Benny Lewis

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Benny Lewis

Official page of Benny Lewis, language hacker of Fluent in 3 Months

01/05/2026

Hello from Mexico🇲🇽!
My next big travel project is to have spent time in 2/3 of all Mexican states over the next couple of months!
In previous visits, I've made it to all states south and east of Mexico city, as well as a few near the capital. Those are the red highlighted states in this map. This time, I'll attempt to visit the blue highlighted states, bringing my total to about 20! I'll leave the rest for future visits. Most of the visits will be at least for an entire week, and some are for even longer.
I've been having lots of fun in recent years focusing my travels on deeper dives into big countries, so I'm excited to continue doing this in Mexico. I'll also get to be here during the World cup (co-hosted in Mexico).
As far as a language project goes, fortunately Spanish is already among my best languages but I definitely have plenty to learn about Mexican dialects and Mexico's wealth of slang and curse words and generally distinct expressions, vocabulary and accents. I'll be updating on my Spanish Instagram again during this visit as part of my immersion and practice, over at !

29/04/2026

That's a wrap on my Asia adventures for the year!
- I learned some Malay
- I travelled North to South of the Malay peninsula and West to East of Malaysian Borneo
- I made it to my 50th country (Brunei)
- I reactivated my Mandarin
- I travelled a full lap of the island of Taiwan
- I met a bunch of cool people along the way!

Tomorrow, I'll cross the Pacific Ocean and get started on my next big travel adventure that I'll tell you about shortly!

23/04/2026

My last stop on the East Coast was Hualien. It was another easy going town, with a lovely coast, and great winds for surfing and even Kitesurfing.

Like a lot of Eastern coastal areas, you are sandwiched between the sea and tall mountains constantly looming over you.

I enjoyed the pace of life and am glad I got to do a full lap around the entire coast of Taiwan before finishing the circle back in Taipei!

22/04/2026

Next up in my trip around Taiwan was a week on the East coast, starting in Taitung (臺東 pronounced "Tái dōng" in Pinyin, for "Taiwan East").

Definitely more chill than the way more populous West coast; I appreciated the small-town feel here! Very friendly people and a lovely place to visit!

21/04/2026

A few more shots from my 10 days in Kaohsiung.
I saw some lovely architecture, the famous pier 2 art centre, and attended a digital nomad conference where I got to see a lovely traditional local dance that they put on for us visitors.

10/04/2026

My travels through Taiwan have begun! I got an HSR train all the way to Zuoying, a district of the southerly city of Kaohsiung and am setting myself up here for about a week or so. Since I was starting near the train station in Taipei and am within walking distance of the one here, it was less than 2 hours door to door. Amazing, considering I'm at the opposite end of the country!
Kaohsiung is actually pronounced Gāoxióng using Hanyu Pinyin, and I'm learning many placenames across Taiwan take some getting used to because of indigenous languages, Japanese influence and multiple different spelling systems applied inconsistently.
A quick jog from my base is Lotus Pond with the famous Dragon and Tiger Pagodas!
It's great to be exploring the country! I'll ultimately do an entire lap of Taiwan before I'm back in Taipei!

09/04/2026

A whole month in Taipei and the main thing I did was a whole lot of socialising... with plenty of events entirely in Mandarin!

After many months in smaller places, I was eager to be back in a capital city again, where there are lots of language exchange events and many general opportunities to meet people that you can easily come across.

I eased into them and slowly started speaking more and more Mandarin, until by the final events I was finally feeling more confident to speak for hours at a time!

It's been an exhausting month!! But I truly wanted to have a much more social experience in Tapei after I was far too studious here on my last trip 14 years ago.

A huge success overall in reactivating my Mandarin!!

14/03/2026

Settling into Taipei really well! The weather is absolutely *perfect* for me to finally kick off my running routine again after a 2 month break in far too hot Malaysia.
This city has wonderful public transport and bike shares everywhere with an affordable monthly pass, so I'm using it to go to different rivers and parks every single day for my runs, knowing I can go off in random directions and still be near an option to get home already paid for.
I really tend to miss really efficient and ubiquitous public transport like this, since my typical destinations often don't have quality options as much. I don't think I'll be sitting in a single car (or motorbike) for my entire two months in Taiwan!

11/03/2026

Back in Taiwan🇹🇼 again, after 14 years!
It's so cool to be back in Taipei! Since I've lived here before, a few things have changed, like I was able to get an MRT (metro) from the airport this time (not possible before), but a lot feels just like how I left it!
For someone off the tourist path or not in a university, the English level of locals is actually about the same as I remember it, which works out in my case, since I've got true pressure to use my Mandarin for absolutely all interactions. The first days were definitely a struggle, but it's quickly coming back to me and I'm using it more and more!
The plan is to spend one month in Taipei, practising my Mandarin with some good routines, and going to language events, and then I'll spend about 3 weeks travelling the rest of the country.

17/02/2026

Malacca/Melaka was my next stop on the north-south peninsular leg of my Malaysia explorations.
It's a city with a very mixed history between the Malay Sultanate, Portuguese crusaders, Dutch administrators, and British colonialists because of its location in the narrowest part of the strait it's named after, with the busiest sea traffic in the world.
I'm also here at the Chinese New Year, so it's been very busy with many visitors!

20/09/2025

As a geography/geometry nerd, I absolutely had to make this stop in my Wisconsin travels at the Exact Centre of the Northern Half of the Western Hemisphere.🌎🌐🗺️📍

The 45 × 90 Geographical Marker is the only one of its kind you can actually conveniently access, just by walking through a corn field 🌽, instead of being in the middle of an ocean or up in the mountains of China like the other 3.

I've been making it a point in recent years to visit such geometrically interesting points on earth, since I've been to equator monuments both in the Amazon and Borneo, and I've been to the geodesic centre points of Brazil, all of South America and all of Indonesia. In some cases, I've had to walk around a bit near a monument, since plate tectonics has lead to a little drift, but they keep this one in Wisconsin accurate.

It was a convenient quick drive from my base in Wausau and in private property that they just opened the tiny little path to visitors.

Address

Taipei

Website

http://www.fluentin3months.com/

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