[Music] hey YouTube Alex here and in today's video I want to talk about why I have low expectations while traveling number one I am rarely let down it is my belief that expectations specifically in the form of Desire
leads to a great deal of unhappiness and a lot of people when they are unhappy while traveling I think it comes down to unmet expectations where they go and thinking that the experience is going to be up here
and then it actually comes in down here for them and you might be wondering what's the problem with desire don't we all have desires and of course everybody has Desires in fact I often try to have no expectations
at all if I can help it and this way if things aren't Optimum then it doesn't bother me some people come to Thailand with 100% expectations they expect that as soon as they get off the plane they're going
to be swarmed by beautiful women they're going to go to the most fun bar they've ever been to in their life they're going to have the best meal in their life that's not quite realistic and some people when
they don't have that experience may feel a bit disappointed I love Thailand for what it's worth it's my favorite country but I don't expect everything to be perfect all the time anywhere I go and I don't expect every
interaction to be perfect everywhere I go I have experienced some heartbreak here in Thailand I have experienced getting a little bit of tummy troubles at one point there have been many supremely hot days here in Thailand but I
wasn't expecting for those things to not happen when I came here and that's why I'm so happy here most of the time because I don't come in thinking that it's going to solve all my problems somebody who's living
in a mansion in the west that moves to a modest sized apartment in Thailand may feel disappointed but for me coming from a terrible apartment in the west to a moderately nice apartment in Thailand it felt like a
huge upgrade and I wasn't expecting that but now that I've spent so much time here it just really helps my happiness level a lot I was expecting something like this and the experience has been more like this and
I think that attitude can help you avoid disappointment anywhere you go in the world Point number two is that I'm willing to go off the beaten path for some people they read about the worldclass attractions in Thailand and
while there are many I think when people go to any country and they hear about the world class that destion in that country and they see all the rave reviews they see the tons of YouTube videos about how
awesome that location is they get it in their head that the whole entire experience in that country will be that Peak and I find that with long-term travel there's more Peaks and valleys it's more of a middle-of the
road experience where your lifestyle is probably closer to a normal day-to-day life in that country than it is in terms of errands and other responsibilities than it is just vacation mode and so so one of the things I
do to offset that is I go off the beat and pass so one city I visited that's not as popular among Western tourists is a city called hot yai I really enjoyed hot yai I wasn't sure what to
expect you're not going to really see tons of content online about it is very popular among Malaysian tourists and Thai tourists but not so much with Western tourists and so that was an interesting experience I had never heard
about hot none of my friends had ever mentioned it to me none of my Thai friends have visited down there before getting off the beaten pack going to places where you have no expectations where there's not a lot
of content out there can give you some unique experiences that might punch above what your expectation is I knew that hot being in Thailand the food is going to be really good I knew that it being close to
Malaysia there's going to be some similarities with Malaysia beyond that I wasn't really sure what to expect and I really enjoyed it a lot I didn't know about the influence from Chinese immigrants all the great dim suum restaurants
they have down there I didn't know about the meab Buddha they have in the Northeast part of the city at the city park I didn't know about the proximity to S CLA Province where you can go and see
the monkeys on the beach it really really blew me away the number three reason I have low expectations in traveling is that I'm often traveling to developing countries where it's not reasonable to expect the same standard in a
western country primarily with things like English right in the United States I expect that most people I encounter will speak great English when I went to the UK I expected that but when I come to a country like
Thailand it's not reasonable to expect a standard that everybody's going to speak English because High people speak Thai when I'm traveling in the Philippines I can expect that many people have English but I also have to be prepared
for brown outs and other infrastructure challenges due to inclement weather that can sometimes occur in that part of the world part of what I expect in some developed countries is that the weather is going to be quite cold
if I go to the UK or I go to a Scandinavian country like I went to last summer Finland it's expensive to build for extremely cold weather unlike say in the Philippines where you can actually have open air
accommodation and be just fine it's unreasonable to pay say equivalent of $10 us per night to stay at a more open air or open style Resort in the Philippines and wonder to yourself why is this not the same
level of luxury as a 1 or $200 a night hotel in Helsinki Finland it's not to say that luxury doesn't exist there's plenty of luxury in the Philippines but one of the things that I like about traveling in
the developing World versus the developed world is that you have a variety of price points whereas in developed countries everything is either expensive or very expensive in the developing world you can spend as little as you want or
as much as you want and with that you have to moderate your expectations I will say there have been some pleasant surprises like medine Colombia I was spending something like 20 bucks a night equivalent to stay in medine
and medine feels very developed they have a variety of interesting Urban neighborhoods they have a Metro System they have a fantastic airport they have a variety of n natural attractions surrounding the city you have great value there where
it's like wow 20 bucks a night maybe I can buy a tent and sleep outside in the United States but here I'm staying in a comfortable hotel room and I have proximity to public transit I have convenient conveniences
in the neighborhood like laundry services and it's fantastic I wasn't expecting that I had no idea what to expect when I went to medine and because of that I enjoyed it that much more where I think if I
went to Colombia and expected Spain I might have been disappointed so with the way I travel mostly focusing on developing countries I don't expect the same standard that I'm accustomed to back home and my experience generally exceeds my
expectations every time number four I'm generally living outside when I'm traveling in developing countries as opposed to living inside like I am in the United States when I think about life in the western democracies I think about the
phrase box life I leave the Box my house to get in the Box my car to go to the box my office I work all day in the box and then I leave that box to go to the
other box the grocery store then I leave that box to go to another box the post office and then I leave that box to go back to my box at home in the developing world I find that I'm
often living outside a lot more I'm spending a lot more time walking in fact I checked the stats for this past year in Thailand I walk more here in Thailand than I did in the Bay Area because I'm
not sitting behind a computer all the time I do spend a fair amount of time on the computer editing and researching but not as much as I do in the west because I'm spending so much more time outside
I don't need as large of a space to live in I don't need a luxurious space to stay in because I'm not spending all of my time there here in bangcock I'm fine with a modest Siz Department because
I'm here living in Bangkok I'm not living in a small box that happens to be located in the city of Bangkok I'm actually actively participating in the city I'm going out I'm trying different food I'm exploring different neighborhoods
I'm going to the top of different buildings I'm checking out some of the beautiful Parks here I'm seeing the monitor lizards in lumini park I'm doing so much outside of my apartment as opposed to spending all of my
free time in my apartment either to save money or to do chores that I don't expect to live in a palace I don't expect to have a big kitchen because I need to cook to save money to actually
go out to restaurants and have food that way is it as cheap as it would be to cook at home no it's not but it's also not nearly as expensive as it is to be eating takeout in the
west which is what a lot of working people have to do to save money it's simply cost prohibitive to eat a lot of takeout in the United States or other Western democracies finally my life being the way it
is in the United States not really having any family and having moved around a lot it really doesn't take a lot to impress me when I'm traveling in developing countries I'm impressed by how close people are with their
families I'm impressed that people seem to have some meaning Beyond money in their lives now of course money is important in every country but I find that people in the developing world have some other kinds of motivations in
life beyond that and that it creates more interesting or meaningful conversations I guarantee you if you have a conversation in the west one of the first questions that comes up when you're meeting somebody new is what do you
do for work what do you do for a living and they will figure out and sus out how valuable it is for them to continue the conversation I remember at a company at a company meeting one time people
would come up to you and ask what's your job and then me being lower on the totem pole along with my immediate colleagues would tell them oh this is our position and they might get one sentence out before
they turned away and tried to meet somebody else I found broadly speaking in the developing world people are curious about your job but it's not a main focal point of conversation they quickly launch into talking about family or
Hobbies or some other kind of area of Life Beyond just the economic or financial aspect and I am impressed when people are genuinely interested to get to know me and know about my life beyond just the financial aspect
I'm not expecting that I'm expecting people to be opportunistic like they are back in the States and I'm pleasantly surprised whenever I don't get that experience so this has been five reasons why I have low expectations when traveling
and how that helps me to be happier let me know what you think down in the comments Below have you had similar experiences give us a thumbs up if the content of this video resonates with you and subscribe
to the channel down below if you want to see more content like this it is free to subscribe and we'll see you soon [Music]
