Moon Spotlight Ho Chi Minh City

Fresh out of Emerson College, Dana Filek-Gibson moved to Saigon as an English teacher in 2010 and never left. Though she only intended to stay for a year, Vietnam's phenomenal street food and breakneck pace of development had her hooked from the very beginning. Over the next few months, she learned to speak Vietnamese, drive a motorbike, and safely cross the street,no easy feat in Saigon. After landing a job with AsiaLIFE, a local magazine, Dana was free to pursue her passion as a writer and her one-year plan quickly evolved into something more permanent. Since then, Dana has written about Vietnamese culture and tourism, as well as the daily adventures that come with being a redheaded expat in Saigon. An unabashed travel addict, her wanderlust has taken her beyond Vietnam to other corners of Southeast Asia,and also Europe, Latin America and Africa. On a fortuitous trip in 2011, Dana discovered traveling by bicycle and has sworn off buses ever since. When she's not writing or cycling her way across a country, she is an avid runner who hopes to one day complete a marathon in Southeast Asia.Today, Dana continues to write for AsiaLIFE and learn all she can about Vietnamese culture and history. Whether hitting the streets to discover Saigon's faraway districts, ringing in the lunar new year like a local, or learning the finer details of how to judge a chicken beauty contest, she counts every day in Vietnam as a new adventure.