Eating all of the Vietnamese food, Scheduling Interviews

hey can you hear me can you hear me okay that looks like it's picking up okay excellent there we go so I hope everybody is doing good tonight just having some audio issues for whatever reason when I try

to stream with my airpods uh they just don't the they just don't seem to like that so they don't pick up for whatever reason and yeah so just winding down my time here in Vietnam I have my flight

book for Saturday night and that's about four days from around this time I'm going to get to the airport early because I just want to make sure you know this is my first time in Vietnam I want to

make sure I'm able to uh you know fulfill anything that I need to do I know that it's going to be an issue I don't want to check my bag but my bag is going to be over the

weight limit um so we'll see how that goes uh I don't mind paying for checking my bag but I don't want to check it you know I don't want uh I'm just concerned about some of the risks you

know with checking it and I'd rather uh you know I'd rather just keep my bag on my person so we'll see how that goes um yeah we'll see how that goes worked out today what else did I do

um had some delicious food tonight went and had some f um my the restaurant I've really been enjoying f b they are having some kind of work done to the exterior was kind of hard to figure out but

uh I don't know if that was complete it looked like they I wasn't sure if they were going to open tonight or not so I went to a different restaurant and um you know it was tasty like f

always is I know this isn't my normal time so I'm not sure how many people will be able to join I uh I've been scheduling so I I have an interview that I'm working on later tonight hey Chris

good to see see you welcome um and then I just scheduled uh so I've got job interviews and people interviews um the job interviews are not as relevant to the Top Channel also I'll focus on the people interviews

uh but I have an interview with this uh couple called Chi chai Chi or chai and Yen and there are a uh couple I think the guy is from India but they're uh or of Indian ethnic origin but

they're from London um they're currently in India but uh they do a basically what's like a child-free podcast I know it's a controversial topic um but I'm gonna join them just to discuss that uh and not just that

I mean we're going to talk about life in Southeast Asia we're going to talk about uh ideally explore some of their interest this is their podcast by the way so it won't be on my platform but I'll certainly

try to do my part to promote it and just discussing life in Southeast Asia um you know what it's like to live over here the things that I enjoy about it obviously it's quite a bit different from the

uh you know from the US and like it's uh yeah I'm looking forward to it I'm kind of you know branching out and I think there's a lot of interesting overlap between between the expat life and then all

these other niches and I want to help explore those because you know I think there's there's a lot of topics that have been covered extensively I don't think I think that living overseas is only growing in popularity I'm

not sure if that's been your experience Chris like if you feel like you know in your time living overseas if it's gone from being like um if I'm not mistaken you also spent some time overseas when you were

younger if it's gone from being more of a niche thing to like now it's becoming more and more common I've noticed for what it's worth on a lot of different uh YouTube like channels and and plat like platforms

people in the comments are starting to openly discuss it a lot more I think it's more extreme uh from some countries like uh you know Canada and New Zealand seem to pop up a lot as far as places

where the incomes are not keeping up with the cost of living so I think people from those countries are more motivated or perhaps the most motivated uh UK not far behind uh but even many American people are thinking

wow you know what like I want to go try something else out and it's just funny to me because now people you know people are discussing it like in when when they talk about uh people who are no

longer in their working years right uh they're saying hey you should just like go somewhere tropical you know rather than staying here where it's cold you got a Long Winter the prices are really high you could just like

go south and you know go live on the equator or near the equator and you've got your selection of a bunch of different places most of humanity lives near the equator and um if you don't like one place

you could check something else out if you want to live in Asia you've got a bunch of options if you want to live in North if you want to live in uh South America you got option Central America

then there's just so many different options um I'm yeah I'm just I think it's so interesting to see this kind of you could almost call it a reverse migration in some ways where uh people are thinking like hey

I want to go you know in the opposite direction of course I don't know there's a lot of interesting opportunities out there in the world Christopher says cost of living is a big motivation a few friends who dated

me before now seem to be showing more interest as they struggle to stay afloat and plan for retirement you know first off I hate to hear that Christopher that your friends are struggling um I think it's caught a

lot of people off guard right I think a lot of people thought that you know there was going to be predictable modest inflation relatively modest speaking inflation and that they could count on investment income increasing in line with

that and now they're finding out uh that the something stuck in my beard here hey Tony great to see you they're finding out that the inflation is outpacing their cost of living increase so and also that uh at

least in the case of United States I think this is true for similar countries that they're not being totally transparent on the inflation numbers so they'll say oh it's x amount and then when people go to the grocery

store they're thinking wow you know I used to buy uh this you know I used to buy this for this price now it's much higher somebody earlier was talking about why is it and this is this Tony can

probably relate to or appreciate this somebody posted in one of the Thailand groups that I'm in on Facebook why is it that in in Thailand I get a passion fruit smoothie for $1 equivalent or $150 equivalent and then

here in Canada it's like $13 and uh you know so I think that's on the minds of a lot of people Chris where it's not just like because I think what people imagined is they thought I'm going to

live fiscally responsibly here in the United States um the collective we I'm going to live below my means in my working years I'm going to save it invest and then in my and then I'm going to get to

a point where I'm set up financially to go and enjoy these places because I mean you look at countries like the United States or Canada New Zealand Australia they're gorgeous I mean there's some of the most beautiful countries

in the world as far as nature goes you have so much variety um and people want to enjoy that and they can't enjoy it as much when they're younger and trying to work and focus on their careers but

they want to get to a certain point where they can enjoy it now they feel like well you know I thought that I was going to be able to say travel uh for the duration of the summer months

like when the weather's beautiful not a lot of rain not a lot of snow or no snow and now they're feeling like well hotels are you know $200 a night and my you know my budget's 3,000 a month

just for the sake of discussion and uh and so they're not able to do that and they don't want to just like sit at home right I mean I've talked about it a bit but like that's not really

that's not really living you know that's um and I've lived that life I'll probably have to go back and live that life some more in the US just you know being practical but I haven't put all the work

that I need to put in right so for me being 31 I it would be abnormal for most countries most people to to be done working at 31 right but for guys that have put in a lot of

work that are in their 50s that are thinking okay 10 years from now I want to be you know wrapped up with what I'm doing uh then you know maybe five years from now five to 10 years from

now I want to be wrapped up with my work and I want to go enjoy myself and they're they're feeling like H I don't know you know the way things are priced I mean it's not going to be

practical for me to live the lifestyle that I want here and I mean it's just like it it's it's costly right uh so Christopher says I have read and heard often that many believe that the US is not

being transparent about the true inflationary effects on the average American over the last three years yeah I absolutely agree with that and I think that it's under reported um especially in some of the cheaper places so a lot

of people will tell you you just need to move to a cheap part of the United States I think those places have been hit the hardest um back in California my rent in California is actually about a third

less than what my friends are paying in Nashville so people like I need to pull up a map here just to help uh help facilitate discussion I've got this map here um let me just USA and we'll share

yeah so you know a lot of people think okay well the uh West Coast the East Coast the these are expensive places you can't complain when expensive places become more expensive it's like no relative to incomes actually a

lot of people are leaving California they're leaving New York so I know in New York City rents are going up but you know in San Francisco rents are flat or even declining uh and then I'm sure there's you

know parts of the New York metro area that are losing people where you could probably you know find something reasonable but anyway the the massive increases are really happening in the center of the country there's States like Idaho

where my grandfather grew up that used to be considered cheap I mean wages are low but your cost of loing was cheap now it's expensive um Tennessee same deal where I grew up used to be cheap I actually

uh in California my rent is probably about 50% less than what my friends average friends are paying in Tennessee now the place in California is smaller but it's also above a train line uh which is not a a

noise issue it's actually a major convenience right because you can get to you know you can get around the area without necessarily having to have a car and so we're in Tennessee you have to have a car so

it's not really an apple to Apples comparison and you know I think it's yeah like what you said I think that people are yeah keeping uh keeping it 100 I'm in Chattanooga rent got outrageous yeah you're not getting

a better place either I mean it would be fair if uh all of a sudden you know Chattanooga had the amenities of Atlanta or Nashville maybe right you know if you were in a big city and you got

all these different entertainment options you got uh you know the luxuries of living in a big city but chinan n is not a big city we can zoom in real quick here driv through Chattanooga many times probably at

least a dozen times the metro population is probably three or 400,000 people this is basically downtown you know we're not talking about like a New York lifestyle or an LA lifestyle or even a Denver or Nashville lifestyle it's

a college town it's primarily people a lot of people go to Chattanooga move to Chattanooga for UT University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and so they're paying these outrageous prices to live in a place and hasn't really changed that

much it's you're not uh they're not creating more national parks you know they're not really improving it a whole lot and so it's uh it's not a bad place to live I mean I think chatt is a beautiful

city but to say it's worth 50% more more than it was a few years ago is just inaccurate and unreasonable uh meanwhile in California I had rent control right so this is a controversial policy for many reasons but

it basically limited the landlord's ability to raise rent now the building was older and in disrepair but who cares I'm a tenant I'm not in California to impress people I'm there to work and earn a living and so

I didn't really care um it included utilities so my rent in California we can zoom in here I'll just show the general area I lived in Berkeley which is about a half hour away from San Francisco and my

rent to live downtown um I lived really like right around this area uh$ 1,50 per month uh I had a year lease so $150 per month to live in uh basically was kind of a boarding house and I

know some people they wouldn't want to live in that I was fine with it as a single guy I'm actually probably going to move back into it depending on where I get a job uh in Northern California now

I may end up actually in the city of San Francisco but I'm looking at places comparable where you can rent a similar room for like 900 a month in San Francisco now Meanwhile my friends in Nashville we can

just uh zoom out here and go back to Nashville I's paying 30 13 and 14400 a month to live on the outskirts of the city like way out here or way up here like you know a good 25

30 minutes away from downtown maybe 20 minutes you know depending on traffic they're paying 13 to, 1400 and their landlords are they don't have rent control so their are saying well we're going to raise it to 1,500 so

when you renew your lease you're going to be paying 15 00 how does that make sense when the wages in California are much higher than they are in Nashville um so that's a kind of issue facing places that

are cheap is that the cost of living now matches the big cities only they don't come with big city wages um uh I saw a report of the rapid increase in b pay later usage at grocery stores and

Retail a firm Clara and then paying the bill on a credit card to pay off later when you are using debt to pay debt and you know Christopher I'm very familiar with those Services because uh the company that

I used to work at actually Powers those services so how those Services work is that a firm or Clara will instantly issue a debit card and pay for whatever purchase that you're making and then they take over the

what amounts to debt and so they pay your bill and now you know like I said with a snap of a finger they just create a digital debit card make the payment and then now you're owing money to

them and they uh you know they really you know they it's just so strange to me the idea of like going into debt to pay for food right like what you think of you know the stereotype right is

always oh people are they're using debt to buy you know luxury items but to me healthy food is not a luxury right like to be able to eat decent food such that you have the energy to be uh

active and to you know work hard that's not really a luxury people need to eat a decent diet if they want to uh be healthy and be productive and it's not sustainable it's just simply not sustainable you know

what happens when uh people like I don't know go bankrupt they can't borrow money anymore are they going to uh I guess they go to a food bank but I don't really know if the food bank is capable

of I don't know if there's a limit you know somebody would have to do the math on it have to you know maybe they could hire a data scientist to figure out uh what's the limit on people going

to food banks because I think that's only going to increase you know when people are unable to stay on top of the increase and you know fairly healthy food it's just not it's not going to be good um

but yeah thank uh yeah thank you thank you for chiming in Chris uh and also thank you for keeping it 100 for for chiming in um it's unfortunate right because a lot of people the advice was just move

to a cheap State move to Arkansas moved to Missouri moved to Kentucky moved to Tennessee um and now those places like I said they're not that much cheaper but the wages are significantly less uh so and you know

part of what happened and I didn't really realize this because I didn't really stay in touch with a lot of people from my college I went to a pretty big college and the class sizes were big it's just

harder to um develop or maintain relationships you know I talked to a friends of mine who did stay in touch with folks after graduation and they all left um they all you know they didn't get in you know

into the housing ladder and they felt and they couldn't get jobs in Tennessee because they just uh you know they couldn't get there's limited amount of jobs right I mean the economy just the city of the just the

San Francisco Bay area for example the economy of this city and the surrounding areas is larger than half the half the states the United States just the metropolitan area um there's more people in the San Francisco Bay Area

than the entire state of Tennessee so it's um it's just shocking to me that they're paying in Tennessee in Nashville outside of Nashville not we're not even talking about downtown right uh 50% to 60% more than what I

would be paying to live in the city of San Francisco within in safe neighborhoods we're not talking about we can zoom in here on San Francisco I'm very familiar with the city um and I'm biased here I love

San Francisco it's it's stunning um yes it's got some problems but you know to live here in North Beach this is one of the neighborhoods that I've spent a lot of time in it's pretty nice neighborhood um it's

you know it's not like it's got It's you know spaced out from some of the problem areas in the city you've a famous like City Lights Bookstore this is one of the most famous independent bookstores in the United

States you've got this so North Beach is basically an Italian neighborhood you've got amazing Italian food there you're also down the street from Chinatown uh here in Chinatown you've got uh you know delicious food you've got several really

cool Parks you've also got a new public transportation station for am mun um and so you feel like okay not only am I paying like 50 60% less than what people are paying in Nashville but I've got access

to all these Parks I've got access to public transportation there's grocery stores that's funny Tony's Pizza um I've got access to all these grocery stores I've got uh you know there's tons of free fun that's one of the

things that I love about San Francisco is that there's you know there's just tons and tons of free stuff to do you don't really have to spend a lot of money to have a good time I used to

go out in San Francisco and I'd spend 30 or $40 uh to go have a day I'd spend like five bucks to get there and then maybe five bucks to get around the city like on a on buses

city buses or um trains and I'd spend maybe 20 bucks 25 bucks on food and then five bucks to get home but that wasn't just me going out for lunch that was me going out to the park um

people would bring like speakers and place some good music uh they also have tennis courts they have like a free they have several free gyms throughout the city they would have parades they would have just so much different

kinds of entertainment and things to do um and you can just explore it's just like an interesting landscape the weather is super Pleasant you can go people watch I would just find random stuff um to do in the

city and it's still a fun city to explore there's other parts of the city I haven't explored as much uh but you've got you just got so much to do there versus back home um yeah moved to Arkansas

pass absolutely agree Chris like it's you know and then uh you know I have friends throughout the city so I have some friends in the Marina District a friends in the um you know friends in some of the

I wouldn't necessarily say friends but acquaintances in some of the EDG or neighborhoods um but there's there's just so much to see and so much to do I used to go to this park a lot it's a beautiful

Park it's one of my favorite Urban parks in the country you get this gorgeous view of downtown the media will never tell you about this right the media won't go to this gorgeous Park and show you how well-kept

it is they have people cleaning it frequently too so like it stays really nice people would uh I'd go here all the time and just hang out grab a burrito from down the street and Munch on burrito and

just enjoy the gorgeous weather and they looks like they've done more updating here like some of this stuff I haven't seen uh some of this infrastructure here some of this infrastructure must be new um but it's it gets

a lot of investment you also see people bring their dogs um which is a lot of fun and it's just such a especially on holidays this park fills up it's an Eclectic environment you get the beautiful architecture um

it's just such a fun and this doesn't cost anything right to come here to this park there's no admission fee you walk maybe five or six blocks from public transport um you can walk through the neighborhood as well

and it's just such a lively atmosphere so you know compare this to uh my hometown and we can zoom out here let's see here my hometown is not in Nevada um it is beautiful Nashville is a very beautiful

city but there's just not quite as much free stuff to do and I do have you know uh I do have friends that are willing to take spend the time and invest to go out and you know do

more stuff like outside of the city but it's just expensive I mean a lot of the stuff that you know just to park downtown $7 maybe $20 depending on where used to be free used to you could go

downtown and you could park for free uh totally fine I mean I would park for free all the time I'd go to concerts all the time uh and just part for free didn't even think about it like there

was so much open parking and now little by little the city has at a lot of the free parking so just the admission fee is gas to get downtown um probably 5 to $10 round trip maybe $15 if

you're far enough out uh and then you're going to pay for parking and there's not as many like what's great about San Francisco there's tons of what I call fast casual places it's a working City and so you've

got a lot of people that uh they need something in a hurry and they need something within their budget Nashville being a tourist destination and primarily catering to tourists all the food is priced that and Catering to people

on vacation so you're not getting your $10 burrito you're paying like $15 for a burrito so it's just really wild to me um how things have flipped because everybody tells me how expensive California is and I'm paying less

out there and uh having some free stuff to do now I'm not here to you know trash my hometown there I love my friends that still live there um but you just the income that you used to be

able to sustain a certain lifestyle in Nashville no longer cuts it my friends that seem to enjoy it the most typically from my observation it seems to be dual income no kids those people seem to really thrive in

Nashville they've got both the guy and the gal or uh you know other combinations of of people where you've got two incomes and they're not needing to support children and so they can really enjoy it right um they're

not as cons they're not concerned about the cost of child care they're not concerned about the cost of diapers they can really take advantage of all of this stuff and really enjoy it um you know and and have

a great uh time but if you're a single person I think it become a lot harder for single people uh to live in Nashville to be able to afford to live it and it's it's just so bizarre to

me because people think California is expensive and then I break down the numbers and it's it's becoming more painfully apparent though it's kind it's more you know it's much more in your face when you are from Nashville because

the prices aren't coming down people are thinking I think people were hoping hey these price increases are temporary prices will come back down but no like prices just keep going up and up and up because you have people

coming in from out of state bringing the you know their investment income bringing uh the money they got from selling their home in California and uh and so it's just becoming really difficult I well it has become very

difficult for people in Nashville to try to stay on top of that and I'm not here to gloat either I know not everybody can just move to California but for me as an individual as a single working guy

willing to go anywhere for a job it's shocking how much you know how much of an advantage it is to have plenty of options for uh Bachelor friendly housing right to be able to um yeah yeah Christopher Nashville

isn't as walkable and easy to get around like SF yeah it's not walkable um you've also got a lot of people that and buy beverages before they drive uh because it is a tourist hot spot you know it's

similar to Las Vegas where people come and they think well it's not my town so I can get out of control um the city is just not designed or set up to be traversed on foot for the most

part there are some places like neighborhoods like Midtown and maybe downtown where you can do that but for for most of the city it's just impractical to walk around you you don't have there's huge resistance to investing in

public transit so it's not very easy you don't have a Subway or a train to hop on um and so it's just a lot more challenging and uh you know people I find that some people are just not

as honest about the these harsh realities um but I'm feel very fortunate that I gave California a try back in 2018 so that was about six years ago I thought why don't I go move out there um try

it out and I had specific reasons to be there I also had an online income at the time where I was selling products on Amazon so it didn't really matter where I lived um as long as I could

pay for my basic bills it made real no real difference um so I went and checked it out and I thought man this is really nice like the prices aren't that much more now the prices are about the

same or even higher in Nashville because the beauty of California we'll go back over here and this is and this is I'm going to tie this into the southeast Asia discussion uh Chris is that you have economies of

scale um yeah happy to happy to tackle that Tony I didn't want to get too much into us specific stuff you economies of scale um so because there's so many people in the Bay Area similar to countries in

Southeast Asia it drives down prices it's it's shocking because people think it's the reverse like oh if I go to a big city everything's super pricey it's really just your rent that's a bit more expensive um but everything

else is cheaper because they've they've got more competition they've got more options they've got uh you know more more room to spread out you've got uh you just got so much human capital and you've also got a city

that's got to like feed all these people and entertain all these people and uh yeah it's just such a beautiful thing um keeping 100 nothing is free anywhere downtown anymore it's getting overpopulated driving up prices but income is

still stagnant people from New York and Cali pricing everything out yeah I mean it just makes sense if you're a single working person uh if you have an education um you know if you if you have an education

like I uh you know I got a degree that's not super applicable in Liberal Arts um but they accept it you know in California it's all about what you know they don't uh there are people that care about

credentials you know and I am thinking about going back for a masters in business but you know for a lot of uh at least when I got into Tech a lot of the jobs are like look we just

want you to have some kind of degree you know to show that you're able to make the commitment for four years you can see something through uh there's plenty of people I worked with in sales Human Resources I

don't work in Human Resources but um that have degrees that are not super applicable but they feel like look you're interested in learning you are showing a commitment to something you're it's it's possible for you to be trained

so I would suggest for a lot of young people that maybe they got their degree in Nashville or Chattanooga or Atlanta and they feel like man I just can't make the money to pay my bills like hey maybe

you make up a resume and you know just send it out to to places out there I know the econom is in recession but um yeah I mean there's just tons of opportunity like and there's still people still

have their businesses out there I mean some people say everybody's leaving that's not really the case um but yeah let's uh let's pivot just because I do not want to make this stream about the US I may have

to do another Channel like when I go eventually go back to the US I may do like a US Centric Channel um keep Eastern dreamer for when I'm traveling and specifically talking about xat topics or topics relevant to

xats but there's a whole lot of subjects that I don't feel like fit in the Eastern streamer Channel that I like to cover but I don't want to um waste the time of my audience that's the best way

to put it so I'm here in dang and I'm get into Tony's questions here um so Tony asks on a different note your thoughts Alex on the challenge of making deeper interpersonal connections like while living abroad for solo

introverts yeah so that's a great topic Tony and we we discussed that a bit and I I think that we just really uh covered the tip of the iceberg in our discussion right these are discussions that really could

be very deep discussions and there's so much to talk about it's almost in some ways it's perfect for a live stream because it's almost like a podcast format question where you could literally have a discussion on this topic

for several hours uh and and maybe then feel like it's been adequately covered um so there's a few things that I would say that are helpful uh for Solo in introverts um and some of it some of it

has to do with the type of introvert that you are I suspect that part of my introversion is environmental I was isolated a lot growing up so I don't know I know some of it my introversion is genetic

um because East Asian people Japanese people in particular are just genetically more spacial like um I'm a visual learner I people can tell me something it goes in one ear and out the other whereas if I read stuff

I'll remember it um forever I I feel like the more of the stuff that I remember is it just I just read a lot better um so uh you know I would say it's uh there's a few ways

to approach it um it's it's such a complex topic one you know one thing would be like of course the coffee shop thing but I think we discussed how it could be a little bit awkward to talk to

people in that context other people will say co-working um getting a membership to a co-working space or you know there's some places like I know Tony you're focused on Latin America uh I stayed at the Selena Hospital when

I was in in bogat Columbia and I do apologize by the way if there's background noise there's the kids here like run up and down the street and scream a lot uh but the um you know I st

at to Selena co-working space in bulat and it was a combination hostile and co-working space and so you had people that were there as guests but also people those same people would hang out in the lobby and it

created I you know they had private rooms which I prefer I prefer the privacy of a private room I'm not really looking to stay uh in a bunk bed scenario in a country that's reasonably priced now when I

went to Helsinki I stayed in a hostel because Helsinki is expensive uh but you know in bogatar it's very moderately priced City by North you know Compared to North American prices um and you know Tony I admit I'm

I'm not the best at it I have found that the way that I leveraged um leveraged it is that I attempted to make f or i I came in with friends from North America or friends that I made

in North America and leverage those relationships to expand my Social Circle so uh when it came to Colombia for example why don't we uh pull up colia Colombia here I recognize this isn't exactly the easiest and more most

straightforward um thing to do but when I was uh you know when I was at Burning Man so this is a kind of a niche event it's happening in a few weeks actually one of my campmates is was

from Cali Colombia so I stayed in touch with him guy named Julian um I he uh you know he and I stayed in touch he's um he teaches yoga and when I decided to go down to Colombia I

reached out to him and said hey man I'm coming down there and curious if you are open to meeting up and so he agreed and he showed me around bulot and it was a great experience um I don't

know if that's necessarily that was preo so part of what made that easy was that I made a number of these relationships before the pandemic changed the dynamic of social interaction um I think the pandemic had a negative

impact on our ability to connect with other people of being transparent um what are some other thoughts to come to mind I would say you know if you have hobbies or interests I mentioned it before I'll throw it

down here meetup.com is a website that I'm a fan of and I've used it to meet people in different cities mostly San Francisco but also uh became familiar with different meetups in um in Thailand and you can go

on there and um check to see and I if I were you I'd punch in the cities that you're interested in living in I know you spent some time in Mexico City Tony where uh you can find out

like hey you know I'm into this or that even if you're not right like even if you're not into a certain Niche or certain hobby certain topic you might find something that you're curious about and then you go

to the event and um you know you your mileage may vary you may feel like the subject ah whatever but somebody there could really have something interesting to share or say and uh I found that the internet I

don't know why exactly this is but the lingua franka the language of the internet is English so it seems like a lot of the the events or people that I've stay connected with online they do have English so

even though um I'm not sure where your level of Spanish is at Tony but you might find that uh using meetup.com is you know provides you with connections to different events you wouldn't have otherwise discovered I'm trying to

think of what else I would recommend there because it's I think it's I I think you know part of it what's helpful I found as an introverted person is finding my one person and then uh leveraging that relationship

into more relationships and I found people in Latin America uh not just locals which is I think the Assumption a lot of people have um that the locals are often warm and friendly which has been my experience but

also other expats I think it may have to do with the cost I think Latin America is more expensive than southeast Asia on average and that it tends to filter out it tends to filter out some of the

sketch balls right I mean there's some sketchy people in Southeast Asia not myself not Christopher but there are some people that are looking to experience life on the absolute absolute Rock Bottom price and and and Latin America seems

to filter that out a bit more you can live very economically in Latin America but I I think it's I think it takes more effort um because Latin America there's a solid amount of housing but it's not like

southeast Asia where there's an excess supply of housing most Southeast Asian cities from what I can tell are somewhat overbuilt like they're they're constantly building new stuff and so you don't get this dir of housing like you do

in North America um and you don't get to a lesser extent the same in South America because parts of South America they're getting a lot of migrants from some of the places that are going through some challenges and

so you do see in some parts of Latin America where people are having to construct kind of you know they're trying to they're just kind of throwing housing together um what else can I add here so yeah with

Latin America I would say you know uh finding xack groups and then it's one of the things that's helpful is finding positive expact groups and I'll be honest with you Tony it's not necessarily easy to find positive groups

one group I'm in on Facebook is called positive expats in the Philippines I wish every country had that um they tend to be heavily tends to be heavily uh what's it called heavily moderated such that you um you

don't see the nastiness right because some xat communities are super toxic people are tearing each other apart they're judging each other um and it just gets out of hand and uh um so let's see yeah somebody's revving their

their motor out side [Music] um lovely um so you know I would say I would say finding your one person um Tony and you could you can kind of filter through so I would suggest like if if you

do you know like I'm not sure if you're you're on Facebook or not but like throwing together a post something like hey I'm Tony I'm coming from this country I have some interests I wonder if anybody's open to

coffee and then you see all the people that respond and you can structure better than I can you know yourself very well uh better than I do and you could structure it in such a way that you're able

to uh have some basic chats with people I I did it with my YouTube channel so I actually did some posts in some groups saying hey is anybody interested to talk about their business and filtered that way and

went and met people in individually so you start with a group um as far as like expedience goes but then you filter down you uh you discuss yourself a bit um you shouldn't get like if you get you

know somebody being nasty just block them I that's blocking is so important to setting boundaries online and going from there and uh you know you can have a basic discussion with several people and find the people that you

feel like uh and and you know if you Des describe yourself a bit you find the people that you can align with right that you see eye to eye that you feel like hey you know of this you

know group of however many people these are the three or four people that I really like I think it's about searching it does take you know that's the the struggle of the introvert is the searching part is difficult

it's it's challenging to search through and sift through groups of people to find those individuals uh that you can connect with but it it does improve on the other side I mean you know when I um hung out

with Julian in Bogota um he introduced me to several interesting people he showed me around this city I saw and experienced a lot of things that I wouldn't have on my own and uh just creating that space so

that time for those one-on-one interactions is is so valuable I'm G to get caught up a little bit here Chris says southeast Asia does have many great spots to land stay for a while and carve out a life

they do different making friends some are more open than others I find that um the people that I've connected with best and I think you could appreciate this as well Tony is people that have experience living in the

western world um so like my buddy um my buddy who is you know in colia he actually lived in London for about five years so we could bridge that Gap where he's been to the United States like probably

a dozen or more times but he actually worked in London for about five years lived there and we had a lot to talk about because you know the presumption is oh this guy from Colombia why would he want

to live in Colombia if he can live in the UK K and we had a lot to talk about that right because you know we're told in North America everybody wants to live in North America everybody wants to

live in Canada everybody wants to live in the United States and he's somebody that had that opportunity uh he's educated he has you know bachelor's degree he was qualified to go and work in London he didn't like you

know uh lose his job and have to go back home in a bad situation he just missed his family so we we started talking about it and I asked him you know Julian like you made it to London

like I know for a lot of people in what could be called developing countries that that's a dream like that's at least that's what we're told and he said yeah no I mean like my my mom works in

that industry back home um you know I could do the same job back home except I miss my family family is super important to me my life is very much family or oriented uh in London I'm dealing with

half the year of gray cloudy rainy weather I don't you know I'm not a British person I'm a a you could say Latino person I'm not an English person uh I'm you know I'm used to the food in

Colombia I'm used to the sun in Colombia I'm used to being able to go easily visit my family and th those are very difficult when you're living in Europe um so you know we had a lot to talk

about and he's got great English so now I I've had some basic Spanish practiced my Spanish but like we have a lot in common as far as shared experiences we both have had that experience of being in uh

a cold rainy country with not so great weather and people are kind of a little bit grumpy I mean if I'm you know uh being honest I do think that the I mean he was telling me you know

the pace of life in London is rapid I'm having to get up early and go to work I'm having to you know I'm not I don't have access to the same kind of produce that you have access to

in Colombia uh the lifestyle is just so different I mean in London life revolves around work uh whereas in Colombia life is much more revolving around relationships and he told me admitted you know he's like I I don't

make the same money I would make but I'm much happier here uh my life is just a lot more in line with the way I want to live now he did have interest in moving to Portugal uh he

felt like Portugal would be a good compromise between London and Colombia um there's certain things that he wanted to do that he felt like would be easier to pull off uh in London um let's see and and I

had a similar experience so in Thailand my buddy Matt uh he his parents had lived in San Diego for a number of years um I think it was before he was born they moved to San Diego they lived

and worked there uh they missed Thailand right they could have easily stayed they could have easily sorted out getting an education um I think they came before they like probably like pretty young adults before college Years like maybe

18 1920 something like that but they missed Thailand um they felt like you know living in San Diego Rat Race lifestyle working all these hours not really able to enjoy life um and so that's something that you know

a lot of Western media does not talk about is all the people that have the opportunity and just decide hey this isn't for me you know maybe I won't be as material wealthy materially wealthy back home but material

wealth isn't my top priority in life um I think it has to be more important for people from the West because we can't exactly go back home to a cheaper country where we have a lot of family to

lean on uh you know we have to have that Financial aspect covered um you know just because we we don't have that back uh background um like I said guys I do apologize for the background noise I'm really

excited to be going to uh do meetti soon I'm staying in what should be a quieter area and not have yeah not have all the chaos um uh Christopher says in Latin America I found that Mexico was a

place where I could meet and make friends quite easily conversely I was in Uruguay and the opposite was true tightnit friend groups with a norm there yeah Christopher I would agree like the you know certain areas that are

uh you know certain countries in Latin America are going to be more open than others Mexico very open culture I found it very easy to make friends with Mexican people uh throughout like both the west coast and why

don't we pull up Mexico here I visited Mexico several times uh in East Coast Mexico uh East Coast Mexico like here Cancun area and then also over here on the West Coast of Mexico Baja and in both location

I found it very easy to make friends um and that didn't require uh that didn't always require an introduction um it's uh you know I'm sorry I'm losing my train of thought it's uh yeah um yeah so okay

sorry I it just when I get knocked off my train of thought it's hard to um get back on my train of thought sometimes so in Mexico I found it easy to make friends not just through friends of

friends but also just the people I would interact with I felt like people were super nice friendly open to conversation it's not like in the US where everybody's in such a hurry that they don't really have time to

make friends or you know the West in general people are kind of insular and you um at least a lot of the local people are more insular but now if you look at you know what could be described

as a as the most developed part of Latin America Uruguay is one of those places alongside say Panama um Costa Rica I I would say is up there then you've got places that due to their development Chile is

probably up there too um guys I'm probably going to have to wind this one down soon just because I don't think the noise is going to stop and it's it's G to be really distracting um but anyway yeah

so you know in Uruguay like it's just you know it's fairly developed expensive um a lot of people there you know are busy and they want to mostly just build on the pre-existing relationships I would say Brazil is

probably more open I find it easy to connect with Brazilian people I've tie English to a few Brazilian people and they're just very warm people um but if you're looking at like Panama uru I'm trying to think what

else where else you might have that experience uh even in Colombia I felt like people in bulat were maybe not quite as open as people in medine um I haven't been to Mexico City but I imagine people in

Mexico City uh on average especially if you're in like a some of the high-end neighborhoods may be less open than people in say Cancun area or um you know even in Cancun we can zoom in on Cancun here

I would get I would bet people in Cancun proper uh are going to be more open than say Tulum where Tulum let's go down here to Tulum has become an instagramers paradise and so people are paying like absurd

rans in Tulum like 1500 a month or more uh to live in Tulum I'll try let me try my earpods let's see what happens here yeah no can you hear me can you hear me testing testing okay good

um yeah let me know if the if there's less background noise it's that's unfortunate um but yeah okay I'm glad you guys can hear me um so hey Michael good to see you welcome to the stream I um

yeah I think I think you know just in terms of development you're going to have and and probably twoo like let's set aside Brazil U let's set aside Brazil here I do think that it's you know in the

countries that are warmer and well not really setting aside Brazil places that are a bit warmer and TR more tropical may have more opportunities to make friends but Peru isn't really like tropical in the places that I went

and I still felt it was easy to make friends now that being said I did feel some groups were more insular than others um there are I'm trying to oh so one of the things that I found was

nice too is like this was in Cusco in particular somebody introduced me to a guy named Cody and Cody is from Texas uh United States he wanted to uh basically do something where he had a social group but

also that was a great idea by the way Tony thank you these airpods help have helped reduce the background noise I could focus better he wanted to do a social group and also an exercise group he had struggled

with his weight when he was younger he wanted to improve that about himself so he started a hiking club and often they're going with like two or three people and they just go hiking he goes and picks everybody

up they hop in his car uh and then they go out to a hike and they go and enjoy it and it's a it's a small group I imagine if the group grew to be too large people would

could potentially Splinter off to have a more intimate experience and uh so that's something to do as well like it's something that's a little bit hard uh okay wonderful wonderful I'm glad to hear that um and I do

want to get caught up on okay yeah so uh caught up on your comments Tony um but that's that's something that that can be that's something that that I think that when you do have your boots on the

ground that it will help you somewhat in that I don't know for me it's in some places I feel I feel like there's less friction to socializing uh so to kind of dive into this in the United States

and of course I can't speak to your experience as much in Canada just haven't spent as much time there uh but in the US there's a lot of effort that goes into hanging out with people um first off

everybody's working Monday through Friday so your time Monday through Friday is locked down uh from the time I wake up Monday morning until the time I get off Friday evening I'm focused on work now some people make it

a priority to you know get together throughout the week I found it to be more challenging uh because when I'm in demanding job I'm taking my work home with me I've got chores after work all my friends are

working demanding jobs and you know sometimes I'm in a bad mood after work the job is not a good job I'm not in a great mood don't really want to hang out with other people and so uh uh

and so you know so that that's that's one of those challenges in North America is where I'm working so much that I don't even think about socializing Monday through Friday and then on the weekend Saturday and Sunday people

have other priorities as well some of my friends are dating so they're going out on dates uh some of my friends have very Niche specific groups like one of my buddies in California he's he loves to ride a

motorcycle so so every weekend he's out with his motorcycle buddies I don't ride I don't ever foresee myself becoming a motorcycle rider so yeah I could want to hang out with him but he's prioritizing getting out of the

house and riding a motorcycle that's not something I'm comfortable at doing so we have to find a time when he's not riding if we want to get together so now we're talking maybe once every few months that we

can get together another friend he uh he's working Monday through Friday and then he's also a student so on the weekends he's completing his education a little bit slower pace so on the weekends he's studying a lot of

times or he's spending time with family so I find that we have such little free time in North America as introverts we might want to we might like we might be introverted but we're not so introverted that we

don't need any socialization but the amount of socialization that we can get may not even meet our needs and not able to carve out enough time to um you know to in include or to incorporate that uh so

when we go to like some of it's also weather I mean you know if if you're in a place that gets really cold winter it cuts down your options to hang out um you're having to go to a

bar you're having to go to a restaurant you're having to go to the movies you're having to do something indoors and there's just something that feels weird maybe it's just me there's something that feels weird about oh I'm

GNA go out but we're just going to like get in the car and drive to some other building and hang out inside um that's something I got tired of in my hometown to be totally transparent it's like okay

we're we're still in another building like we're it doesn't really feel like we've changed settings where in Latin America we're not spending that much time indoors we're going to like when I was in Latin America Cusco comes to

M we zoom in here well all roads lead back to Cusco Tony we'd meet up at a park we would meet up at a trail we would meet up at a um a historical site there were sometimes to

be indoors but they'd be like open air bars like one of my friends Maya she'd say hey we're all getting together I'm singing at this bar and the doors are wide open like the windows are wide open you

feel that cold breeze coming that not cold but cool breeze coming in where in North America it's like okay everybody get bundled up put on your jackets put on your heavy coat put on your pants put on uh

your boots okay um let's all you know uh stay inside and uh you know put on movies and listen to music and there's nothing wrong with that I mean that's the environment I grew up and it's the experience

of most people in North America unless you grew up in California or Florida or Texas even Texas gets cold and North Florida gets cold um and Northern California gets cold and so you're as an introvert who may not

want have the drive to put the effort into socializing in North America your environment in the United States in Canada UK your environment isn't really cooperating either so you I feel like the advantage that you're going to have

in a Latin America is that the barriers to socializing come down so much um for me if a friend in the United States like in Nashville texts me hey you want to go meet up for lunch okay I'm

gonna have to hop in the car I'm gonna have to drive across town I'm gonna have to uh I'm gonna have to drive before I do that I'm gonna have to dress up put all my clothes on okay

now I've got to go out to my car oh wow it was really cold and icy so now I've got to scrape my windshield off okay now I've got to drive across town and then I go and meet

them at this restaurant maybe 20 30 minutes away five bucks in gas uh then we go inside we we may have to keep our coats on if the restaurant is trying to conserve money and not run the heater

it may be a little bit chilly inside uh and then we have our meal but there's no third place and so that's something that I think we discussed a bit in the past but I'd love to cover this

subject again is that in uh you know in North America there's just a lack of third spaces so you've got work and you've got home and most people everybody basically oscillates between work and home there's not this third

space where oh it's winter we're just going to go meet up at the park it's cold it's overcast it may not be safe to walk around in the park if there's ice on the ground you may not want

to wear all the heavy clothing that you've got to wear uh to stay warm in a park in the winter time and the park May close Sunset um different than Latin America where here in Cusco you know the

plaza armis for example never closed um I don't remember there ever being an hour where you weren't allowed to uh you know be in the park um so that's a little that's another thing about North America it's like

okay well will go to the park well the park may not be open past dark so now and if you're that far north maybe the park closes at 5:00 pm so if you get off work at 5:00 pm

and you can't go to the park um you're kind of stuck indoors and I feel I feel that being outside is good for my mental health overall I think that having fresh air h i mean it's definitely aged

me probably faster than if I had stayed if I hadn't spent two years in sunny tropical countries but spending time Outdoors for whatever reason you know having the sun coming down it just gives me the sense of optimism

because some of my introversion is related to depression just to be transparent um I think it's just a struggle that is somewhat alleviated when I have sunny and warm weather and it's um it's easier for me to socialize

and to not be so negative also we've got hate to interrupt we've got six people watching the stream please give us a thumbs up if you are enjoying our discussion but uh yeah I'm gonna tackle your comments really

quick Tony and get back to what I was saying your live streams always feel like dropping in for coffee with a friend that's so nice um thank you so much great insights on the introvert struggle to connect can

you okay and loud and clear great I don't know of any vlogger that talks about the Practical experiences and challenges of introvert travel and social connections and then Tony says we often seek deep connections with one or two

people but our introvert orientation makes that a challenge and since no one talks about it we struggle with the how-to so yeah I would say you know reducing those barriers um you know reducing those barriers like okay so

if I'm in Latin America like I think you've T discussed being interested in Latin America then the weather is not going to work against me like it does in the US or in Canada um it's like it's more

economical to go out for a meal when I was in Cusco we would go to this place I talked a little bit about last time uh lunch was $3 um so if I want to go out for lunch

in Nashville we're talking $520 most of my friends can't afford to do that very often I can't afford to do that very often so it's a tra it's not something I'm doing every week it's not something that is

practical to do every week in Cusco if I'm living in Cusco $3 you know I have friends there that are making ,000 a month that are from Latin America they can afford a $3 lunch every single day uh

if they were to try to make lunch at home they'd probably spend something like $3 per person maybe they'd spend a150 or $2 but they could they could do that several days per week and they do uh they'll

probably go out lunch two three days a week so if I want to go and meet up with friends back home hey let's go out to lunch oh man you know I'm trying to save I can't really afford

20 bucks but if we were in Latin America and I said hey let's go out to lunch I'm buying right if it's two or three dollars I'll take somebody out to lunch I could afford that uh can I

afford to take two or three people out to lunch on 20 $30 per person h no that's not really reasonable because I've got rent to pay I've got an expensive phone bill I've got I've got car maintenance I've

got all these bills just crowding around me so you've got the weather that works in your favor in Latin America um you've got the economics that work in your favor in Latin America it's not only easier for you

to it's not only easier for other people to go out with you because you have a much wider selection of economical uh food options like when I was in Colombia uh my buddy Julian he's on a a reasonable

or a modest budget we could go get empanadas we don't have to go out to a fancy steak restaurant even though Colombia has fantastic Stakes some of the best Stakes I probably the best one of the best Stakes

I've ever had in the world was in Colombia but we can go out for empanadas right we can each get empanadas for a couple of dollars per person and to me that's just as fine of a meal as

having the stake uh so more it's more inclusive it's more economically inclusive and uh so so the economics are in in your favor as far as socializing the weather the economics and the culture right the culture is just

more oriented toward spending time outside you're uh you're not cooped up inside and having to pay a premium for the privilege of being cooped up inside um coffee on me today thank you so much Tony I really appreciate

that I will definitely uh I definitely had some great coffee today the roboa beans the uh the coffee here is super strong and I I really appreciate that Tony that's very generous um so yeah we we talked about

weather we talked about we talked about culture we talked about economics and I'm trying to think if there's any other Factor 's oh there's a factor number four there's a foreigner Factor um there are times in my hometown

and this isn't to be this isn't to disparage uh friends of mine back home I have some wonderful friends this is more [Music] about this is more about the wider community and it may just be a factor of

where I'm from um what we've talked about people not being as open to discussing travel people being like I can't believe you go to Latin America I heard it's Armageddon down there well when I meet an English-speaking person

in Latin America and there's much more than I would have thought before I traveled down there they've often traveled to other countries right um there still seems to be somewhat of a middle class in Latin America and so

we have all these interesting things to talk about that uh aren't as a I don't know if aren't as appealing as the word but like when I when I'm talking to some people back home this isn't everybody but

they basically we're talking about work we're talking about uh their significant other we're talking about the stuff they bought right in a consumer oriented culture so you've got you've got these three things work uh consumption and uh relationships

and those topics tend to just get kind of old to me I like to talk about ideas as much as I can I think that that's the best use of my time I think that that's where I'm able

to provide value to the audience and so we kind of you know we kind of worn out some of these topics like I know about their uh I know about generally what they like to buy um to me

at this point there's not many toys out there that are that intriguing to me I've played with a lot of different toys um you know the boats the fancy cars I I've ridden in a very very expensive car

before it's not that much different than rent than riding in an average car um and there's you know we we've all spent time in the city where none of us are getting together and going to a history museum

in the city we've lived in for 30 years right we've probably all been to that history museum multiple times on school trips um we're not going to the park because you know why go to the park we could

just hang out at home we don't have to spend the gas money to drive down there um we've we've done a lot of the things that there are to do and so there's less of a sense of intrigue

where when I'm in Latin America I don't know much about the history I don't know much about the culture I don't know much about people's experiences what it's like to live there right because we talk about the that

we feel when we're Outsiders and part of what's helped me to connect and to feel more like a local is to get to know locals um you it's you know it's a bridge that has to be crossed there's

some discomfort there but trying to put myself in their shoes trying to understand what's it like to live here um I see it through these rose-colored glasses as a foreign tourist everything is so new to me these buildings

are new this park is new what is your life like and uh trying to understand that trying to figure out what was it like to live there what is it like to live there what are they into um

what are their Hobbies there what do they do for fun there because all these things in Latin America are very different from the experiences in North America so most of my friends in Latin America a lot of their

Hobbies involve going out more um so one of my buddies like I said Julian he does yoga retreat in on in coastal colia so he'll throw together these events where he drives or flies out to we can pull

this up here to this a right so like barania or Santa Marta or um I don't know if he does cardena as much but he doesn't even live there he lives in bulat so but for him to fly

from bogot to one of these places is not very expensive for in North America for us to fly to Miami hundreds of dollars for us to get a hotel in Miami hundreds of dollars per night so it's basically

cost prohibitive unless it's a really special occasion maybe you got some kind of windfall uh you got some kind of super you know Finance job or something like that most people are unless they live in like by the

beach they're not just going out to the beach um so that's a hobby right like what did you do this weekend oh man you know I threw an event on the beach we had 20 or 30 people attend

we all did yoga for several days and enjoyed fresh fruit juices which are prohibitively expensive in North America because all that stuff has to be imported um so you you get such an outdoor oriented lifestyle that I feel

that I'm able to get out of my mind and I'm able to get more into my body in a way that in in the US yes I can go outside in some areas that I've lived Colorado Califoria you

have a lot of opportunities to spend time Outdoors but those cities also come those places also come with a price premium where I have to spend a lot of time working to uh pay for that right um so

if I'm financially independent and I'm in Latin America I I've got this opportunity to reorient my life to living outside and in doing so it seems to activate different parts of my brain it seems to it seems to

I don't know I feel like I have less social anxiety uh when I'm traveling abroad I don't know if it's due to force I don't know if it's because I think I suspect the people are not as stressed

out as they are in North America um there's what else because this is such an interesting conversation the weather is more conducive the culture is more conducive the economics are more conducive and then it may push you outside

of your comfort zone to where you know you're in North America and you see somebody you're in you know us or Canada you see somebody in public you don't want to approach them because they look like they're in

a hurry I found also people are just not as social like people are if you approach somebody they think you're trying to sell them something you're trying to recruit them into some kind of religious organization you're um you

know it's just not as easy to just go approach people in random contexts where when I'm in Latin America or I'm in Southeast Asia people will just talk to me um especially some countries much more so than others

but people will just ask me where I'm from and it rolls into this organic conversation whereas I don't it's very rare in the United States somebody asks me where I'm from and it's often it's often with impolite implications

like oh you ain't from around here are you boy you know I can see that she got this this uh this look to you that you ain't from around here that's not the way it is in other parts

of the world um people are curious and I tell them oh I'm an American for some reason that's an acceptable answer much more so outside of the United States than it is inside the United States where people are

asking where are your parents from nobody's ever asked me that in Southeast Asia nobody's ever asked me that in um in Latin America if I tell people I'm from the United States or estos and as is the case

in Spanish oh cool and I'll ask oh where are you from oh I'm from here in Colombia or oh I'm here from here in Peru oh nice um you know it's such a beautiful place oh thank you so

much and so and these conversations just keep rolling uh in the US I feel like people just have to be a little bit more CT um even people that are being friendly like I I a Trader Joe's for

example I'm a fan of Trader Joe's the grocery store chain the cashiers there tend to be nice they're still in a hurry even if they're trying to be nice to be service oriented they've got output metrics they're trying

to hit those output metrics where um you know they don't have such output metrics in Latin America to the same extent now I know people do have there's expectations people have to work hard there is necessary turnover but

people seem to just enjoy their jobs more so you can meet people in different contexts that you would not um you would not be able to meet people in those same contexts in the US or in Canada because

people are not in such a rush that you know you're looked at is kind of one of the things that we ask a lot in North America United States Canada I I'll try to quit repeating that but I

think it it's just Bears mentioning that um you're often asking one of the first questions you ask is what do you do like what do you do for a living what do you do for work and people look

at that as a bit more Strangely I found when you're in Latin America uh or you're in Southeast Asia like you know don't you know why why do you why do you need to know that like is it

a status thing are you trying to figure out my status where in the US people are very much status conscious they're um they're very much thinking can this person and I noticed this to an extreme in the corporate

world can this person provide value to me what what kind of value can I get out of this person um is this person worth talking to uh like I know one event I attended work-related event in the past

people ask me and some of my co-workers that had the same job as me oh what do you what do you guys do here we' tell them they' didn't turn around they would literally turn their back to us

oh we don't need you actually anymore you're too low in the totem pole you can't help us get promoted you can't help us move up like I mean I just it's that kind of behavior would be shocking to

many people in a Latin America or a southeast Asia turning your back on some I'm not saying that that doesn't exist at all but that just uh overthe toop like you know cutting off a conversation like that is

uh it's just it's just bizarre like it's still bizarre to me uh in some ways in some ways I get it people are stressed out about cost of living they're trying to get ahead of it by getting different

opportunities by networking by building relationships but it just seem so strange to me that that was the point of the conversation seemed very uh super official you know the point of the conversation and this isn't always the case

and people aren't always like that I mean I talk about burning man being a Fant I'll uh I'll zoom in on burning man really quick um this is the this is where Burning Man happens in the Nevada desert

we can share some this is a place where you can have a sense of community in North America uh this event happens every year it is quite expensive it is quite time consuming but people are not there to

work well there is a lot of work involved but it's uh it's just such a beautiful experience and you've got a lot of people that are that have a lot of energy that have really demanding jobs they've got

a week of time where presumably they have more free time and you can connect but it's not you know it is a typical only it's capped at like 75,000 people and um yeah so let me get caught up

here um maau streets who maau has anyone here B Jesu in South Korea I have not but that sounds wonderful do you have plans maau to go to jzu moto gab TV hi Alex good to see you again

can I ask why us has a huge Border in Mexico um so that's a great question let get out of here um some of it is just the history like I think the United States took California from Mexico

I think probably parts of Arizona New Mexico and Texas were also taken it's the border is constructed due to political reasons it's not um I you know I I don't have a great answer for you I it's I

don't know if I'd call it arbitrary like the culture seems to overlap you know if you're in a San Diego or you're in a San Antonio Alo um Los cruus like places like that you've got large Latino populations

it's you know there's different reasons to cross I mean some of these border towns like I think where is it it's it's somewhere around here nogalus might be one of them I think it Rosa R Rosa might be

one of them some of these towns are existing or are built up primarily by Dental tourism so you've got buses that pick up groups of people and take them across the border to me Mexico everybody gets their dental

work done and then they come back across the border by bus you've also got people so here's the state of Utah the state of Utah to send to save money flies a I don't know if it's a Plane

full I think they just buy them plane tickets people from Salt Lake City Utah to Mexico I think it's every few months they fly them down there because it's cheaper for them to fly these people down to Mexico

to fill their prescriptions and fly them back to Utah than it is to fill the prescriptions in Utah uh so I would say the Savvy traveler can take advantage of the arbitrary boundary I know that last time I

got a wisdom tooth out I drove uh I was living in Colorado I was living in western Colorado at the time here in Delta Delta is a small town I could show you a little bit of Delta it's

beautiful but as you can see it's a cold and small town it's kind of an old western town it's also this also is the poorest county in Colorado is Delta County and most people have never heard of this

place it's kind of the Cow Town it's not it's not what people think of when they think of Colorado a lot of people think about Aspen where you've got the ski slopes they think about Denver where you've got

uh this interesting City they think about tell your ride you've got more skiing in tell your ride they think about um Colorado Springs you've got the Olympic Training Facility there you've also got the military there they think about

Fort Collins or Boulder University towns but they don't think about Delta um Delta being kind of an armpit porest County in Colorado a lot of the worst stats I had a remote job when I lived there so it's

great position as far as earning a room income living in a very modest cost of living place but to save additional money um because I you know economics is motivated quite a few decisions I decided to get my

wisdom tooth out here in Tijuana so I drove down San Diego parked in otai Mesa uh took took the shuttle across and stayed here in TI Tijana for about a week and got my wisdom tooth out for about

20% of the price I would have paid in the Bay Area I was on my way to San Francisco so I got a job outside of San Francisco I got the wisdom tooth out and then went back over

the Border I had a couple days to recover in Tijana I was staying here in the plias neighborhood uh very nice neighborhood probably the nicest neighborhood in Tijana or one of them um and then I drove up so

I drove uh from San Diego through La uh ended up in San Jose stopped in San Jose to crash with my bud and uh you know I was talking to them about getting the work done they were like

oh wow you paid $200 to get that done and Tiana you would have paid probably $1,000 or maybe 12 or $1,500 to get that done here maybe more than that so massive savings um Texas T how much did

you pay for your education visa and was it easy to get um great question Texas so I paid it works out to about $1100 a month plus Transportation costs it was very easy to get recommend triaa reaching out

to AAA language school they took care of me they've also taken care of a number of subscribers or commenters um Tony says your last points on being the Foreigner Factor Great points when we travel we change our internal

thoughts and Outlook we are more aware of social environment more likely to approach people yeah uh you have some you have kind of an ice breaker let's uh let's go back down here to Latin America um you have

just a kind of an ice breaker where you have a reason to talk to somebody where I found that I don't know I've just found that because people are so atomized and individualized in the US oh that's cool

like whatever you know um where when you're a foreigner they're excited that you're interested you know I think in the US we've talked about it before but we expect people to come to the US we expect people to

come to Canada I think in some of these places people are more surprised that you're interested in their town and even more so if you're an expat and you're telling them well I want to live here for a

month they're like wow like even in changai in changai has had Decades of people living there as xats even in changai when I would tell people yeah I'm living here for a month they'd be like really like you're

staying here in shangai of all places you could go in the world you've got the money for an international airplane ticket you choose to live here um so people are genuinely in many cases surprised and I think it

gives him a sense of Pride like wow you know we hear about people wanting to go to your country for a long time it it's re it's affirming it's affirming that you could go anywhere and you come to

our place and they appreciate your enthusiasm and they they share more about it um let's see here we always have an opening to approach people being foreign and people are more interested in us as we are exotic absolutely

Tony um and you can even just ask people questions you already know the answer to that sounds a bit ridiculous but I found that I like to get several different answers to the same question because sometimes because oh

it's like what's your favorite restaurant I might ask 10 people what's your favorite restaurant because I'm gonna find 10 different restaurants that I want to try um even if some of them have the same favorite restaurant uh so

then there's other questions too like what's your favorite neighborhood what's your favorite AC to do here uh you know you get these ice breakers and maybe it doesn't go anywhere right maybe it's uh you know you have a

quick conversation and that you know it Peters out or maybe they become your friend uh that's what happened with in Cusco with um you know some of my friends uh that were living there is I really got along

with Maya I was surprised because you just never know how much you're going to really be able to connect with somebody you know when I went when I went into this experience as an expat I I thought what

I really have in common with these people I know we're all living in Cusco and we're all from the west and you know the lifestyle is interesting here but like she's a singer and she owns a clothing shop

and like you know he owns a restaurant and after a while you start to connect over things like in this weird way where I'm going to just check my time here because I I've got a meet with stoic

in about a half hour I'll wind down in the next half hour do my email um sorry about that so you know you start to realize oh wow like I didn't really like where I was at I mean

the case of Maya she surprised me she's from Belgium and she said I feel safer here in Cusco than I do in Belgium uh so I was shocked by that because I think of Belgium as a well-to-do country

in between you've got some neighboring countries Netherlands France but no she said you know the the city just didn't feel very safe she's a single woman she was concerned some what about her safety the cost of living is

also astronomical in Belgium as you can imagine and so uh even though she's from Europe I'm from North from the United States we're bonding over these struggles right like I didn't you know I've spent time in San Francisco

often on for a long time it's not the safest city in the world I love the city it's gorgeous but it's not the safest city it's a city where you know a lot of my friends that have had

issues when they go out at night um and you just don't feel that in Cusco so so now we're getting along talking about oh wow we love that we can go out at night and then walk back home

and it's no big deal uh and so there's so many different things where we can you know we can connect and I mean I think you know I think there's just a lot of cities like that and outside

of the the west where we feel that we can have we can we can loosen up we can lighten up a bit and I also had that experience with I've also had that experience in Southeast Asia in changai

where I've wandered around that City or Bangkok I wandered around that City 2 3 in the morning and uh didn't feel unsafe at all I would not walk around San Francisco at 2 or 3 in the morning I

would not walk around Oakland California at 2 or 3 in the morning I wouldn't even walk around Nashville the days at 2 or 3 in the morning so uh having that 20 I don't know if it's 247 but

having that ease of like you know in the west I'm often looking at my watch okay it's getting late need to go home it's getting late need to go home you know when I'm I'm in these other countries

I don't have that sensation uh so it feels like the hangout can wind down organically when we get tired we wrap it up oh I'm feeling kind of sleepy I'm going to go back to my place okay you

guys re tired you're going to go back home okay great we'll meet up later um you know where it's I just I don't know it's so so part of it also is just being able to trust your environment

a bit more I think Tony like knowing that you're not being sized up for what you have to offer knowing that you're not going to you know you're not going to walk back to your car and the windows

been smashed like is the case in around San Francisco knowing that knowing that the weather uh isn't dangerous right I mean you know in Canada the weather can be very dangerous you have to be very mindful oh there's

a snowstorm looks like I need to be prepared to camp out between work and home um maybe I need to work from home there's not going to be any such uh weather events in most of Latin America now

of course if you go down to like Southern Argentina southern Chile that can be an issue but I don't think most of us want to uh you know are considering living in those places they're they're pretty pricey I

mean we're we're talking like North American prices and also geographically isolated also the weather is not that great um yeah so the places that you discussed that that you consider uh living in I think you're just going to

they're going to be more the general experience is going to be better oriented toward the lifestyle that will give you the freedom to to open up and to um I don't know like maybe have some different kinds of

growth like I think we're all growing as people as long as we're uh learning new things we're trying to do different things I would never say oh a person that lives in the west is stunted because all they

do is work but I would say a person in the west may have self-actualized in their in the in the domain of their work and there's some other parts of them that could could where they could self-actualize if

they weren't putting all of their energy into work right if they put their energy into I don't think that introversion is only an energy thing I don't think it's a matter of oh just try harder to be outco

because I I struggle with social anxiety and I struggle with uh I I think you know talking to people sometimes just being kind of drained by loud or boisterous environments um but there are times where I'm like okay

I'm not putting all of my energy into work so if somebody because I used to for a while Tony I would just turn down invitations I'd get invited all the time and i' just say oh no I I

just I don't want to do that I'm just gonna go home or I'm just going to stay home tonight I'd make up an excuse I'd come up with some reason why I couldn't do that and then when I'm

traveling in Latin America um I felt more to be fair I felt more outgoing in Latin America than I did here in Southeast Asia but uh I would take people up on it I would say you know what

say yes just say yes to them because if you don't like it you can come home after an hour but this this compulsive I don't I think it's just habit this compulsive okay I go from work to home

and that's the end of my day yeah you get I get in that habit when I'm in the US I could break that habit um I try to remind myself hey you're not having to get up early for

work tomorrow you don't have some kind of big obligation tomorrow you could stay out uh you don't have to cut the conversation short you don't have to rush home and make sure you paid your bills because there's plenty

of times I've had the money to pay a bill but you get so many freaking bills in the United States you're like oh wow I hope I didn't forget to pay it well I put it on autopay but

I changed my credit card to a new credit card so they took me off autopay so now I got to get it oh did I do my oil change when was the last time I did my oil change

oh looks like my windshield wipers need replac when did I change my cabin air filter oh okay I need to vacuum the carpet oh the kitchen needs to be cleaned oh this oh that oh this oh that oh

this oh that and you're just running from thing it's this manic energy and I don't mean to down uh to be critical of people that you know struggle with that but it's this this running from thing to thing

that kind of adds or compounds my anxiousness and I tend to withdraw when I feel that that level of anxiety and when I'm not doing that when I'm not constantly putting out fires uh then I just feel more

open I become more amb verted I become more open to socializing I become more open to talking to other people I feel like there's less ulterior motives so I'm just talking to people just to talk to people if

it turns into something uh you know into a friendship that's beautiful if it doesn't ah whatever I'm just I'm living in the moment um so that's part of it to me is I feel that when I am constantly

oriented toward the future I'm I'm living in my head I'm not living in the environment and I'm worried about the future I'm not thinking about the present when somebody's trying to talk to me I'm thinking okay what I

what am I missing I forgot to do this I forgot to do that I forgot to do this and when I'm not on that treadmill when I'm not on that hamster wheel I can connect with people more easily

I I'm just not as withdrawn and and overanalyzing because when you're stressed out about the pace of life in the west I think that that over analysis Blends you know bleeds into other things like oh did I do

grocery shopping I I remember I used to tell myself you know you got to go to the laundromat on on one of my two days off Saturday or Sunday I have to go to the laundromat and i' and

I'd be sitting there on my bed exhausted from the work week thinking um if I don't go to the laundromat I'm I'm just G to have dirty clothes for a week it's gonna it's going to be horrible and

I would just have these these circular thoughts of okay I've got to load up my laundry bag I've got to I've got to get on the bus or walk down to the laundromat okay I've got to do the

I've got to wash the clothes okay now I've got to dry the clothes okay now I've got to take the clothes back and fold them you know and so all this these kinds of chores that we have to

do in the west I think they isolate us from other people um I think they they in some ways introversion is like I don't know if it's if it's some kind of survival um thing and I think like

I said greatness is is built in isolation I think that there's a lot of Beauty in being an introverted person that you're not dependent upon on other people for energy but sometimes it gets to be too much I

mean sometimes it it sometimes we do want some acknowledgement sometimes we do want to connect sometimes we do want to build relationships because part of the beauty of Latin America for me has been the relationships that I built

there this this beautiful tapestry of experiences where Cusco for example it's not just the ancient history it's like I bet people have been making friends here for hundreds of years I bet there have been dozens of people that

have stood in this exact same spot and had a conversation the first conversation of many uh I bet people were eating at this spot as in a restaurant of some kind for hundreds of years and you know friendships

were forged and there's just so much um there's just so much Beauty in that unfriendly stoic same with Europe that's typical in the US yeah I would definitely agree stoic leay Pub pattia love your channel mate thank you

so much lay Pub um hope we can meet at some point I would like to go back to Patti at some point and uh it's just such a convenient City it's such a convenient place to live it's wild

it's inyour face it's extreme the people watching is some of the best in the world it's such a weird place it's U and I mean that in a good way I should clarify it's uh it's one of the

most interesting cities I've ever been to I'll never forget my time in pattia exccellent Tony says Hey stoic stoic says hey Tony yes please uh like the channel is it true if you cross the border automatically you go

to jail no not at all no Mexico is you know it's fine it's got some challenges but I've never had any problems in Mexico I wouldn't recommend driving in Mexico but if you're just a tourist you mind your

own business you know you do some research on where you're headed before you go which is what I recommend of anywhere it doesn't matter what country you're going to what city you're going to I recommend doing research um

what language is hard to learn uh Korean is the hardest Vietnam Korean and Vietnamese are probably the two hardest I would say Mandarin and Japanese are a level or two below that um Spanish is not too bad coming

from English I found Spanish to really not be too bad the Scandinavian languages are very difficult um Finnish uh Swedish Norwegian all very difficult Russian is probably also quite difficult I would say Degrees of Separation the further it

is away from your home your base language which for all of us I would say is probably English then the more difficult it gets uh what states are very cold I say most of the northern states um most

of uh Moto gab I forgot you're in the Philippines um it's I would say like most of the northern states like especially Central States up the further north you go is cold the west coast is moderated by some

breezes um California like if I was talking about my f were to talk about my favorite weather I would say California Florida um probably have the best weather I forget that uh it's uh I'm so excited Moto gab

I'm flying to the Philippines this weekend I can't wait it's more fun in the Philippines um and I I forget that because the Philippines like you you have a few places that are kind of chilly but you don't

have these places that are frigid the coldest places I would say North Dakota South Dakota Minnesota uh Michigan is also extreme extremely cold Michigan is very very cold there's parts of Michigan that are north of Toronto actually c

Maine is cold um New York Philadelphia DC aren't as bad because they get this moderating effect from the Atlantic Ocean um California is the same way so California you think oh there's parts that are quite far north but

they also get moderated by the Pacific Ocean uh maau says I was in changai December 2019 a week after leaving changai the pandemic hit the temperature was cool most part of the day in changai in December yeah changai

is really lovely November through February uh I I really like it a lot it's it's kind of cool so it's perfect for a jacket it's nice for hiking uh or walking in the mountains it's uh it's such a

great time of year honestly like I feel like I've been in summer already for five months and I'll be in summer for probably another three months in the Philippines but I think Moto gab can attest to this why

don't we pull up the Philippines I'm gonna I'm gonna wind down shortly because I got I got to get ready for my chat with um so I haven't heard back still if you're watching please uh send me um

send me your email address and I'll I can reply to it that way you have my email address to send a zoom link but Moto gab the Philippines um I think you guys are going to start celebrating Christmas

very soon I think Christmas starts in August and it goes until I guess Christmas day it's I'm can't wait I'm so excited to be in the Philippines I I'm already chatting with my friends there and I'm looking forward

to meeting some people in person it's um I just can't wait I can't wait to be in the Philippines such a such a beautiful country um Moto gab your country is is so gorgeous and sorry to hear that

Gerard thank you for the heads up I am winding this stream down uh shortly but um yeah I I'm I'm thrilled so I'll be flying on Saturday uh night I'll be flying to Manila and then from Manila I

will be I'll be flying down to dumag Getti and this will be my first time in dumag Getti I can't wait it's gonna be it's gonna be nice um I can't wait I've heard and read so much about

dumag Getti it's such a it's such a beautiful country and the people are so friendly and I'm I'm very excited in part Moto gab because I will get to connect with people so easily like yourself um I when

I'm when I'm talking to Filipino people I gotta be honest Moto gab I forget that they're not American I or or um you know not I mean that in a positive way by the way um because they're so

they have such strong English I it it it reduces a barrier of communication like it's I just the connections in the Philippines are so special and meaningful to me because I feel that we I feel like there's less

miscommunication there's less misunderstanding um they understand Americans very well I think better than Americans understand them to be honest with you Moto gab I think Filipinos are very high EQ on just like broadly speaking and a lot of

Americans are very impatient and in a hurry kind of arrogant whereas the Filipinos have more humility and um yeah it's it's I can't I can't wait I'm I'm thrilled I'm gonna miss Vietnam I would like to come back

to Vietnam but it's um yeah it's I missed the Philippines a lot to be honest with you Moto gab I I missed uh I missed it a lot and I just feel like it's such a strong connection with

the people there it's it it really there was a lot of moments in the Philippines where I felt love um I don't know how else to put it I just felt the love in the Philippines I felt like

the people really wanted me to be there um that I was included and you don't always feel that as a foreigner a lot of countries that I've traveled to as a foreigner and an obvious Foreigner um I haven't

always felt welcomed I haven't always felt like I belonged I never had that feeling in the Philippines um always felt like people wanted me to be there um the people were happy that I was there shrier the administrator

did you have to fly from either Hanoi or Saigon to dang when you first got there uh so um one sec I'm just going to send stoic my email address my email uh so Sher um no so I

flew direct from Bangkok to dang I flew from Dum Wong airport so I flew from the airport in North Bangkok as opposed to savan pum um and when I fly to the Philippines I'll fly out of dang so

I'll fly from dang to direct to Manila I did pay more but you know the cost of flying down to hoochi Min City or up to Hanoi basically made it negligent and difference and um yeah I think I'm

going to next time I come to Vietnam I'd like to visit one of those two but uh yeah I'll be able to fly direct to the Philippines uh Moto gab and this will probably be my last couple comments

guys because I need to prepare for the uh the interview with stoic Alex if you want to go Philippines just on December Foreigner was welcome here December is Christmas you're not expecting if you walk in the street lots

of people invited you to eat our foods and drink yeah oh yeah I I spent Christmas Moto gab I spent Christmas 2019 in kagay and deoro uh so I was actually down here for Christmas in 2019 and it

was the best Christmas I've ever had I spent time at my friend's place uh well my friend's mother-in-law's house and they were so generous and so warm so inclusive I it was just bizarre to me because I was

so new to the Philippines and I didn't know what to expect and I felt like I was just welcomed with open arms like I like I was like they were my old friends like i' had known these people

for years and I just met them and it's um I the what I love about the Philippines is it has it's a combination of a lot of really nice things and it's um it's somewhat it has some like

it's just it's comfortable everybody speaks English the people are super hospitable very generous very kind um interesting like it's just it's just an interesting place um there's so much history there sh says I've been to Saigon the traffic

was unbearable yeah Saigon definitely has got a lot of traffic uh from the countries you've been to would you like which would you like to have an Extended Stay uh yeah Gerard great question Thailand is high up there

uh Thailand I lived in for a year Thailand is a country I've spent more time in than any other country abroad uh and then the Philippines is also up there so Philippines and Thailand are probably my two favorite

if I was you know if I was if I won the lottery Spain or Portugal would be up there those two um and then Peru Peru is really uh Peru is just a cool country so I I would

say those are probably my top five no particular order Thailand Philippines uh Spain Portugal and Peru th those five are the ones where I think I would have the easiest time adapting to living there could I live in

most countries yeah I'd say probably the top 80 or so countries that are popular I could figure something out uh something out but those are the places where I would have the easiest time adapting uh lots of them

Americans living here in the Philippines I don't get why Americans love Philippines just generous or it's more fun or something else I think Moto gab it's more fun in the Philippines I think uh part of it's a Visa

for Americans we can very easily uh stay up to three years we can keep extending our visas we can leave and then come back uh as tourists the Philippines may change that but up to this point for Americans

very easy for us to stay there long term everybody speaks English so Americans who they don't want to learn another language uh they can just talk with people so easily it's very easy to talk to Filipinos Filipinos are

very approachable you can just walk up to anybody and start talking to them and they'll start talking to you it's not like that in the US um in the US people are more suspicious more skeptical I was very

very shocked at how easily I could just talk to people in the Philippines I think too um it's a beautiful country Moto gab like the Philippines is one of the most beautiful countries in the world uh it's it's

just such a stunning environment the natural beauty the beaches the mountains the the family oriented nature the people are like very much family oriented and I think a lot of Americans miss that I think that a lot of

Americans they feel socially isolated and they go to the Philippines and they see people are still going out with their families they're still close with their families their families are the most important part of their life and a

lot of us miss that that America used to be that way in the past and it's no longer that way in the present the Philippines still has that they still have that pamilia oriented culture and it's a beautiful

thing um people aren't lonely in the Philippines when I was in the Philippines people would ask me are you here alone where's your wife sir people were shocked that I would be traveling alone because they can't imagine life

um without the context of all the people that they care about where in the in the United States we are many of us are socially isolated um but yeah la uh last few questions guys I got to wind

down because I've got an interview in about five minutes and I need to drink some water um MAA says Co camui pukat and Krabby choose one you'd live in long term no changmai that's a good question I haven't

been to Samui or pukat uh Krabby I'd go with Krabby um I did live in Krabby I think Krabby is a little bit less developed than simui or pukat I had a friends that lived in Samui yeah I

Krabby I hope that's helpful maau I think it's just uh it's not as touristic as puket it's still pretty touristic but puket is is very much oriented toward tourism I think Samui is more long-term stay friendly but you're

still on an island I'm not this is going to sound contradictory but like outside of the Philippines I think I would struggle with Island life long term the Philippines has huge islands that are so big they don't really

feel like Islands but with some of the smaller Islands I think it's just a me thing uh last one um and thank you so much everyone for joining tonight it's been a wonderful stream I'd like to stream probably

Thursday or Friday night I'm not sure yet is it true number one Philippines is the the best in spoken English I think it's up there Moto gab I think it's up there I think people are great with English

um thank you so much for joining tonight everyone I really appreciate the support if you haven't yet give us a thumbs up if you're watching on replay it's much appreciated comment you know if you're watching the replay let

me know if there's any topics you'd like me to discuss um it's always we always have a fun time in here with our discussions thank you so much again to Tony for your supporting your membership if anybody else

is interested in membership I one of my ideas is to do member specific content and eventually when we get enough members I'd like to do members only streams so that we can have more focused discussion and I'd be

able to spend more time as well answering your questions um but yeah thanks so much for watching everybody I hope everybody has a great week ahead and has a safe week ahead I'll be doing a few more streams

and then I'll be coming to you from the Philippines so talk to you soon everybody have a have a good day