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[SINGAPORE] Some people nurse setbacks with indulgent meals and stiff drinks. Others distract themselves by plunging head first into new hobbies – pottery, perhaps?

But youth worker Lim Liyin, 30, chose an entirely different remedy to deal with a personal struggle in late 2023: a four-day motorcycle tour along the winding, picturesque mountain roads of north-eastern Vietnam’s famed Ha Giang loop.

The twist? She deliberately chose a tour designed for strangers to meet – a form of tourism called community-based travel.

“I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and try it,” recalls Lim. “What I found was that – even though we (were together) for only four days – the friendships formed during the tour were really unique, (and) even today, I’m very close to them.”

Business development manager Rebecca Tan, 28, also discovered lasting friendships as an unexpected bonus on her three-day trek up Indonesia’s Mount Bromo – an active volcano in East Java.