San Antonio. I was going to visit family and honestly was dreading it, but the downtown core is surprisingly pleasant. Extremely walkable, semi easy to get around, and the river walk is honestly pretty nice. (Not nice nice, I’d say it’s like a Vegas lite, everything is a little garish, but not too much).

Getting outside of SA was annoying though, car centric hellhole, endless sprawl, no way to get around. But - downtown is nice.

Merida in Mexico. It’s not a tourist city, but I was there during a weekend and there were all sort of family events organized at the market, it was really fun and inclusive. We sat down to watch a kids play and got brought into the play as “ghosts” (we’re white) so the kids would run up to us and pretend to be scared (we’d play it up), and at the end everyone gathered around us and thanked us for being sports. The rest of the day was just an immersion in actual Mexican culture and friendliness.

Not what I expected just dropping into the city on the way to see ruins, we stayed an extra couple days just to enjoy it. Maybe it’s gotten more urban and stand-offish, this would have been a decade ago.

Seoul. I was barely 18 and got stationed there. I was expecting grass huts and donkey carts based off MASH or other movies I’ve seen.

But I was legitimately shocked. Like you know in movies when someone goes through Tokyo for the first time and they are starting struck, that was me in Seoul.

Fyi going as a tourist is completely different than living in these places. The initial beauty you see in most places quickly fades away by your bills and other responsibilities plus some annoying problem in the city you didn’t noticed until you decided to live there.

Singapore is a tropical city above ground with an underground city beneath it. Great food, great people, just do not chew gum on the subway.

Osaka Japan. I love it there. There’s so much to see and do, and beautiful parks and shrines everywhere.

Buenos Aires in Argentina. There was something magical about that city that changed me. I get back there as often as i can (quite a task from Australia)

When I went to Brussels, Belgium I was shocked to find out there are no fast food restaurants in the entire city, even the airport.

Nice to see them support small businesses.

Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. In my prejudiced mind, everything east of Germany was still sad, grey, former commie land.
But Ljubljana is one of the nicest cities I’ve been to in Europe.
You could just walk around the canals and at every corner, there’d be a public concert, an open air library with hammocks strung up to lie down and read, a traditional market, an art gallery, etc.

Everyone talks about the rain in Seattle. No one warns you about the hills.

Amsterdam. I don’t know what I expected, but it was overwhelmingly better in every way than I anticipated. The cycling infrastructure that allowed me to bicycle around was amazing, I felt safe on the road even without a helmet. The public transportation was so convenient and easy, there were some delays, some cancellations, but it was still a highlight of my trip and I was able to use a clean restroom on a public train which blew my mind. The parks are everywhere and beautiful. There are so many “third places” where you can just go and hang out. The shops, the museums, the weed cafes, all top notch. I saw Wu-tang clan and NAS while I was there at the Ziggo-dome, and it was such an amazing experience. Ever since visiting, I’ve wanted to move there.

NYC was different than I expected in that while I was there, I saw practically no cars on the street, but the sidewalks were packed and it was actually harder to walk anywhere due to the sheer number of people also walking down the sidewalk.

Paris. I’ve always heard how rude and unfriendly Parisians are towards English speakers but that was not my experience.

Funny enough for me it was also a Romanian town - Constanta.

Actually a fairly nice city with even nicer surroundings.

Nice place.