There’s some so polished about his presentation that I find really irritating.

I’ve always liked cranky travel writing—Paul Theroux, VS Naipaul, etc.—so I dislike when everything is relentlessly positive.

His content seems more like what you’d expect to see on American television aimed at stay at home moms.

The simple answer is that the US is in decline.

It’s a slow decline, barely perceptible, but historians centuries from now will point to the country’s crumbling infrastructure, lawlessness, and profound social division at this time as emblematic of its inevitable downward spiral.

Central Asia.

I used to live in Thailand, moved to Kazakhstan. No roaches, no bugs, odd mosquito in the summer.

Cheaper here, and certainly cheaper in Uzbekistan where I also never saw any roaches.