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.
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.
That’s a great point. You and I didn’t just see how little they had, we saw how much they did with so little. Similar situation for me back home, parents were struggling working class. It re-lensed how little we did (do) with so much. So much more space, so much more money, so many more comforts, so much more entertainment, so much more healthcare, so many more protective regulations.
For what? What do we have to show for it?
It knocked me a tick towards nihilism or something for some time. It made me wonder how I can be so miserable when my life should be verifiably better than what I saw there. But I came back from that eventually, because having better baseline conditions doesn’t mean life isn’t a struggle. It scales to where you sit in the wealth rankings of your local society. The bottom is the bottom, no matter how you compare to other societies. But I’ve done better at appreciating what I have and maximizing what I do. I have the option to travel, to be entertained, to build, to create, to care, to relax, to be comfortable, to experience, to observe, to theorize. And that’s what I’ll continue doing because it’s a privilege wasted otherwise.