Travel Preferences

Favorite Places

Cities

As far as major cities, these are some places I’ve particularly enjoyed. In the US, I really love the intellectual/cultural texture of San Francisco – weird people surrounded by beautiful nature, good cocktails, plus good-enough public transit and amazing public parks. I also enjoyed the time I lived in Boston for the rich history, good public transit, and great cultural events.

Outside the US: Tokyo, of course. I’ve liked a lot of cities in Japan since many have similarly good train infrastructure, great コンビニ, beautiful nature, gorgeous temples with lots of history etc.: Kagoshima, Kobe, Kamakura, the less-touristy parts of Kyoto and Osaka.

In general, I want to balance convenience and comfort while dodging the more touristy areas and getting out into nature. I value natural contact with the local culture without too much overhead of tour guides and so on, which I acknowledge comes with learning the language (hence part of my attraction to Japan since I speak enough Japanese to scrape by).

Activities

Some memorable things I did and really enjoyed. I like the longer town-to-town hiking I’ve done, including the Kumano Kodo in Japan and the Camino de Santiago in Spain. (Of the two, I preferred the Kumano Kodo since it was generally quieter.)

I really appreciated the natural beauty and spiritual importance of visiting Meteora when I was in Greece. Also in Greece, I liked seeing some of the ancient historical sites like the Parthenon (I was a big Greek/Latin epic poetry dork in high school, so I thought that was fun!)

The national parks in the US (esp. Bryce Canyon, Sequoia) was great, though I hated having to drive so much.

I greatly prefer walking, even when it requires me to walk excessively far. When I was in Japan in 2025, I woke up really early and ended up walking all the way from Kamakura to Enoshima for a few hours in the morning and caught an incredible view of Mt. Fuji during the sunrise -- totally worth it. I also loved going to an onsen town and just relaxing.

I love a good museum, especially great art museums with eclectic collections (e.g. the Chester Beaty museum in Dublin, the Art Institute in Chicago).

I will always enjoy going to a bookstore. I can’t always buy things, but a good English-language bookstore (esp. indie bookstores) is always appreciated. I most enjoy places with good selections of literary fiction.

For times of focus or just taking a break from traveling so much, being near convenience/grocery stores is great.

By choice, I tend to go on long walks when I first get to the city to explore and fill most of my days with visits to bookstores, museums, and maybe reading at or working from a cafe.

Dislikes

I tend to have an irrational anxiety about ordering in foreign languages and reading foreign menus, so I can do these things as long as I come prepared with what to say, probably what to order, etc. (unless of course the place is super tourist-friendly).

I like cities, but I sometimes find that being in the dead center of the tourist areas is too much. I’ve stayed in the Old Quarter of Hanoi, Hongdae in Seoul, and Ximending in Taipei, and I generally wished I was just a bit farther away but still accessible to them.

While I like hostels, I don’t really like “party hostels.” I’m not much of a partier or heavy drinker in general, and when I have engaged in that in the past, I’ve generally regretted it. I like a nice cocktail bar, but I’m not much of a dive bar kinda guy unless I’m explicitly looking for that. Even then, I don’t really go to cocktail bars all that much anyways.