@mikes1424

Chiang Mai has had a deep Buddhist influence running over the last 1,000 years and this can be felt in the helpfulness, patience and generosity of the Thai and long-term transplants you come across. The city has an active community scene (nomads, spiritual seekers, hikers, creatives), several mountains with hiking spots and waterfalls surrounding the city, over 20 water bodies inside the city -- many have cafes and walks around, several public parks, and over 13 national parks with campgrounds w

New York is cool. I’ve visited multiple times to see my family throughout my life, and recently came back from my first post-COVID trip there. Yes, it’s very expensive — but there is no city on earth that’s more captivating in my opinion. I used to think that New Yorkers were smug by claiming that NYC was better than everywhere else, but now I totally get it lol. My personal favourite neighbourhood is the Upper East Side, which is where you’ll find the coveted Museum Mile. But I also

Bangkok is one of my favorite cities. Very cyberpunk vibes. Huge, full of skyscrapers, impressive concrete infrastructure for the BTS skytrain, great architecture and design, super fancy shopping malls, lights, noise, tuktuks, street food vendors, prostitutes and ladyboys, cannabis shops, and advertisements everywhere for beauty products, cosmetic surgery clinics or various furutistic-sounding medical treatments. There are two ways to live in Bangkok: either you live cheaply in a poorly insu

Visited in February of 2019, the week before Carnival. Great time to visit as there were hardly any tourists and only a few other travelers. Downside is a lot of the restaurants aren't open and some tours are shut down. Upside is you get to live like a local in a insanely touristy town 10 months of the year. We were able to grab a very nice 1 bedroom apartment in the old town center with a kitchen for 150 euros for 5 nights (30 euros/n). Probably 10-15 restaurants were open in the old town, incl

Lived in Prague for 8 years. It's a beautiful international European city. Never learned Czech, but was fine. Almost all cafes and restaurants have English menus. Superb food delivery apps (Wolt is the best). All the food you can imagine. Vietnamese food is world-class because of the huge Vietnamese population. If you want hipster bars and cafes, there's plenty of that. If you want old-world-charm there's plenty of that. If you want posh luxury there's some of Europes best restaurants and cockta

Lived here, as a guy, most of my youth, so I can't speak about expat experience very much, but I want to address some issues: 1. It's very safe, no pick pocketers, no scammers, no addicts, streets are safe at night, and women are not afraid in general to walk at night, very unlikely to attract even catfishing. Not sure why it rates lower than cities with culture of thinking a single woman is a willing woman. 2. The country itself is not friendly to LGBTQ+ citizens: no gay marriage, pushbacks

I'm Polish and I've been to Gdańsk a number of times over the course of the last 10 years. When I was younger and have seen and experienced less, I was very impressed by the old town. However, these days, after having seen most of Europe and some of the US, I can't help but feel that Gdansk's old town is small and everything that surrounds it has a distinct, post-communist feel, which I do not enjoy. I was there this summer (2022) and it felt like being in an amusement park, with many of the ap