Zicasso Blog: Travel News and Company Updates

Welcome! After almost two years of hard work, we are truly excited to announce that Zicasso is finally here to fill a gap in online tri p planning and booking: To make the experience both personalized and hassle-free. That is the core of what we do, and we welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Let me first share some background of how we got here. Throughout our world travels, my co-founder and I found that when it comes to taking a simple trip, say we’re going from San Francisco to London and just need one flight and one hotel, we can book them quite easily online. However, for anything more complex—say we’re planning a two-week trip to visit various places in India or Peru or Spain—it can often take us over 40 hours to plan and book things online. On top of that, we couldn’t book many of the needed services online. Like tour guides, or if we needed train or bus or ferry tickets, or if we wanted to make sure we have tickets to a popular water puppet show in Vietnam….

For any food lover, Malaysia is a paradise offering a gastronomic adventure like no where else. There are at least two factors which make Malaysian food so special and so, so good! First, the country has been a melting pot of three cultures which introduced its own rich history of great cuisine: Malay, Chinese, and Indian. So you can get great food from any of these three cultures in Malaysia, plus a fusion of them, creating tantalizing and creative combinations of spices and cooking techniques. Second, Malaysians are obsessed with food; arguably food is the country’s # 1 passion. This has created very high standards and competition amongst food vendors, from restaurants to street-side hawkers—word gets out quickly on whether a dining spot is good or mediocre, and patronage level adjusts just as quickly.

OK, so we didn’t just lie on the beach the whole time at Langkawi! We spent a day with Irshad Mobarak and his excellent nature tour company, Junglewalla. When I travel, I enjoy mixing in wildlife and nature exploration along with culture, history, and beaches. Langkawi offers impressive biodiversity for nature lovers since the island has beaches, mangroves, rainforests, and tall limestone hills. It’s also home to over 200 species of birds, many of which are quite colorful.

We were fortunate to have Irshad as our guide. His passion as a conservationist really came out as he generously shared his extensive knowledge about the environment, the mangroves, birds, animals, and plants of Langkawi. He was entertaining as well, e.g. when he went into how the sea eagles find their mate for life!

In a dramatic change of pace from start-up life, I just spent four days in Langkawi—an idyllic island paradise in the northeast tip of Malaysia. A great beginning to our three weeks of travel in Southeast Asia over the holidays, covering Malaysia, Laos, and Cambodia.

“Wow, that’s a cool shot! Where is that?” That seems to be a common question for everyone looking at that caravan of camels on our home page. One of our community members, Dexter D., took that photo while traveling on an escorted tour in Morocco and has the following description of it: