A travel book written by Vietnamese for Vietnamese

Quyen Le Gjone Start Date: Oct 29, 2018 - End Date: Oct 28, 2019
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • Andorra
  • Lisbon, Portugal
  • Gothenburg, Sweden
  • Aarhus, Denmark
  • Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Bordeaux, France
  • Nice, France
  • Budapest, Hungary
  • Prague, Czechia
  • Vienna, Austria
  • Florence, Metropolitan City of Florence, Italy

My Travel Story

by: Quyen Le Gjone Start Date: Oct 29, 2018 - End Date: Oct 28, 2019
Hi, my name is Quyen Le, and I'm from Vietnam.

In 2014 I got a scholarship from the Swedish Institute (SI) and moved to Gothenburg to take my Master degree in Communication. One year later, I met the love of my life. I decided to drop off my studies to settle down in a small town outside Oslo, Norway. Long story short, now I'm a proud mother of two small trolls, a freelancer, a travel blogger, and a book writer.

Travelling and writing have always been my biggest passion. Through travelling, I could push myself to the limit, changed my stereotypes about people and countries, and thus changed the way I perceived the world. And of course, writing is the best way to keep experiences and memories fresh and forever.

During the last five years, travelling has become popular among young Vietnamese. Instead of doing exactly what we have been told to do by our parents, graduating from (should-be-famous) universities, having a stable job (preferably in a governmental organisation), finding a partner, getting married, and so on, we choose to travel.

However, there are few travel resources written in Vietnamese, mostly in English, or translated from English. Sure people can find way more interesting resources from the Internet, but something which is written in our mother tongue, with a Vietnamese point-of-view, by an "insider", is just unbeatable, or in other words, can trigger people more than any other materials in other languages out there.

But what makes my travel ideas different from others, you may ask. It's the way I combine it with local food experience. Could you read some pieces of advice in any Vietnamese travel forums, will you notice that the most common one to bring instant noodles and some dried food instead of trying local dishes. And the second most popular one is about how boring and "bland" European food is, compared to ours!

Of course, I love "Phở" (in case you don't know what it is, it's our national soup. We can eat it for breakfast, lunch, even dinner. All day long. All year round.), but I also like surströmming (Sweden), svickova (Czech), porchetta (Italy), or lutefisk (Norway). Each of them has more than just a recipe to tell travellers. We learn about a country's culture and history through its food.

I'm doing some final cuts of my first travel book, "Let's fika!", featuring my travel in Europe and also Scandinavian lifestyle: hygge, lagom, fika, and so on. The idea for my second travel book is "The twelve months of Europe", featuring my 5-day-trip each month (starting in Jan. 2019, hopefully) to a European city/ country to write travel journals and experience their food, by for example taking food tours, cooking class, or just simply visiting farmers' markets to embrace the local industry.

Through these trips, and later, the publishing of my travel book, I'd love to encourage young Vietnamese to travel more, see more, and widen their horizons. I also want to decode rumours about boring European food, influence travellers to support the local travel industry by taking part in tours organised by the locals, and prove that it doesn't have to be expensive to travel the world by travelling on a well-calculated budget.

As a travel blogger, I may have chances to get support in form of accommodations, discount, etc. at places I'll be visiting. The cost for my travel will thus be reduced, hopefully.

The rest of the donation will be transferred to "Com Co Thit" (Rice with Meat at www.tnvc.vn), a non-profit organisation aiming to help children from ethnic minorities in North of Vietnam with food, warm clothes, education, medicines, and so on, on behalf of FundMyTravel as well as funders with the highest amount.

Please visit my website www.misagjone.com/en/ for updates about my trips, cost breakdown after each trip, and the writing process.

Thank you for any donation you can make. Your contribution will help me make the first travel & culinary book written by a Vietnamese, for Vietnamese.

Thanks!
Quyen
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • Andorra
  • Lisbon, Portugal
  • Gothenburg, Sweden
  • Aarhus, Denmark
  • Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Bordeaux, France
  • Nice, France
  • Budapest, Hungary
  • Prague, Czechia
  • Vienna, Austria
  • Florence, Metropolitan City of Florence, Italy

Updates

2
  • More Detailed In My Blog

  • What Is My Website About?

    Hi,

    In case you've read but don't want to donate, that's fine, just have a look at my website. Maybe you'll find some useful guides/ tips there ;-)

    http://www.misagjone.com/en/