From Kuwait OFW to Penguin Author: Kach Medina Umandap

In 2012 Kach Medina Umandap was sitting in an office in Kuwait doing quality assurance paperwork, counting the months on a contract, doing the arithmetic every OFW knows by heart. Send money home. Renew. Repeat. On Thursday night she walks onto the Main Stage at SMX Convention Center Manila to launch a book with Penguin Random House SEA. That gap, between the desk in Kuwait and the stage in Pasay, is the whole point of the book. Kach Medina Umandap founded Two Monkeys Travel Group, the site you are reading right now. On 10 September 2026 she launches her first traditionally published book, Career or Travel, Why Not Both?, at the Manila International Book Fair. This post covers who she actually is, what took her from an OFW contract to all 195 UN member states on a Philippine passport, what the book argues, and the practical part: how to get into MIBF 2026, what it costs, how to reach SMX from anywhere in the country, and where to sleep if you are flying in from the province. Some links here are affiliate links, so we earn a small commission if you book through them. It costs you nothing extra, and we only point you at things we would tell a friend to use. Kach Medina Umandap: the s...