Eating all of the Vietnamese food, Scheduling Interviews

Winding Down in Vietnam and Travel Plans

0:05 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, they just don't, 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 booked 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, 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. So, we'll see how that goes. I don't mind paying for checking my bag, but I don't want to check it, you know, I don't want to. I'm just concerned about some of the risks, you know, with checking it, and I'd rather, you know, I'd rather just keep my bag on my person. So, we'll see how that goes. Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Scheduling Interviews and Expat Life

2:13 I had some delicious food tonight. Went and had some pho. My, the restaurant I've really been enjoying pho, they are having some kind of work done to the exterior. It was kind of hard to figure out, but 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, you know, it was tasty, like pho always is. I know this isn't my normal time, so I'm not sure how many people will be able to join. I've been scheduling, so I have an interview that I'm working on later tonight. Hey Chris, good to see you. Welcome. And then I just scheduled, so I've got job interviews and people interviews. The job interviews are not as relevant to the top channel. Also, I'll focus on the people interviews. But I have an interview with this couple called Chi, Chai, Chi, or Chai and Yen. They are a couple, I think the guy is from India, but they're of Indian ethnic origin, but they're from London. They're currently in India, but they do a basically what's like a child-free podcast. I know it's a controversial topic, but I'm going to join them just to discuss that. And not just that, I mean, we're going to talk about life in Southeast Asia. We're going to talk about, ideally, explore some of their interests. 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, 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 US. And like it's, 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 the expat life and then all these other niches. And I want to help explore those because, you know, I think 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 YouTube channels and platforms, people in the comments are starting to openly discuss it a lot more. I think it's more extreme from some countries like, 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. UK not far behind, 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 when they talk about people who are no longer in their working years. They're saying, hey, you should just like go somewhere tropical, you know, rather than staying here where it's cold, you've 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 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've got options. Central America, you've got options. Central America. Then there's just so many different options. 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 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.

Cost of Living and Inflation Concerns

7:07 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. 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 the 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 this for this price, now it's much higher. Somebody earlier was talking about why is it, and this is, 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 Thailand I get a passion fruit smoothie for $1 equivalent or $1.50 equivalent, and then here in Canada it's like $13?' And, 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. 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, 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 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, 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, it would be abnormal for most countries, most people 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. 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, heck, 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's, it's costly, right? 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 underreported, 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. 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. Let me just, USA, and we'll share.

12:07 So, you know, a lot of people think, okay, well, the West Coast, the East Coast, 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. 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 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...

12:51 That used to be considered cheap. I mean, wages are low, but your cost of living was cheap. Now it's expensive. Tennessee, same deal where I grew up, used to be cheap. I actually, in California, my rent is probably about 50% less than what my friends are paying in Tennessee. Now, the place in California is smaller, but it's also above a train line, which is not a noise issue; it's actually a major convenience because you can get around the area without necessarily having to have a car.

13:24 And so, in Tennessee, you have to have a car, so it's not really an apples-to-apples comparison. I think that people are keeping it 100. In Chattanooga, rent got outrageous. You're not getting a better place either. It would be fair if, all of a sudden, Chattanooga had the amenities of Atlanta or Nashville, maybe. You know, if you were in a big city and you got all these different entertainment options, you got the luxuries of living in a big city, but Chattanooga is not a big city.

14:05 We can zoom in real quick here. Drove through Chattanooga many times, probably at least a dozen times. The metro population is probably three or 400,000 people. This is basically downtown. 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 that hasn't really changed that much.

14:42 It's you're not creating more national parks, you know, they're not really improving it a whole lot. And so, it's not a bad place to live. I mean, I think Chattanooga is a beautiful city, but to say it's worth 50% more than it was a few years ago is just inaccurate and unreasonable.

15:02 Meanwhile, in California, I had rent control. 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. So, I didn't really care. It included utilities.

15:26 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. My rent to live downtown, I lived really right around this area, $1,500 per month. I had a year lease, so $1,500 per month to live in, 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.

16:03 I'm actually probably going to move back into it depending on where I get a job 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.

16:20 Meanwhile, my friends in Nashville, we can just zoom out here and go back to Nashville. They're paying $1,300 and $1,400 a month to live on the outskirts of the city, like way out here or way up here, like a good 25, 30 minutes away from downtown, maybe 20 minutes, depending on traffic.

16:49 They're paying $1,300 to $1,400, and their landlords are saying, well, we're going to raise it to $1,500. So when you renew your lease, you're going to be paying $1,500. How does that make sense when the wages in California are much higher than they are in Nashville?

Economic Challenges and Debt Usage

17:04 So that's kind of an issue facing places that are cheap: the cost of living now matches the big cities, only they don't come with big city amenities.

17:27 I saw a report of the rapid increase in buy-now-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 the company that I used to work at actually powers those services.

17:44 So how those services work is that Affirm or Clara will instantly issue a debit card and pay for whatever purchase that you're making. And then they take over what amounts to debt, and so they pay your bill. And now, 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.

18:14 And they, it's just so strange to me the idea of like going into debt to pay for food. What do you think of the stereotype? It's always, oh, people are using debt to buy luxury items. But to me, healthy food is not a luxury. To be able to eat decent food such that you have the energy to be active and to work hard, that's not really a luxury.

18:47 People need to eat a decent diet if they want to be healthy and be productive, and it's just not sustainable. You know what happens when people go bankrupt? They can't borrow money anymore. Are they going to go to a food bank? But I don't really know if the food bank is capable. I don't know if there's a limit.

19:13 Somebody would have to do the math on it, maybe hire a data scientist to figure out what's the limit on people going to food banks, because I think that's only going to increase when people are unable to stay on top of the increase in, you know, fairly healthy food. It's just not going to be good.

Comparing US Cities and Cost of Living

19:37 But yeah, thank you for chiming in, Chris. And also, thank you for keeping it 100 for chiming in. It's unfortunate because a lot of people, the advice was just move to a cheap state, move to Arkansas, move to Missouri, move to Kentucky, move to Tennessee.

19:55 And now those places, like I said, they're not that much cheaper, but the wages are significantly less. Part of what happened, and I didn't really realize this because I didn't 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 develop or maintain relationships.

20:20 I talked to friends of mine who did stay in touch with folks after graduation, and they all left. They all felt they couldn't get jobs in Tennessee because there's a limited amount of jobs. The economy of the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, is larger than half the states in the United States. Just the metropolitan area. There's more people in the San Francisco Bay Area than the entire state of Tennessee.

20:59 So it's just shocking to me that they're paying in Tennessee, outside of Nashville, not even talking about downtown, 50% to 60% more than what I would be paying to live in the city of San Francisco within safe neighborhoods.

21:17 We're not talking about... we can zoom in here on San Francisco. I'm very familiar with the city, and I'm biased here; I love San Francisco. It's stunning. Yes, it's got some problems, but to live here in North Beach, this is one of the neighborhoods that I've spent a lot of time in. It's a pretty nice neighborhood.

21:39 It's not like it's got... it's spaced out from some of the problem areas in the city. You've got the famous City Lights Bookstore, one of the most famous independent bookstores in the United States. North Beach is basically an Italian neighborhood. You've got amazing Italian food there. You're also down the street from Chinatown.

22:05 Here in Chinatown, you've got delicious food, several really cool parks. You've also got a new public transportation station for Muni. 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.

22:35 That's funny, Tony's Pizza. I've got access to all these grocery stores. I've got, you know, there's tons of free fun. That's one of the things that I love about San Francisco is that 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.

22:56 I used to go out in San Francisco and I'd spend $30 or $40 to go have a day. I'd spend like five bucks to get there, and then maybe five bucks to get around the city on buses or trains, and I'd spend maybe $20, $25 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.

23:25 People would bring speakers and play some good music. They also have tennis courts. They have several free gyms throughout the city. They would have parades, just so much different kinds of entertainment and things to do. And you can just explore. It's just like an interesting landscape.

23:47 The weather is super pleasant. You can go people-watch. I would just find random stuff 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, but you've got so much to do there versus back home.

24:04 Yeah, moved to Arkansas. Pass. Absolutely agree, Chris. Like it's, you know, and then I have friends throughout the city. So I have some friends in the Marina District, friends in some of the edge or neighborhoods. But there's just so much to see and so much to do.

24:32 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.

24:41 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 it stays really nice. People would, I'd go here all the time and just hang out, grab a burrito from down the street and munch on it and just enjoy the gorgeous weather.

25:08 It looks like they've done more updating here, like some of this infrastructure must be new. But it gets a lot of investment. You also see people bring their dogs, which is a lot of fun. It's just such a, especially on holidays, this park fills up. It's an eclectic environment. You get the beautiful architecture. It's just such a fun and this doesn't cost anything, right? To come here to this park, there's no admission fee.

25:38 You walk maybe five or six blocks from public transport. You can walk through the neighborhood as well, and it's just such a lively atmosphere. So, you know, compare this to my hometown. My hometown is not in Nevada. It is beautiful. Nashville is a very beautiful city, but there's just not quite as much free stuff to do.

26:21 I do have friends that are willing to spend the time and invest to go out and do more stuff outside of the city, but it's just expensive. A lot of the stuff, just to park downtown, $7, maybe $20 depending on where. It used to be free. You could go downtown and park for free, totally fine. I mean, I would park for free all the time, I'd go to concerts all the time and just park for free. Didn't even think about it.

26:54 There was so much open parking, and now little by little, the city has added a lot of the free parking. So just the admission fee is gas to get downtown, probably $5 to $10 round trip, maybe $15 if you're far enough out. And then you're going to pay for parking.

27:14 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 need something in a hurry and need something within their budget. Nashville, being a tourist destination and primarily catering to tourists, all the food is priced that way and catering to people on vacation. So you're not getting your $10 burrito, you're paying like $15 for a burrito.

Lifestyle Differences and Career Opportunities

27:43 It's just really wild to me how things have flipped because everybody tells me how expensive California is, and I'm paying less out there. And having some free stuff to do. Now, I'm not here to trash my hometown. I love my friends that still live there, but 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.

28:16 Those people seem to really thrive in Nashville. They've got both the guy and the gal, or other combinations of people where you've got two incomes and they're not needing to support children, and so they can really enjoy it. They're not concerned about the cost of childcare, they're not concerned about the cost of diapers. They can really take advantage of all of this stuff and really enjoy it.

28:43 And have a great time. But if you're a single person, I think it becomes a lot harder for single people to live in Nashville, to be able to afford to live there. And it's just so bizarre to me because people think California is expensive, and then I break down the numbers and it's becoming more painfully apparent that it's more in your face when you are from Nashville because the prices aren't coming down.

29:10 People were hoping these price increases are temporary, prices will come back down, but no, prices just keep going up and up and up because you have people coming in from out of state, bringing their investment income, bringing the money they got from selling their home in California. And so it's just becoming really difficult. It has become very difficult for people in Nashville to try to stay on top of that.

29:40 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 of an advantage it is to have plenty of options for bachelor-friendly housing, to be able to...

30:04 Yeah, yeah, Christopher, Nashville isn't as walkable and easy to get around like SF. Yeah, it's not walkable. You've also got a lot of people that buy beverages before they drive because it is a tourist hotspot. 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.

30:26 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 most of the city, it's just impractical to walk around. 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.

30:53 And so it's just a lot more challenging. And people, I find that some people are just not as honest about these harsh realities. But I 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, try it out?

31:16 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 as long as I could pay for my basic bills. It made no real difference. So I went and checked it out and I thought, man, this is really nice. Like the prices aren't that much more.

31:31 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, I'm going to tie this into the Southeast Asia discussion. Chris, is that you have economies of scale?

31:48 Scale. Yeah, happy to tackle that. Tony, I didn't want to get too much into US-specific stuff. You economies of scale. So because there's so many people in the Bay Area, similar to countries in Southeast Asia, it drives down prices. 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.

32:15 But everything else is cheaper because they've got more competition, they've got more options, they've got more room to spread out. You've just got so much human capital, and you've also got a city that's got to feed all these people and entertain all these people. And yeah, it's just such a beautiful thing.

32:40 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, if you have an education.

32:58 I have an education. You know, I got a degree that's not super applicable in Liberal Arts, but they accept it. You know, in California, it's all about what you know. They don't, there are people that care about credentials. You know, and I am thinking about going back for a master's in business, but for a lot of, at least when I got into tech, a lot of the jobs were like, look, we just want you to have some kind of degree.

33:26 You know, to show that you're able to make the commitment for four years, you can see something through. There's plenty of people I worked with in sales, human resources, 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. It's possible for you to be trained.

33:50 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 just send it out to places out there. I know the economy is in recession, but yeah, I mean, there's just tons of opportunity.

Making Connections as a Solo Introvert Abroad

34:12 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. But yeah, 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 eventually go back to the US, I may do like a US-centric channel.

34:36 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 waste the time of my audience. That's the best way to put it. So I'm here in Da Nang and I'm going to get into Tony's questions here.

34:59 So Tony asks, on a different note, your thoughts, Alex, on the challenge of making deeper interpersonal connections while living abroad for solo introverts. Yeah, so that's a great topic, Tony. And we discussed that a bit, and I think that we just really 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.

35:31 It's almost, in some ways, it's perfect for a livestream because it's almost like a podcast format question where you could literally have a discussion on this topic for several hours and maybe then feel like it's been adequately covered.

35:51 So there's a few things that I would say that are helpful for solo introverts, and some of it has to do with the type of...

36:02 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 because East Asian people, Japanese people in particular, are just genetically more spacial. Like, I'm a visual learner. People can tell me something, it goes in one ear and out the other, whereas if I read stuff, I'll remember it forever.

36:32 I feel like the more of the stuff that I remember is it just I just read a lot better? So, there are a few ways to approach it. One thing would be, 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, getting a membership to a co-working space.

37:20 I know Tony, you're focused on Latin America. I stayed at the Selina Hostel when I was in Bogota, Colombia. I do apologize if there's background noise; the kids run up and down the street and scream a lot. But, you know, I stayed at the Selina co-working space in Bogota, and it was a combination hostel and co-working space. So you had people that were there as guests, but also those same people would hang out in the lobby, and it created... I know they had private rooms, which I prefer. I prefer the privacy of a private room. I'm not really looking to stay in a bunk bed scenario in a country that's reasonably priced.

38:06 Now, when I went to Helsinki, I stayed in a hostel because Helsinki is expensive. But, you know, in Bogota, it's a very moderately priced city by North American prices. And, you know, Tony, I admit I'm not the best at it. I have found that the way that I leveraged it is that I attempted to make friends, or I came in with friends from North America, or friends that I made in North America, and leveraged those relationships to expand my social circle.

38:47 So, when it came to Colombia, for example, why don't we pull up Colombia here? I recognize this isn't exactly the easiest and most straightforward thing to do, but when I was at Burning Man, this is a kind of a niche event. It's happening in a few weeks, actually. One of my campmates was from Cali, Colombia, so I stayed in touch with him, guy named Julian. He and I stayed in touch; he teaches yoga. 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?'

39:37 So he agreed, and he showed me around Bogota, and it was a great experience. I don't know if that's necessarily... that was pre-COVID, 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. I think the pandemic had a negative impact on our ability to connect with other people.

40:11 To be transparent, 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 became familiar with different meetups in Thailand. You can go on there and check to see, and if I were you, I'd punch in the cities that you're interested in living in.

40:42 I know you spent some time in Mexico City, Tony, where you can find out like, 'Hey, you know, I'm into this or that.' Even if you're not into a certain niche or certain hobby or topic, you might find something that you're curious about, and then you go to the event. Your mileage may vary; you may feel like the subject is whatever, but somebody there could really have something interesting to share or say.

41:10 I found that the internet, I don't know why exactly, but the lingua franca, the language of the internet, is English. So it seems like a lot of the events or people that I've connected with online, they do have English. So even though I'm not sure where your level of Spanish is at, Tony, you might find that using Meetup.com provides you with connections to different events you wouldn't have otherwise discovered.

41:44 I'm trying to think of what else I would recommend there because I think, you know, part of it what's helpful, I found as an introverted person, is finding your one person and then leveraging that relationship into more relationships. I found people in Latin America, not just locals, which I think is the assumption a lot of people have – that the locals are often warm and friendly, which has been my experience – but also other expats.

42:17 I think it may have to do with the cost. I think Latin America is more expensive than Southeast Asia on average, and that tends to filter out some of the sketchy people, right? I mean, there are some sketchy people in Southeast Asia, not myself, not Christopher, but there are some people that are looking to experience life on the absolute rock-bottom price. And Latin America seems to filter that out a bit more.

42:52 You can live very economically in Latin America, but I think it takes more effort 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; they're constantly building new stuff, and so you don't get this dearth of housing like you do in North America. And to a lesser extent, the same in South America, because parts of South America are getting a lot of migrants from some of the places that are going through some challenges.

43:37 So you do see in some parts of Latin America where people are having to construct kind of, you know, they're just kind of throwing housing together. So, with Latin America, I would say, you know, finding expat groups and then it's one of the things that's helpful is finding positive expat groups.

44:07 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. They tend to be heavily moderated such that you don't see the nastiness, right? Because some expat communities are super toxic; people are tearing each other apart, they're judging each other, and it just gets out of hand.

45:06 So, you know, I would say finding your one person, Tony, and you can kind of filter through. So I would suggest, like, if you do, I'm not sure if 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, better than I do, and you could structure it in such a way that you're able to have some basic chats with people.

45:46 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 individually. So you start with a group as far as like expedience goes, but then you filter down. You discuss yourself a bit. You shouldn't get... if you get somebody being nasty, just block them. Blocking is so important to setting boundaries online and going from there.

46:21 And you know, you can have a basic discussion with several people and find the people that you feel like... and if you 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, of this 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... that's the struggle of the introvert. The searching part is difficult; it's challenging to search through and sift through groups of people to find those individuals that you can connect with.

47:00 But it does improve on the other side. I mean, you know, when I hung out with Julian in Bogota, 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. Just creating that space, making time for those one-on-one interactions, is so valuable.

Bridging Cultural Gaps and Expat Experiences

47:34 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 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.

48:03 So, like my buddy who is in Colombia, he actually lived in London for about five years, so we could bridge that gap. 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?'

48:29 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. He's educated; he has a bachelor's degree. He was qualified to go and work in London. He didn't, you know, lose his job and have to go back home in a bad situation; he just missed his family.

48:57 So we started talking about it, and I asked him, 'Julian, like you made it to London. Like, I know for a lot of people in what could be called developing countries...'

49:06 In what could be called developing countries, that's a dream. That's at least what we're told. He said, 'Yeah, no, I mean, my mom works in that industry back home. I could do the same job back home, except I miss my family. Family is super important to me. My life is very family-oriented.' In London, I'm dealing with half the year of gray, cloudy, rainy weather. I'm not a British person; I'm a Latino person. I'm used to the food in Colombia, the sun in Colombia, and being able to easily visit my family. Those are very difficult when you're living in Europe.

49:58 So, we had a lot to talk about, and he's got great English. I've practiced my Spanish, but we have a lot in common as far as shared experiences. We both have had that experience of being in a cold, rainy country with not-so-great weather and people who are kind of a little bit grumpy. I mean, if I'm being honest, I do think the pace of life in London is rapid. I'm having to get up early and go to work. I don't have access to the same kind of produce that you have access to in Colombia. The lifestyle is just so different.

50:44 In London, life revolves around work, whereas in Colombia, life is much more revolving around relationships. He told me, 'I don't make the same money I would make, but I'm much happier here. My life is just a lot more in line with the way I want to live.'

51:05 Now, he did have interest in moving to Portugal. He felt like Portugal would be a good compromise between London and Colombia. There are certain things that he wanted to do that he felt would be easier to pull off in London.

51:40 I had a similar experience. In Thailand, my buddy Matt, his parents had lived in San Diego for a number of years before he was born. They moved to San Diego, lived and worked there. They missed Thailand. They could have easily stayed; they could have easily sorted out getting an education. They came before college years, maybe 18, 19, 20. But they missed Thailand.

52:13 They felt like, you know, living in San Diego, the rat race lifestyle, working all these hours, not really able to enjoy life. That's something that a lot of Western media does not talk about: all the people that have the opportunity and just decide, 'Hey, this isn't for me.' Maybe I won't be as materially wealthy back home, but material wealth isn't my top priority in life.

52:43 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. You know, we have to have that financial aspect covered, just because we don't have that background.

53:11 I do apologize for the background noise. I'm really excited to be going to do meetups soon. I'm staying in what should be a quieter area and not have all the chaos.

53:35 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. Tight-knit friend groups were the norm there.' Christopher, I would agree. Certain countries in Latin America are going to be more open than others. Mexico has a very open culture. I found it very easy to make friends with Mexican people throughout both the west coast and East Coast Mexico, like the Cancun area, and also over here on the west coast of Mexico, Baja. In both locations, I found it very easy to make friends.

54:30 And that didn't require an introduction. I'm sorry, I'm losing my train of thought. It's hard to 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, and 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 the West in general, people are kind of insular.

55:40 At least a lot of the local people are more insular. But now, if you look at what could be described as the most developed part of Latin America, Uruguay is one of those places, alongside say, Panama, Costa Rica. Chile is probably up there too.

56:23 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 going to be really distracting. But anyway, yeah, so, you know, in Uruguay, it's just fairly developed, expensive. A lot of people there are busy and they want to mostly just build on pre-existing relationships. I would say Brazil is probably more open. I find it easy to connect with Brazilian people. They're just very warm people.

57:02 But if you're looking at like Panama, Uruguay, I'm trying to think what else. Even in Colombia, I felt like people in Bogotá were maybe not quite as open as people in Medellín. I haven't been to Mexico City, but I imagine people in Mexico City, especially if you're in some of the high-end neighborhoods, may be less open than people in, say, the Cancun area. Even in Cancun, I would bet people in Cancun proper are going to be more open than say, Tulum.

Socializing and Environmental Factors Abroad

57:45 Tulum has become an Instagrammer's paradise, and so people are paying like absurd rents in Tulum, like $1,500 a month or more to live in Tulum.

58:01 I'll try my earpods. Let's see what happens here. Yeah, no, can you hear?

58:32 Okay, good. Let me know if there's less background noise. That's unfortunate, but yeah, okay, I'm glad you guys can hear me. So, hey Michael, good to see you, welcome to the stream.

58:55 I think, you know, just in terms of development, you're going to have... Let's set aside Brazil here. I do think that in the countries that are warmer and more tropical, there may be more opportunities to make friends. But Peru isn't really 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.

59:30 One of the things that I found was nice too, like this was in Cusco in particular. Somebody introduced me to a guy named Cody. Cody is from Texas. He wanted to do something where he had a social group and also an exercise group. He had struggled with his weight when he was younger and wanted to improve that about himself. So, he started a hiking club. Often, they're going with like two or three people, and they just go hiking. He picks everybody up, they hop in his car, and then they go out to a hike and enjoy it.

1:00:24 It's a small group. I imagine if the group grew too large, people would potentially splinter off to have a more intimate experience. So that's something to do as well. It's something that's a little bit hard.

1:00:40 Okay, wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. And I do want to get caught up on... yeah, so that's something that can be... that I think when you do have your boots on the ground, it will help you somewhat.

1:01:21 I feel like there's less friction to socializing. 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. But in the US, there's a lot of effort that goes into hanging out with people. First off, everybody's working Monday through Friday, so your time Monday through Friday is locked down. From the time I wake up Monday morning until the time I get off Friday evening, I'm focused on work.

1:01:51 Now, some people make it a priority to get together throughout the week. I found it to be more challenging because when I'm in a 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 and don't really want to hang out with other people.

1:02:27 So, that's one of those challenges in North America: 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. Some of my friends have very niche, specific groups.

1:02:51 One of my buddies in California, he loves to ride a motorcycle, 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 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.

1:03:20 Another friend, he's working Monday through Friday, and then he's also a student. So on the weekends, he's completing his education.

1:03:30 He's completing his education at a slightly slower pace, so on the weekends, he's studying or spending time with family. I find that we have such little free time in North America. As introverts, we might want to socialize, but we're not so introverted that we don't need any socialization. However, the amount of socialization we can get may not even meet our needs, and we're unable to carve out enough time to incorporate it.

1:04:09 Some of it is also the weather. If you're in a place that gets really cold winters, it cuts down your options to hang out. You're having to go to a bar, a restaurant, or the movies; you're having to do something indoors. There's something that feels weird about going out just to get in the car and drive to some other building and hang out inside. That's something I got tired of in my hometown.

1:04:48 It's like, okay, we're still in another building. It doesn't really feel like we've changed settings. In Latin America, we're not spending that much time indoors. When I was in Latin America, Cusco comes to mind. All roads lead back to Cusco. Tony, we'd meet up at a park, a trail, or a historical site. There were sometimes to be indoors, but they'd be like open-air bars, like one of my friends Maya would say, 'Hey, we're all getting together. I'm singing at this bar, and the doors are wide open.'

1:05:26 Like the windows are wide open, you feel that cool breeze coming in. Where in North America, it's like, 'Okay, everybody get bundled up, put on your jackets, your heavy coat, your pants, your boots.' Let's all, you know, stay inside and put on movies and listen to music. There's nothing wrong with that; that's the environment I grew up in, and it's the experience of most people in North America unless you grew up in California, Florida, or Texas. Even Texas gets cold, and North Florida gets cold, and Northern California gets cold.

1:06:08 So, as an introvert who may not have the drive to put the effort into socializing in North America, your environment in the United States, Canada, or the UK isn't really cooperating either. I feel the advantage you're going to have in Latin America is that the barriers to socializing come down so much.

1:06:32 For me, if a friend in the United States, like in Nashville, texts me, 'Hey, want to go meet up for lunch?' Okay, I'm going to have to hop in the car, drive across town, and before I do that, I'm going to have to dress up, put all my clothes on. 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. 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.

1:07:08 Then we go inside. 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. 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: in North America, there's just a lack of third spaces. So you've got work and you've got home, and most people basically oscillate 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.'

1:07:47 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 to stay warm in a park in the wintertime, and the park may close at sunset. This is different than Latin America, where here in Cusco, the Plaza de Armas, for example, never closed. I don't remember there ever being an hour where you weren't allowed to be in the park.

1:08:24 So that's another thing about North America. It's like, 'Okay, we'll 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, you're kind of stuck indoors.

Economics and Culture of Socializing Abroad

1:08:40 I feel that being outside is good for my mental health overall. I think that having fresh air has definitely aged me probably faster than if I hadn't spent two years in sunny tropical countries. But spending time outdoors, for whatever reason, having the sun coming down, it just gives me a sense of optimism. Because some of my introversion is related to depression, just to be transparent, I think it's just a struggle that is somewhat alleviated when I have sunny and warm weather.

1:09:21 And 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 yeah, I'm going to 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. Thank you so much. Great insights on the introvert struggle to connect. Can you... okay, 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.

1:09:57 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. Like, okay, so if I'm in Latin America, like I think you've 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.

1:10:27 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. Lunch was $3. So if I want to go out for lunch in Nashville, we're talking $5, $20. Most of my friends can't afford to do that very often. I can't afford to do that very often, so it's not something I'm doing every week. It's not something that is practical to do every week.

1:10:58 In Cusco, $3, you know, I have friends there that are making $1,000 a month that are from Latin America. They can afford a $3 lunch every single day. If they were to try to make lunch at home, they'd probably spend something like $3 per person, maybe $1.50 or $2, but they could do that several days per week. And they do. They'll probably go out for lunch two or three days a week.

1:11:27 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.' 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. Can I afford to take two or three people out to lunch on $20, $30 per person? No, that's not really reasonable because I've got rent to pay, I've got an expensive phone bill, I've got car maintenance, I've got all these bills just crowding around me.

1:12:01 So you've got the weather that works in your favor in Latin America. You've got the economics that work in your favor in Latin America. It's not only easier for you, it's not only easier for other people to go out with you because you have a much wider selection of economical food options. Like when I was in Colombia, my buddy Julian, he's on 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 steaks, some of the best steaks I've ever had in the world was in Colombia.

1:12:42 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 steak. So it's more inclusive, it's more economically inclusive. And so the economics are 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 not cooped up inside and having to pay a premium for the privilege of being cooped up inside.

1:13:24 Coffee on me today. Thank you so much, Tony. I really appreciate that. I will definitely... I definitely had some great coffee today. The beans, the coffee here is super strong, and I really appreciate that, Tony. That's very generous. So yeah, we talked about weather, we talked about culture, we talked about economics, and I'm trying to think if there's any other factor.

1:13:55 There's a factor number four: there's a foreigner factor. There are times in my hometown, and this isn't to disparage friends of mine back home, I have some wonderful friends. This is more about the wider community, and it may just be a factor of where I'm from. 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.

1:14:41 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 aren't as appealing, but like when I'm talking to some people back home...

1:15:00 They were basically talking about work, their significant other, and the stuff they bought, right? In a consumer-oriented culture, you've got these three things: work, consumption, and relationships. Those topics tend to get kind of old to me. I like to talk about ideas as much as I can; I think that's the best use of my time and where I'm able to provide value to the audience.

1:15:39 We've kind of worn out some of these topics. I know generally what they like to buy. To me, at this point, there aren't many toys out there that are that intriguing. I've played with a lot of different toys; I've ridden in a very expensive car before, and it's not that much different than riding in an average car.

1:16:10 We've all spent time in the city where none of us are getting together and going to a history museum, even though we've lived there for 30 years. We've probably all been to that history museum multiple times on school trips. We're not going to the park because why go to the park when we could just hang out at home? We don't have to spend the gas money to drive down there.

1:16:37 We've done a lot of the things that there are to do, so there's less of a sense of intrigue. When I'm in Latin America, I don't know much about the history, the culture, or people's experiences. What's it like to live there? Because we talk about the feelings we have when we're outsiders, and part of what's helped me connect and feel more like a local is to get to know locals.

1:17:05 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 it's like to live here. I see it through 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? Trying to understand that, trying to figure out what it was like to live there, what it's like to live there, what they're into, what their hobbies are, what they do for fun there.

1:17:39 All these things in Latin America are very different from the experiences in North America. Most of my friends in Latin America, a lot of their hobbies involve going out more. One of my buddies, Julian, does yoga retreats in coastal Colombia. He'll throw together these events where he drives or flies out to places like Barranquilla or Santa Marta.

1:18:15 He doesn't even live there; he lives in Bogotá. But for him to fly from Bogotá to one of these places is not very expensive. In North America, for us to fly to Miami is hundreds of dollars, and to get a hotel in Miami is hundreds of dollars per night. So it's basically cost-prohibitive unless it's a really special occasion or you got some kind of windfall.

1:18:37 Most people are not just going out to the beach unless they live by the beach. 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.'

1:19:03 Which are prohibitively expensive in North America because all that stuff has to be imported. So you get such an outdoor-oriented lifestyle that I feel I'm able to get out of my mind and get more into my body in a way that in the US, yes, I can go outside in some areas that I've lived, like Colorado or California. You have a lot of opportunities to spend time outdoors, but those places also come with a price premium.

1:19:32 Where I have to spend a lot of time working to pay for that. So if I'm financially independent and I'm in Latin America, 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, I don't know, I feel like I have less social anxiety when I'm traveling abroad.

1:20:00 I don't know if it's due to force, or if it's because I suspect people are not as stressed out as they are in North America. 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.

1:20:29 Where you know you're in North America, and you see somebody in public, you don't want to approach them because they look like they're in a hurry. People are just not as social. If you approach somebody, they think you're trying to sell them something, or you're trying to recruit them into some kind of religious organization. It's just not as easy to just go approach people in random contexts.

1:20:57 Where, when I'm in Latin America or Southeast Asia, people will just talk to me. People will just ask me where I'm from, and it rolls into this organic conversation. Whereas in the United States, it's very rare somebody asks me where I'm from, and it's often with impolite implications like, 'Oh, you ain't from around here, are you, boy?'

1:21:28 That's not the way it is in other parts of the world. 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. Where people are asking, 'Where are your parents from?' Nobody's ever asked me that in Southeast Asia or Latin America.

1:21:55 If I tell people I'm from the United States, or 'Estos,' 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. You know, it's such a beautiful place.' 'Oh, thank you so much.'

1:22:17 And these conversations just keep rolling. In the US, I feel like people just have to be a little bit more cautious. Even people that are being friendly, like the cashiers at Trader Joe's, they tend to be nice, but they're still in a hurry. They've got output metrics they're trying to hit.

1:22:44 Where, you know, they don't have such output metrics in Latin America to the same extent. Now, I know people have 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 be able to meet people in those same contexts in the US or Canada.

Social Dynamics and Cultural Differences

1:23:09 Because people are not in such a rush that, you know, you're looked at as kind of one of the things that we ask a lot in North America, the United States, Canada: 'What do you do?' Like, what do you do for a living? What do you do for work?

1:23:33 And people look at that as a bit more strange. I found when you're in Latin America or Southeast Asia, people will just talk to me. People will just ask me where I'm from, and it rolls into this organic conversation. Whereas in the US, it's very rare somebody asks me where I'm from, and it's often with impolite implications like, 'Oh, you ain't from around here, are you, boy?'

1:23:50 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 very much thinking, 'Can this person provide value to me? What kind of value can I get out of this person? Is this person worth talking to?'

1:24:14 I know at one work-related event in the past, people asked me and some of my co-workers that had the same job as me, 'Oh, what do you guys do here?' We told them, and they literally turned their back to us, saying, 'Oh, we don't need you actually anymore. You're too low in the totem pole. You can't help us get promoted.'

1:24:33 That kind of behavior would be shocking to many people in Latin America or Southeast Asia. Turning your back on someone, I'm not saying that doesn't exist at all, but that just seems over the top, like cutting off a conversation like that is bizarre.

1:25:03 It's still bizarre to me in some ways. In some ways, I get it; people are stressed out about the cost of living, they're trying to get ahead by getting different opportunities, by networking, by building relationships. But it just seems so strange to me that that was the point of the conversation.

1:25:22 It seemed very official. And this isn't always the case, and people aren't always like that. I mean, I talk about Burning Man being a fantasy. This is where Burning Man happens in the Nevada desert. This is a place where you can have a sense of community in North America.

1:25:54 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 just such a beautiful experience. And you've got a lot of people 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.

1:26:17 But it's not, you know, it's capped at like 75,000 people. And yeah, so let me get caught up here. 'Um, Mau streets, who Mau has anyone here been to Jesu in South Korea?' I have not, but...

1:26:36 B Jesu in South Korea? I have not, but that sounds wonderful. Do you have plans to go to Jeju?

1:26:44 Hi Alex, good to see you again. Can I ask why the US has a huge border in Mexico? So that's a great question.

1:26:58 Some of it is just the history. I think the United States took California from Mexico. I think probably parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas were also taken.

1:27:16 The border is constructed due to political reasons. It's not arbitrary. The culture seems to overlap. You know, if you're in San Diego or you're in San Antonio, places like that, you've got large Latino populations.

1:27:50 There are different reasons to cross. Some of these border towns, like Nogales, might be one of them. Rosa might be one of them. Some of these towns are built up primarily by dental tourism.

1:28:18 You've got buses that pick up groups of people and take them across the border to Mexico. Everybody gets their dental work done and then they come back across the border by bus.

1:28:31 You've also got people, so here's the state of Utah. To save money, they fly. I don't know if it's a plane full, but I think they just buy plane tickets for people from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Mexico.

1:28:50 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.

1:29:03 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. I was living in western Colorado at the time.

1:29:18 Delta is a small town. 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 the poorest county in Colorado, Delta County.

1:29:39 Most people have never heard of this place. It's kind of a cow town. It's not what people think of when they think of Colorado. A lot of people think about Aspen with the ski slopes, or Denver with its interesting city.

1:29:56 They think about Telluride with more skiing, or Colorado Springs with the Olympic Training Facility and the military. They think about Fort Collins or Boulder, university towns, but they don't think about Delta.

1:30:14 Delta being kind of an armpit, the poorest county in Colorado. A lot of the worst stats. I had a remote job when I lived there, so it was a great position as far as earning an income while living in a very modest cost of living place.

1:30:28 But to save additional money, because economics motivated quite a few decisions, I decided to get my wisdom tooth out in Tijuana. So I drove down to San Diego, parked in Otay Mesa, took the shuttle across, and stayed in Tijuana for about a week.

1:30:48 I 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 the wisdom tooth out and then went back over the border.

1:31:03 I had a couple days to recover in Tijuana. I was staying in the Playas neighborhood, a very nice neighborhood, probably the nicest neighborhood in Tijuana, or one of them.

1:31:15 And then I drove up from San Diego through LA, ended up in San Jose. I stopped in San Jose to crash with my bud.

1:31:26 I was talking to them about getting the work done. They were like, 'Oh wow, you paid $200 to get that done in Tijuana? You would have paid probably $1,000 or maybe $1,200 or $1,500 to get that done here, maybe more.'

1:31:44 So massive savings. Texas T, how much did you pay for your education visa, and was it easy to get? Great question, Texas.

1:31:54 It works out to about $1,100 a month plus transportation costs. It was very easy to get. I recommend reaching out to AAA Language School; they took care of me.

1:32:03 They've also taken care of a number of subscribers or commenters.

1:32:16 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 the social environment, more likely to approach people.'

The Foreigner Factor and Building Relationships

1:32:28 Yeah, you have kind of an icebreaker. Let's go back down here to Latin America. You have just a kind of an icebreaker where you have a reason to talk to somebody.

1:32:47 I've just found that because people are so atomized and individualized in the US, oh, that's cool, whatever. Where when you're a foreigner, they're excited that you're interested.

1:33:08 I think in the US, 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.

1:33:18 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 Chiang Mai?'

1:33:27 Chiang Mai has had decades of people living there as expats. Even in Chiang Mai, when I would tell people, 'Yeah, I'm living here for a month,' they'd be like, 'Really? You're staying here in Shanghai of all places?'

1:33:39 You could go anywhere in the world, you've got the money for an international airplane ticket, you choose to live here. So people are genuinely, in many cases, surprised.

1:33:48 And I think it gives them a sense of pride, like, 'Wow, you know, we hear about people wanting to go to your country for a long time.' It's affirming that you could go anywhere and you come to our place.

1:34:08 And they appreciate your enthusiasm, and they share more about it. 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.

1:34:25 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.

1:34:37 Because sometimes, 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.

1:34:47 Even if some of them have the same favorite restaurant. So then there are other questions too, like, 'What's your favorite neighborhood? What's your favorite activity to do here?'

1:34:57 You get these icebreakers, and maybe it doesn't go anywhere. Maybe it's a quick conversation, and it peters out. Or maybe they become your friend.

1:35:08 That's what happened in Cusco with some of my friends that were living there. 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.

1:35:25 You know, when I went into this experience as an expat, I thought, 'What do I really have in common with these people?' I know we're all living in Cusco, and we're all from the West.

1:35:37 And the lifestyle is interesting here, but like, she's a singer and owns a clothing shop, and he owns a restaurant. And after a while, you start to connect over things.

1:35:57 In this weird way where I'm going to just check my time here because I've got a meet with Stoic in about a half hour. I'll wind down in the next half hour.

1:36:23 Sorry about that. So, you know, you start to realize, 'Oh wow, like I didn't really like where I was at.' I mean, in the case of Maya, she surprised me. She's from Belgium.

1:36:30 She said, 'I feel safer here in Cusco than I do in Belgium.' So I was shocked by that because I think of Belgium as a well-to-do country.

1:36:37 In between, you've got some neighboring countries, Netherlands, France. But no, she said, 'The city just didn't feel very safe.' She's a single woman, she was concerned somewhat about her safety.

1:36:53 The cost of living is also astronomical in Belgium, as you can imagine. And so, even though she's from Europe, I'm from North America, the United States, we're bonding over these struggles.

1:37:06 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.

1:37:18 It's a city where, you know, a lot of my friends have had issues when they go out at night. And you just don't feel that in Cusco.

1:37:28 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.' And so there's so many different things where we can connect.

1:37:46 I mean, I think there's just a lot of cities like that outside of the West where we feel that we can have, we can loosen up, we can lighten up a bit.

1:38:00 And I also had that experience in Southeast Asia in Chiang Mai, where I've wandered around that city, or Bangkok. I wandered around that city at 2 or 3 in the morning and didn't feel unsafe at all.

1:38:15 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 during the day at 2 or 3 in the morning.

1:38:27 So having that, I don't know if it's 24/7, 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.'

1:38:39 You know, when I'm in these other countries, I don't have that sensation. 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.'

1:38:57 'Okay, you guys are tired, you're going to go back home.' 'Okay, great. We'll meet up later.'

1:39:02 You know, where it's, I just don't know. So part of it also is just being able to trust your environment a bit more.

1:39:18 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.

1:39:25 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 the weather isn't dangerous, 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 weather events in most of Latin America.

1:39:59 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, you know, are considering living in those places. They're pretty pricey. I mean, we're talking like North American prices and also geographically isolated. Also, the weather is not that great.

1:40:19 Yeah, so the places that you discussed that you consider 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 open up and to, um, I don't know, like maybe have some different kinds of growth.

1:40:54 I think we're all growing as people as long as we're 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 domain of work, and there are some other parts of them that could where they could self-actualize if they weren't putting all of their energy into work.

1:41:32 I don't think introversion is only an energy thing. I don't think it's a matter of, oh, just try harder to be outgoing because I struggle with social anxiety and I struggle with, uh, talking to people sometimes, just being kind of drained by loud or boisterous environments.

1:41:54 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'd just say, oh no, I just don't want to do that. I'm just going to go home or I'm just going to stay home tonight.

1:42:10 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, I felt more, to be fair, I felt more outgoing in Latin America than I did here in Southeast Asia. But I would take people up on it. I would say, you know what, just say yes to them.

1:42:29 Because if you don't like it, you can come home after an hour. But this compulsive, I don't think it's just habit, this compulsive, okay, I go from work to home and that's the end of my day. Yeah, I get in that habit when I'm in the US. I could break that habit.

1:42:46 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. You don't have to cut the conversation short. You don't have to rush home and make sure you paid your bills.

1:43:05 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?

1:43:23 Oh, looks like my windshield wipers need replacing. 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. And you're just running from thing to thing. It's this manic energy.

1:43:36 And I don't mean to be critical of people that struggle with that, but it's this running from thing to thing that kind of adds or compounds my anxiousness. And I tend to withdraw when I feel that level of anxiety.

1:43:56 And when I'm not doing that, when I'm not constantly putting out fires, then I just feel more open. I become more ambiverted. I become more open to socializing. I become more open to talking to other people.

1:44:11 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, that's beautiful. If it doesn't, whatever. I'm just living in the moment.

1:44:25 So that's part of it to me is I feel that when I am constantly oriented toward the future, 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.

1:44:37 When somebody's trying to talk to me, I'm thinking, okay, what am I missing? I forgot to do this, I forgot to do that. And when I'm not on that treadmill, when I'm not on that hamster wheel, I can connect with people more easily.

1:44:52 I'm just not as withdrawn and overanalyzing because when you're stressed out about the pace of life in the west, I think that overanalysis bleeds into other things.

1:45:04 Like, oh, did I do grocery shopping? I remember I used to tell myself, you know, you got to go to the laundromat on one of my two days off, Saturday or Sunday. I have to go to the laundromat.

1:45:15 And I'd be sitting there on my bed, exhausted from the work week, thinking, if I don't go to the laundromat, I'm just going to have dirty clothes for a week. It's going to be horrible.

1:45:29 And I would just have these circular thoughts of, okay, I've got to load up my laundry bag, I've got to get on the bus or walk down to the laundromat. Okay, 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.

1:45:47 And so all these kinds of chores that we have to do in the west, I think they isolate us from other people. Introversion is like, I don't know if it's some kind of survival thing.

1:46:11 And I think, like I said, greatness is built in isolation. I think that there's a lot of beauty in being an introverted person, that you're not dependent upon other people for energy. But sometimes it gets to be too much.

1:46:34 I mean, 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.

Favorite Destinations and Cultural Connections

1:46:45 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.

1:47:04 I bet people were eating at this spot as in a restaurant of some kind for hundreds of years, and friendships were forged. And there's just so much beauty in that.

1:47:25 Unfriendly, stoic, same with Europe. That's typical in the US. Yeah, I would definitely agree. Stoic, Lay Pub, Pattaya. Love your channel, mate. Thank you so much, Lay Pub. Hope we can meet at some point. I would like to go back to Pattaya at some point.

1:47:39 And it's just such a convenient city. It's such a convenient place to live. It's wild, it's in-your-face, it's extreme. The people watching is some of the best in the world. It's such a weird place, and I mean that in a good way, I should clarify. It's one of the most interesting cities I've ever been to. I'll never forget my time in Pattaya.

1:48:10 Excellent. Tony says, Hey. Stoic says, Hey Tony. Yes, please. Is it true if you cross the border, you automatically go to jail? No, not at all. Mexico is 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 do some research on where you're headed before you go.

1:48:34 Which is what I recommend for anywhere. It doesn't matter what country you're going to, what city you're going to. I recommend doing research.

1:48:44 What language is hard to learn? Korean is the hardest. Vietnamese, Korean, and Vietnamese are probably the two hardest. I would say Mandarin and Japanese are a level or two below that. Spanish is not too bad coming from English. I found Spanish to really not be too bad.

1:49:03 The Scandinavian languages are very difficult. Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, all very difficult. Russian is probably also quite difficult. I would say degrees of separation, the further it is away from your base language, which for all of us, I would say is probably English, then the more difficult it gets.

1:49:34 What states are very cold? Most of the northern states, most of uh Moto Gab, I forgot you're in the Philippines. It's, I would say like most of the northern states, especially central states. Up further north you go, it's cold. The west coast is moderated by some breezes.

1:50:09 California, like if I were to talk about my favorite weather, I would say California, Florida probably have the best weather. I forget that. It's, I'm so excited, Moto Gab. I'm flying to the Philippines this weekend. I can't wait.

1:50:31 It's more fun in the Philippines. And I forget that because the Philippines, 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. Michigan is also extremely cold.

1:50:52 Michigan is very, very cold. There's parts of Michigan that are north of Toronto, actually. Maine is cold. New York, Philadelphia, DC aren't as bad because they get this moderating effect from the Atlantic Ocean.

1:51:13 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.

1:51:31 Maau says, I was in Shanghai, December 2019, a week after leaving Shanghai, the pandemic hit. The temperature was cool most part of the day in Shanghai in December. Yeah, Shanghai is really lovely, November through February. I really like it a lot. It's kind of cool, so it's perfect for a jacket. It's nice for hiking or walking in the mountains.

1:51:56 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...

1:52:07 Months and I'll be in summer for probably another three months in the Philippines. I think Moto gab can attest to this. Why don't we pull up the Philippines? I'm going to wind down shortly because I got to get ready for my chat with um.

1:52:31 I haven't heard back still. If you're watching, please send me your email address and I can reply to it that way. You have my email address to send a Zoom link.

1:52:44 Moto gab, the Philippines, I think you guys are going to start celebrating Christmas very soon. I think Christmas starts in August and it goes until Christmas day. I can't wait, I'm so excited to be in the Philippines.

1:53:05 I'm already chatting with my friends there and I'm looking forward to meeting some people in person. I just can't wait, I can't wait to be in the Philippines. Such a beautiful country.

1:53:21 Moto gab, your country is so gorgeous. Sorry to hear that, Gerard. Thank you for the heads up. I am winding this stream down shortly.

1:53:42 I'll be flying on Saturday night to Manila, and then from Manila, I will be flying down to Dumaguete. This will be my first time in Dumaguete. I can't wait, it's going to be nice.

1:54:05 I can't wait. I've heard and read so much about Dumaguete. It's such a beautiful country and the people are so friendly.

1:54:30 I'm very excited in part, Moto gab, because I will get to connect with people so easily, like yourself. When I'm talking to Filipino people, I've got to be honest, Moto gab, I forget that they're not American.

1:54:47 Not that I mean in a positive way, by the way, because they're so, they have such strong English. It reduces a barrier of communication.

1:55:05 It's just the connections in the Philippines are so special and meaningful to me because I feel like there's less miscommunication, less misunderstanding. They understand Americans very well.

1:55:23 I think better than Americans understand them. To be honest with you, Moto gab, I think Filipinos are very high EQ. Broadly speaking, a lot of Americans are very impatient and in a hurry, kind of arrogant, whereas the Filipinos have more humility.

1:55:43 Yeah, it's I can't wait. I'm thrilled. I'm going to miss Vietnam. I would like to come back to Vietnam.

1:55:58 I missed the Philippines a lot, to be honest with you, Moto gab. I missed it a lot, and I just feel like it's such a strong connection with the people there.

1:56:17 There were a lot of moments in the Philippines where I felt love. I don't know how else to put it. I just felt the love in the Philippines.

1:56:26 I felt like the people really wanted me to be there, that I was included. You don't always feel that as a foreigner in a lot of countries that I've traveled to.

1:56:42 As a foreigner and an obvious foreigner, I haven't always felt welcomed. I haven't always felt like I belonged. I never had that feeling in the Philippines.

Travel Plans and Favorite Countries

1:56:50 I always felt like people wanted me to be there. The people were happy that I was there.

1:57:03 Sher, the administrator, did you have to fly from either Hanoi or Saigon to Da Nang when you first got there?

1:57:15 One sec, I'm just going to send Stoic my email address.

1:57:53 Sher, no. So I flew direct from Bangkok to Da Nang. I flew from Don Mueang Airport, so I flew from the airport in North Bangkok as opposed to Suvarnabhumi.

1:58:08 And when I fly to the Philippines, I'll fly out of Da Nang. So I'll fly from Da Nang direct to Manila. I did pay more, but the cost of flying down to Ho Chi Minh City or up to Hanoi basically made it a negligible difference.

1:58:26 And yeah, I think I'm going to next time I come to Vietnam, I'd like to visit one of those. But yeah, I'll be able to fly direct to the Philippines.

1:58:35 Moto gab, and this will probably be my last couple comments, guys, because I need to prepare for the interview.

1:58:48 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.

1:59:02 Yeah, oh yeah. I spent Christmas, Moto gab, I spent Christmas 2019 in Cagayan de Oro. So I was actually down here for Christmas in 2019.

1:59:18 It was the best Christmas I've ever had. I spent time at my friend's mother-in-law's house, and they were so generous, so warm, so inclusive.

1:59:35 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.

1:59:45 Like I was like they were my old friends, like I had known these people for years, and I just met them.

1:59:54 What I love about the Philippines is it has a combination of a lot of really nice things. It's somewhat comfortable.

2:00:12 Everybody speaks English. The people are super hospitable, very generous, very kind. Interesting. It's just an interesting place. There's so much history.

2:00:30 Sher says, I've been to Saigon, the traffic was unbearable. Yeah, Saigon definitely has got a lot of traffic. From the countries you've been to, which would you like to have an extended stay?

2:00:42 Gerard, great question. Thailand is high up there. Thailand, I lived in for a year. Thailand is a country I've spent more time in than any other country abroad. And then the Philippines is also up there.

2:00:54 So Philippines and Thailand are probably my two favorites. If I won the lottery, Spain or Portugal would be up there.

Why Americans Love the Philippines and Stream Wrap-up

2:01:11 Peru is just a cool country. So I would say those are probably my top five, no particular order: Thailand, Philippines, Spain, Portugal, and Peru. Those five are the ones where I think I would have the easiest time adapting to living there.

2:01:32 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. But those are the places where I would have the easiest time adapting.

2:01:51 Lots of Americans living here in the Philippines. I don't get why Americans love the Philippines. Is it just generous, or is it more fun, or something else?

2:02:02 I think, Moto gab, it's more fun in the Philippines. I think part of it is a Visa for Americans. We can very easily stay up to three years. We can keep extending our visas. We can leave and then come back as tourists.

2:02:18 The Philippines may change that, but up to this point for Americans, it's very easy for us to stay there long-term. Everybody speaks English, so Americans who don't want to learn another language can just talk with people so easily.

2:02:33 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.

2:02:43 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.

2:03:10 It's a beautiful country, Moto gab. Like the Philippines is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It's just such a stunning environment, the natural beauty, the beaches, the mountains.

2:03:26 The family-oriented nature. The people are very much family-oriented, and I think a lot of Americans miss that. I think that a lot of Americans feel socially isolated.

2:03:39 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.

2:03:50 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.

2:04:00 They still have that family-oriented culture, and it's a beautiful thing. People aren't lonely in the Philippines.

2:04:08 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 without the context of all the people that they care about.

2:04:25 Whereas in the United States, many of us are socially isolated. But yeah, 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.

2:04:35 Ma'am says, Koh Samui, Phuket, or Krabi, choose one you'd live in long-term. No, Chiang Mai. That's a good question. I haven't been to Samui or Phuket. Krabi, I'd go with Krabi.

2:04:50 I did live in Krabi. I think Krabi is a little bit less developed than Samui or Phuket. I had friends that lived in Samui.

2:05:05 Yeah, Krabi. I hope that's helpful, Ma'am. I think it's just not as touristic as Phuket. It's still pretty touristic, but Phuket is very much oriented toward tourism. I think Samui is more long-term stay friendly.

2:05:19 But you're still on an island. 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.

2:05:34 But with some of the smaller islands, I think it's just a me thing. Last one, and thank you so much everyone for joining tonight. It's been a wonderful stream.

2:05:45 I'd like to stream probably Thursday or Friday night. I'm not sure yet. Is it true, number one, Philippines is the best in spoken English? I think it's up there, Moto gab. I think people are great with English.

2:05:59 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.

2:06:14 It's always, we always have a fun time in here with our discussions. Thank you so much again to Tony for your support and membership. If anybody else is interested in membership, 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.

2:06:36 So that we can have more focused discussion, and I'd be able to spend more time as well answering your questions. But yeah, thanks so much for watching, everybody. I hope everybody has a great week ahead and has a safe week ahead.

2:06:48 I'll be doing...

2:06:52 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 good day.