Excluding Thailand - Best place you have ever been?

[JaiDee]

   Thailand would be too easy as a choice for a topic like this, it's obvious most people who follow a board like this one would pick that place.

 

  But what would be in 2nd place?  Maybe a safari you've taken, or a cruise, or a particular favorite city or country?  Cancun, Ibiza? Burning man?? Grand tour with many places en route?

[SiamSam]

For it would have to be China. Second to that would be Turkey.

[Jimslim]

This may sound corny but I actually think Ireland is the nicest place I've been and I've lived here all my life .

[mikibyne]

Best is difficult, but memorable would be Malaysian Borneo. Crocodiles, hornbills, orangutang and enough proboscis monkeys to never need to see one again. Kuwait just a week after 9/11. Together with my travelling companion, we  must have been the only pale-faces in town. But the locals were fantastically friendly, the food good, the heat insufferable and the city itself mind-numbingly boring. No wonder the Gulf Arabs escape to Pattaya for some fun. Cambodia before Angkor Wat was constantly overrun with bus loads of tourists. Had a guide and driver who started getting a bit nervous when the car got stuck on a muddy track. When asked what the problem was the guide explained that we were in an area with Khmer Rouge veterans. Time to help push the car.

[ciobha]

I would say Boston. I was there for a week a few years back and found it a fantastic City, actually, probably somewhere I would happily live, except it does seem quite pricey as place to reside, opposed to a place for a short break. After visiting California a number of times over the years, the USA seemed a bit bleak to me (no offense to our American brethren) but after visiting Boston, I found a whole new love for the country. I don't know what it was, but if I was to be put on the spot, I reckon it was simply that the people there were much nicer.

And the fact it has a very big Irish influence is always a help.

[globetrotter]

Nepal is pretty great

[Rickshaw]

The trouble with this topic is that it is time sensitive - Syria in 2005 was incredible but I am not sure about going now! Ditto Myanmar in 2004 but that was before 1 million plus tourists hit the place despite there being no more accommodation from when we went with fewer than 100 000 visitors...

 

But it works the other way as well - South Africa in the early 80s was an amazing country but under apartheid whereas now it is still amazing and I can recommend a visit with a clear conscience.

 

Nepal is great as is Bhutan which is Nepal without the tourists but with the minor problem that you have to spend US$250 per day per person to get in!

 

Oh yes - Ethiopia rocks!

And so on and so forth.

[JaiDee]

I would say Boston. after visiting Boston, I found a whole new love for the country. I don't know what it was, but if I was to be put on the spot, I reckon it was simply that the people there were much nicer.

And the fact it has a very big Irish influence is always a help.

 

   Yaaaaayyy!   Thanks for the love, Ciobha!

 

Funny you say the people were much nicer there....if you talk to a midwesterner or a southerner about the east coast, and the Boston/ NYC corridor in general, they would say we were all rude and unfriendly MFER's.   Depends on your perspective, I guess.

[JaiDee]

Nepal is pretty great

 

I  liked Nepal as well,  globetrotter;  enough to spend a week there on my first trip and a MONTH there on my 2nd.  I even considered setting up shop there for a half-year or so, but the electricity situation is a joke.

 

   I took a trip with my 14-year old in 2007, 27 days all told starting in Boston, arriving in Ireland then Ulster for 8 days......then on to Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna, and Salzburg for 3 or 4 days each and finishing up in Venice, Italy.  I can say this was easily the best trip I have ever had, and I still think about it often.

 

    Venice is my pick for coolest, nicest city in the world....there's just something about it.

[williethepimp]

Hmmm,good question jaidee.....and so many good answers.....i loved China,but i was only there 1 week,just enough time to fascinate me and make me want to see more of it,and to go back again......also  Eastern Europe,especially after the fall of the Eastern block in the early nineties.....I love France also,so much regional diversity there....cities?...Berlin,I could happily live there,the most liberal city in Europe....Barcelona ,a close second

[globetrotter]

Ya Jaidee went back to Nepal last year after LOS and Cambo and it was indeed still fantastic but unfortunately the electricity is still a major headache

[duke007]

Benidorm

[JaiDee]

I love France also,so much regional diversity there....cities?...Berlin,I could happily live there,the most liberal city in Europe....Barcelona ,a close second

 

I was just telling some buddies last night that I would love to live in Europe for a while, maybe Amsterdam or Prague, Vienna? Even Bucharest in Romania intrigues me, the girls are cute and like westerners and the weather is good in the summer;  only problem is I can't afford any of these places!  Even Romania or Czech Republic,  just too damned expensive 

 

Globetrotter;  Nepal is one of the coolest places I have ever been on earth, the most beautiful and certainly the strangest [yes, even more than head-shaking Thailand].  But they ration electricity and you only get 8 hours per day, more if you stay at a guest house or apartment house with a generator but then it's loud as hell. I really considered staying there for a half year or a year,  but you just can't escape that fact, plus the wifi is spotty at best.

 

Bottom line;  Thailand continues to give the best bang for the buck, plus good infrastructure and food, good weather, nice people, etc....so even though some other places may appeal to me more, it just doesn't make sense to live there.

 

   Here are 2 so-so photos at best.....unfortunately when I was in Nepal in 2011 it was really cloudy and overcast;  but if you look closely in the center of these 2 pics you can see Everest, I got within about 75 miles of it on my 'cycle.  Also included; even way out in the middle of eastern Nepal, miles from any real civilization, you can still score some western vice 

[SiamSam]

What better place for MOUNTAIN Dew than at the base of Everest. 

[seven]

Southern France. Juan-les-Pins or Antibes , around that area. Hard to describe it, you have to go there to understand how nice it is.

[bumblebee]

What better place for MOUNTAIN Dew than at the base of Everest. 

Coincidentally they were giving out free bottles of the stuff at the entrance to Walking St. on Saturday evening.

[JaiDee]

Yeah, I noticed the Green Death had made it here, first time since I've been traveling to Thailand. Picked up a few at the 7,  not quite the same taste; surely better off   

[bumblebee]

Regarding the topic, one place I always loved and still do is Las Ramblas/La Rambla in Barcelona.  It's a great street for people watching but a bit of an edge to it in parts with pickpockets about.

[ArchieBunker]

I have visited over 50 countries around the world.  Most of this traveling was when I was younger.  I havent been to many countries the past 10 years.  One of the coolest places I have visited was The Basque Country in particular the city of San Sebastian.  If you are a hardcore Basque, you call it Donosti.............

 

Havent been there in YEARS so I have no idea if its changed.  It has a managebly sized downtown area thats easy to walk.  Loads of great restaurants, a couple of great buildings. It has a small bay with a few great beaches and three small mountains surrounding the bay.

[globetrotter]

Also have fond memories of San Sebastianas its a place i would end up to relax after going to Running of the bulls in Pamplona

[pdogg]

 Running of the bulls in Pamplona

 

You ran with the bulls!  You're a brave man GT!   

[globetrotter]

well lets just say i was far enough ahead to not get in harms way, but close enough to still get a rush out of it

[KenW]

Vietnam and I go back a long way. The war, the culture, the history; hence my decision to move here to live 10 years ago. It is still my favourite Asian country, by the length of the straight.

 

A long way back in second would be Cambodia, though I have been to Indonesia a lot and like it too. Singapore's right up there as well. (I don't need to purposely exclude Thailand; for unlike most of you, it doesn't rate that highly with me.)

 

At risk Jim, of also sounding corny, I think living in Australia is pretty good. Sydney is the most exciting and multiplex place I think I have ever lived; reminding me of New York City in so many ways. Or, to be more historically accurate, NYC reminded me of a bolder brassier version of Sydney. NYC is a place I would like to spend more time in, as I only ever went there very briefly (and for a bloody job interview what's more).