We’re Rich and Paul and we confess to an unquenchable thirst to travel — and an equally strong disinclination to stay home! Over the last several years we’ve adapted to living full-time with only a suitcase, a good disposition and a whole lot of curiosity. We (temporarily?) moved out of our home in Portland, Oregon USA in 2023 and are officially nomads.

Our hotelguys project helps us keep track of where we’ve been and when. We need a lot of help to make this happen! You’ll find details about our hotel stays and apartment rentals too. We love meeting people, taking pics and learning new things. You’re welcome to snoop.

Lately, we’re been visiting about one country a month, on average, and sometimes take a rental for an entire month in one location. We’re retired. We have time to linger and immerse ourselves in the often magically mundane aspects of our destinations.

Browse our site by choosing a country in the navigation. Or choose one of our themed excursions to read periodic blog entries. We have more than 20 podcasts too. Rich likes to post on Instagram and Facebook. You’ll find links to social media in the navigation.

Go ahead, scroll down a little more. Our site is completely non-commercial with no affiliate links or paid posts. Have fun and be happy!

Current Itinerary

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we just emerged from sitting in contemplation inside the matrimandir, behind us, while visiting the spiritual community of auroville near Pondicherry, india

We’re feeling the magic in 2025 and have molded our year to be largely in south and southeast Asia. We’ve reflected on our diverse travel experiences of more than the last half a dozen years or so and generated near-term return visits to Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. It’s not exactly “the best of” the Hotel Guys tour but we have found what works for us and we’re doing more of that.

We’re currently in Sri Lanka. We’ve returned to a two-week stay in an Airbnb we discovered last year on the outskirts of the delightful mountain town of Kandy. It’s quiet and comfortable. The perfect place to dig into our ongoing self-awareness pursuits within and with our teachers Matias DeStefano and GeneKeys.com. We’ll also wander through the lush tea-growing region of Ella, Yala National Park and the old historic port town of Galle before our month-long visa runs out.

We then jump to India with a return visit to Varanasi. Home base however will be in Sarnath, one of Buddha’s hangouts back in the day. We’ve dreamed of a return visit to just roam around aimlessly looking for spicy chai from a street vendor offering a few dusty stools to sit, sip and enjoy.

We’ll explore more of India with a first-time visit to the state of Odisha and the triple temple towns of Bhubaneshwar, Puri and Konark. In Konark we’ll see for ourselves the famous 13th century CE Konark Sun Temple with mysterious stone carvings inexplicably depicting an apparent form of advanced technology.

It comes as no surprise that Kuala Lumpur called us back for three weeks in our same apartment as last year. While our flat is the epitome of cool, KL is steamy, mellow, with great food and a unique cultural mash-up. We love it.

We’re in northern Bali for the summer, for sure, before spending a month back home in Portland in late summer. We’re looking forward to a family visit in the east (ern United States) while we take notes of any remains of our concept of a civil society in our wildly flailing home country.

We aren’t stopping there: We’re meeting family somewhere in Italy for the fall shoulder season. We’re jonesing (have a strong desire) to visit the recently opened Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo. If the stars align over the Tibetan plateau, we’ll add-on Nepal in October. We already have Dragonfly Naturist Resort in Thailand on the schedule for our “hideout from the holiday madness” 2025 year-end holiday season.

See our current Synergy Tour schedule.

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In Memoriam: Robert J. Gilbert - rest in peace, power and presence.