tier, for the last few months. Our picks lean into luxury vacation lifestyle categories: beauty, fashion, resort wear, and family vacation outfits, the kind of pieces that photograph as well on an overwater bungalow as they do at a celebration back home.
We work in the luxury travel space as well as the everyday, so whether a brand needs licensable commercial content, a hotel partnership, or a creator who can actually deliver on location, that’s exactly where we fit.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Three years of travel isn’t all sunsets. Here’s the honest version.
The Good: Guam
Guam was never on our list. We flew military hops from Travis to Hickam planning to go straight to Japan, got about five hours of sleep in Waikiki, and woke up to find the next flight out was going to Guam. So we went to Guam.
On the plane we got to talking with Joe, a Chamorro local flying home from McChord. When we landed he asked if we had a ride or anywhere to go. We didn’t. His friend Robert, a retiree, was already picking him up in a right hand drive Japanese van he’d imported, so we just piled in. They took us out for Filipino food and dropped us at our hotel. We never asked for any of it. That’s military hops travel at its best, family helping family.
That whole trip became our Space-A to Asia vlog series, and it’s why we still tell people to pick Guam over Hawaii at least once.
That welcome set up the whole stay. We spent a week at the Hyatt, where they bring parrots into the lobby during check in (Hyatt Regency Guam review), explored Tumon Bay, and had an amazing docent at the Guam Museum. We arrived about six months after Typhoon Mawar, so the island was still recovering, but the hospitality never wavered. Guam feels like America but not quite, like Hawaii but not quite. It’s its own thing.
The Good: Japan
We’ve been to Japan three times now, including coming back for cherry blossom season, which was late that year, packed with tourists, and snowed on us. It was still worth it.
Japan is one of the cleanest countries we’ve ever been in, and everything just works: the trains, the flights, the infrastructure. People are respectful, and they’re respectful right back when you are. You do have to work a little harder here. You’ll stand out as a foreigner, English is hit or miss, and you need a charged phone to translate menus. But the payoff is huge.
What gets us most is how Japan blends the future with the natural world. Shrines built into the landscape, old homes joined without nails, knives forged by hand. And the food. Some of the best meals of our lives came from places you’d walk right past.
In Okinawa there’s Tutan, down a jungle lined street in a neighborhood where you spend the whole walk asking yourself if you’re in the right place (you are), with maybe six tables and a meal that felt five star. Island Pig House still has the best pork belly we’ve ever eaten. Pound in Kyoto served the best skirt steak we’ve had anywhere. And the Hyatt Regency Tokyo Bay, of all places, served tempura shrimp for breakfast that we still talk about.
We’ve written up most of it: two weeks of sightseeing, the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto, Okinawa with kids, and why we’d pick Okinawa over Hawaii.
The Bad: The Wrong Side of the Road
Alex had driven in Grenada on quiet country roads, but Okinawa was the first time he was driving on the left every day. Leaving Kadena, he made a right turn at a stoplight and did what every American brain wants to do: hug the corner tight. Halfway through the turn, headlights. He swerved left and we made it to the Motobu Peninsula in one piece, but the lesson stuck. Turning right means swinging wide. (Everything to know before renting a car in Japan)
The Ugly: Grenada
After our Japan and Asia trip, we took a house and dog sit in Grenada so we could slow down and push all that content live. We’ve been house and pet sitting for five years and it’s usually one of our favorite ways to travel (here’s how we do it with a family). This one was different. The house was way out in the country, on the other side of the island from town. Something felt off from the start. A neighbor was flying a drone over the house, and we couldn’t shake the feeling we were being watched.
About two weeks in, we found a hidden camera inside a clock, pointed at the kitchen and living room. We documented everything, notified the house sitting platform, and left the next day. We filed reports with the US Embassy and the local police, and every person we told had the same reaction we did.
It blew up our plans and our budget, so we went back to Mexico where we could afford to regroup. A few weeks later, Hurricane Beryl hammered Grenada. It then crossed toward the Yucatan, where we were renting a beach house in Puerto Morelos. By then it had weakened, and with a little help from Alex’s meteorology background we drove inland to Mérida for a few nights to ride it out. That detour is how we ended up spending six months in the Yucatan.
The bright spot in Grenada was True Blue Bay, which we’d still recommend to anyone going.
The Ugly: Uayma
In the Yucatan, we were taking photos outside the Iglesia de Uayma, the old Ex Convento de Santo Domingo, when we noticed a few guys lurking around the park. Nobody came up to us, nothing happened, but it was enough that we packed up and moved on. Trust that feeling.
We share these not to scare you off. We’d go back to all of these places. It’s just real, and you deserve the real version.
What We Wish We Knew: Australia in Summer
We drove from Sydney to Cairns in an Imoova van and spent about a month in Cairns. If you’ve never heard of Imoova, it’s a platform for one way rental relocations. Rental companies need vans, cars, and trucks moved from one city to another, so they list them on Imoova hoping someone is already headed that direction. You get the vehicle for a fraction of the normal cost, and they get it where it needs to be. We used it for road trips in both Australia and New Zealand.
What nobody told us: in summer you can’t really swim off a lot of the beaches up there. There are crocodiles, and jellyfish season runs pretty much the whole summer. If we’d known, we would have planned where we stayed and for how long very differently.
Respect Fixes Most of It
Here’s what three years taught us. If you go somewhere and respect the culture, the people, and the land, you’re probably not going to have problems.
The tourists who run into trouble are the ones climbing on ancient ruins, climbing on religious sites, writing on things, and dressing like the rules don’t apply to them. We see it everywhere. Cover up when it’s expected. Stay off what you’re not supposed to touch. Act like a guest, because you are one.
Our Most Read Posts This Year
Year three brought in 139,675 page views from 84,257 readers. Here’s what you read the most:
- Veterans Day Freebies and Deals for 2026
- How to Fly Military Space Available (Space-A) Flights Guide
- The Ultimate Bora Bora Day Pass Guide: Every Resort, Prices and What’s Included
- Hale Koa Hotel Review: Is This Military Hawaii Resort Worth It?
- A Complete Guide to ShopMy for Beginners
- The Best Snorkeling Spots on Moorea for Families
- ShopMy for Beginners: How to Get Approved, Set Up, and Actually Start Earning
- What Is the TikTok GO Program? Everything Creators Need to Know
- Is ShopMy Worth It in 2026? My Honest Year One Review
- St. Regis Bora Bora Day Pass: Everything You Need to Know
A few of these surprised us. Our Veterans Day deals post did most of its numbers in a single week in November, spiking to over 4,000 views in one day. It’s a small thing, but we’re always glad when that post gets in front of more veterans and their families.
Thank you for your service, truly. Three of the top four are military travel posts, which tells us exactly who we’re here for. And four of the top ten aren’t travel at all. They’re creator posts about ShopMy and TikTok GO, so a lot of you are trying to build something on the road too.
New Here? Start With These
- Military hops: How to Fly Military Space Available Flights Guide and The Real Military Hops Packing List
- French Polynesia: Our Top Family Favorite Things to Do in Tahiti and The Ultimate Bora Bora Day Pass Guide
- Mexico: The Best Things to Do on a Family Trip to Mexico
- Japan: 2 Weeks in Japan: Best Sightseeing and Attractions
- Australia: Salty Vagabonds Australia Unscripted: A Three Month Adventure
- US road trips: Top 15 Things to Do With Family in Southern Utah
- Worldschooling: How to Homeschool While Traveling Full Time Overseas
Thank You
Whether you’ve been here since that first hotel review or you landed on us yesterday looking for a ferry schedule, thank you. Every click, comment, save, and share is what keeps this thing going, and it’s why we can keep showing up with the real logistics instead of the same recycled lists.
Three years in, the best part is still hearing that one of our guides actually got someone on a Space-A flight, onto a ferry, or into a hotel they’d never have booked otherwise. Drop a question in the comments and we’ll do our best to get to it.
See you at year four. 😁
Amanda and Alex
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