Israel
Kuwait. Got stuck there by taking Kuwait airways and being turned around due to a snowstorm at the scheduled stopover at Stansted. I swear in 2012 you could still see damage in the airport from the gulf war.
Food was good, interesting looking place, but might be the least helpful people if you are a woman. They also wanted to confiscate our passports while we were there- no thanks.
I’ve only been to 18 countries but there aren’t any I wouldn’t go back to. My home country of the USA has become a shithole, but there are some people there I will probably go back to visit at some point, most notably my son. Although he’s coming to visit me first. Maybe I can hold out until the orange stain is removed.
Malaysia. It’s so oppressive and incredibly dull. Every time I go there I’m looking to cut my trip short as it’s just so incredibly boring. I hadn’t visited the islands though which I’ve heard are actually a bit more free so I’d make an exception.
Same goes for Singapore - so incredibly dull and boring. The only redeeming feature is the universal theme park and the waterworld show in particular. Get an express ticket on low season and it’s one of the best theme parks in Asia.
Russia would be another one. It’s just fundamentally failed country and while nature can be incredible (shoutout to Kamchatka) it’s culturally dead and I’m never associating with it in any way.
Malaysia is a hard nut to crack, but I worked there for a number of years and eventually came to appreciate it because I learned where the locals go and the interesting parts of the country. They require a car though, so tough to access as a tourist.
Yes I’ve heard the nature can be quite beautiful but at the same time you can go to any other SEA country for similar experience with better everything else so it would be at the bottom of my list of choices just because competition is very compelling here.
The food is the main draw, and it’s unique mix is better than anywhere else in my opinion. The food is mostly what locals do when they travel somewhere it seems. The other thing I like about Malaysia is that once you are away from petaling street in KL, you don’t really get treated like a tourist and people don’t really try to give you tourist prices. Much different compared to neighboring countries, and I say this as a university level Thai speaker who worked in Thailand and still felt tourist-hassled in much of Thailand.
I’m hoping to never go to Russia again, but I may have to if I want to finally cancel my citizenship… absolute shithole, even if you ignore the current political situation.
Can’t you do that at a consulate? Or is that not possible for Russian citizenship holders?
Eh, they might Jamal Khashoggi you either way
Shit, good point.
Nope, the paperwork to cancel a citizenship needs to be filled out in person exactly at the office in the town you were last registered in. At least that’s what my older sister had to do when she canceled hers a few years ago.
U.S.A. what a shit hole
If shit keeps going the way it is, the US.
It’s been the US for me for over a decade. Never going back there, most likely. And I was only visiting.
Any good places for a dual citizenship application outside of the US? Asking for a friend.
Plenty of options, but you’ll be hard-pressed to target something specific without both skills and money.
The easiest option available to many Americans is to see if you can prove ancestry from a country with jus sanguinis citizenship that you have a direct link to. Some countries need it to be within a generation or two, other countries don’t have a specific cutoff point. But anticipate a long, bureaucratic process and costs to have documents translated.
The other easiest option is to marry a citizen of another country and move there together. But good luck with that.
But if either of those aren’t options, you’re going to have a hard time if you don’t have a college degree and don’t have experience working in a desired field.
The other easiest option is to marry a citizen of another country and move there together. But good luck with that.
It has to be a real marriage tho, like you have to be actually in love and not just doing it for the sole purpose of immigration benefits (otherwise it could be considered fraud).
People’s Republic of China.
Was born there, probably ain’t ever going back.
So much conservatism, patriarchy, toxic masculinity, ableism especially against people with mental illness or intellectual disabilities, even if the condition was mild.
Massive government corruption, inadequate safety regulations, when it come to the internet and press, those get censored, can’t even have fun watching foreign media.
Complete lack of understanding for people suffering with depression nobody take it seriously, spritualism is applied to medical issues.
Hukou system limiting the very little rights you have. (I had a rural Hukou and that sucks)
To top it all off, this is a country that have rejected me for being the 2nd child born in my family (during the One Child Policy). Legal papers were denied, the government effectively refused to ackowledge my existence and demanded/extorted a large amount of money, a “fine” they call it. My parent’s didn’t have it so it took several years of saving up for it, before I could get legal papers and legal recognition of my existence. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heihaizi)
When I was a kid, I didn’t know it at the time, but when my mother explained my origins, I feel like society basically just rejected me. An outcast, an anomoly, something that shouldn’t have existed. All for the sin of existing without a government permission-slip.
You are a miracle. Bless you for existing. Mother Earth knows no borders, she knows only life and rebirth. You are life. You are her. Together, we are the Earth. ❤️ You are not unwanted.
Why do people shit on the sick and disabled, but revere doctors?
When the former is the only reason for doctors to exist in the first place. Shouldn’t we laud sick/disabled people in a sense for allowing an entire respected field to exist?
If you’re going to shit on them, then shit on the people who are trying to help them, too. Be consistent.
Hope you are living better wherever you moved to. I’d buy you a drink if I could.
Wow. I always thought if id been born in China that would be one of the worst developed places to be. Thats unfortunate but glad you got out
The United States. I have zero interest in going to a country where I could get kidnapped by masked goons or have my phone stolen by the government for sharing memes they don’t like. I have no interest in going to a country where I could get shot and killed randomly by some whacko who had a bad day and decided to shoot up the place. I have no interest in going to a country where I could be charged thousands of dollars for getting hurt. And I have absolutely zero interest in giving my money to a fascist country that regularly threatens my country’s sovereignty and whose economy is on the brink of total collapse. That dumpster fire can stay down south, thank you very much.
Every time I look at the United States and everything that’s been going on there, it only makes me more proud to be Canadian and ever more vigilant to prevent the same from happening to us. We have our problems, sure, but at least we have actual healthcare, no mass shootings, and no fascism.
I have no interest in going to a country where I could be charged thousands of dollars for getting hurt.
Tbf, you can go to like half of the countries in the world and the heathcare is just as horrible, and the locals always try to scam you, so its not unique to the US.
(But I don’t disagree with your other points)
South Korea.
It was fine. Lots of people spoke English and there was lots to do and everyone was nice.
But after being in Seoul for two hours I was like: “oh”.
It felt just like America with more statues. I’m sure there is lots more to do and see that is more essentially Korean than Seoul was, and while I don’t have anything against it, I just couldn’t see making the effort to go back again given how familiar it all felt being from North America.
I don’t have a single bad thing to say about the country or my time there, but there are so many places in the world I’d love to see I don’t think I’d make the effort again.
Japan on the other hand.
Yugoslavia, can’t, no longer exists.
I don’t have any “never again” countries because something bad happened. However, I find that a lot of Caribbean countries/destinations are pretty one and done for me.
I went to four different cities in China and at least a significant proportion of people seemed very selfish and out for themselves across the board, I’m not going to say never but it’s definitely at the bottom of my list of places to return to.
Australia. Not that it was wholly terrible. It just wasn’t what I expected and I overcooked it by staying for 2 years.
To be fair, it could never have lived up to the super-positive stereotype it has here in the UK.
We think of Aussies as fun-living, friendly, witty, laid-back beautiful people who are down to earth yet somehow savvy and open-minded. They love a drink and a BBQ and have a ‘live and let live’, inclusive attitude. Basically everything we Brits would love to be if we weren’t so repressed.
I think this cliche comes from a cross between Crocodile Dundee and through meeting the thousands of charming Aussies who end up working behind bars when they visit the UK in their youth.
Also, with the British weather being what it is, we imagine anywhere with a sunny climate would encourage people with a similarly sunny disposition.
Anyway, I’ll spare you the details, but having travelled extensively throughout Australia - well beyond Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane - I found little of the stereotype I’d expected and quite a lot of the opposite.
I did meet some great people, but they were mainly Irish 🤣
Yeah the cut the tall poppy syndrome is rampant there.
They celebrate alcoholism.
It’s still legal to hit children in certain states
In fact domestic violence was pretty normalized and women in droves die per year to it.
And they think the rest of the world is going soft by trying to be more inclusive in minority rights. Women in particular.
I mean it has some appeal with the beaches but yea, the people are still 1970s -1980s chauvinistic crowd.
I will give them this though: they do look after people with disabilities a heck of a lot better than another countries I’ve seen. Never mind ‘the elevator broke.’. That shit doesnt fly there not even for a second. And they did stomp down the classism way more than UK attempted to.
Yeah I mean, we’ve been heavily influenced by the US and UK historically, so we have a deeply racist disposition. Our treatment of Indigenous Australians is as much of a blight on our history as it is for other English-speaking nations like the US, Canada and South Africa. I do still strongly believe we’re doing better in a lot of ways, for example we’ve started using indigenous place names, acknowledging traditional land ownership and other steps. But we’re far from perfect, and if you come here with that conceptualisation then you’ll definitely be disappointed.
Understandable.
I know a few Australians and they are racist and nasty.
I know one who is kind, though.
NULL. Because I’ve been to 2 countries (US and Canada). I live in the US and I enjoyed Canada.
