What are the best places you’ve been to that are actually worth exploring?
Not looking for the obvious tourist checklist, more curious about places that surprised you, felt different from what you expected, or just stuck with you long after the trip ended.
Could be a country, a random small town nobody talks about, a trek, a street you wandered into by accident, anything.
A few things I’d love to know if you’re up for sharing:
Where was it, and what made it stand out for you?
Was it planned, or did you just stumble into it?
Would you actually go back, or was it a one-time kind of place?
Roughly how much did it end up costing you, and did it feel worth that amount looking back?
I’m building a list for future trips, and honestly the best recommendations I’ve gotten have always come from real people’s experiences rather than “top 10 places to visit” articles that all say the same five cities.
Drop your favorite spot, I’m genuinely taking notes.
I’ve been to rural India. The culture shock is wild. The emotional toll of seeing some of that poverty is truly upsetting. It’s hard to gauge what’s distinct poverty, what’s just a culture norm, and what’s a norm due to the poverty. I know some people home that act like safety is for pussies, yet they’re still way safer day to day than the things I saw in India with traffic, crossings, vehicle repair, construction, farming, cooking, smoking, and just the air quality alone. Social media may have keyed me into expectations for Delhi, but the rural areas were well outside what I expected to see. Now I recognize it all the time in various manufacturing or tool hack videos on socials.
Anything involving a queue is downright infuriating. Apparently that’s a general Asian thing, or at least the places where western countries exploit low manufacturing cost. I don’t know the rules and don’t want to start a fight by accident so I just do my best to maintain progress through the “line”
The wealth disparity is extreme. When I was there back in 99 I landed in Bombay as a green youth from Europe. The cab ride to my hostel took an hour through the most bitter slums I have ever experienced before and since. It was jarring.
I didn’t dare leaving the hostel for days at first. It was such a valuable experience and really made me question my beliefs about the world and reassess the ridiculous privilege I was born into, even though my family was for sure struggling working class.
I talk to people frequently who say Bombay is one of their favorite cities, some people I know even relocated there. It’s all about how much money you have. If you have it you can live like a sultan. If not you live on the streets, and it ain’t fucking pretty.
Even so, I got the impression that the poor people lived more fulfilling lives than people do on the streets of Europe, something I have first hand experience with.