The First-Timer’s Travel Guide to Langkawi, Malaysia

When I first visited Boracay in the Philippines as a kid many years ago, I was surprised by how many caucasians there were on the island. Their being caucasian wasn’t surprising. It was the fact that they were caucasian AND living on the island that was strange to me. Making Boracay their home, they had married locals and opened businesses, some even becoming (almost) as dark as me!

As a kid growing up in a third world country like the Philippines, I was used to the idea of Filipinos moving to a western country like the US for a better life, not the other way around. But as I learned on that trip, the concept of a “better life” is relative. Leaving behind whatever life they had in the west, these caucasians went to Boracay planning to visit for a week but wound up staying the rest of their lives. Such is the power of a paradise like Boracay.

Langkawi, an archipelago of 99 islands about 30 km off the coast of northwestern Malaysia, is that kind of…