I have resided in Russia (1988-94), the UK (1994-2006/8), the US (2006/8-2016), and Russia again (2016-2022), before becoming a “digital nomad” in 2022. This page chronicles my travels:

• City Guides: San Francisco; London; Moscow; Saint-Petersburg.
  • Travel Goals lists places I would like to visit in the future.
• Guides on Network States and Digital Nomadism.
• Thoughts on Urbanism and how I rank the cities I visit as I do.

You can follow new Travel reports at my blog under the Travel tag while the pre-2022 stuff is located here.

I also had some posts comparing the US, UK, and Russia in 2011 and 2017.

Countries	Images
🇦🇹 Austria ⭐️Vienna (9/10) is characterized by its architectural beauty and imperial traditions, but it is staid, and haunted by the ghosts of its lost fin de siècle potential. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 9/10
🇧🇪 Belgium Brussels (5/10) is a dump, but the smaller historical towns are beautiful and functional. Superlative beer. Visited: 2003, 2018 | Rating: 6/10
🇨🇿 Czechia Prague (7/10) is the classic ECE downshifting hub – German architecture, hearty food, cheap beer, and majestic museums, albeit inundated by tourists. Libertarian and socially liberal by regional standards. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 7/10
🇫🇮 Finland Helsinki (6/10). Aesthetic in a northern way. But glum, rainy, and desultory. Visited: 2022 | Rating 6/10
🇫🇷 France Visiting France is always a pleasure. Paris (7/10) has great museums and cuisine, but has more grime and dysfunction than London. Visited: 1998, 2003, 2005, 2023 | Rating: 8/10
🇩🇪 Germany I enjoyed ⭐️Berlin (8/10) actually 9/10 – Berlin has grown on me in retrospect, whose low prices, easygoing vibes, and status as a DeSci hub cancel out the graffiti and Antifa. However, culturally I much prefer Austria. Visited: 2003, 2024 | Rating 7/10
🇭🇳 Honduras I came here for Próspera. As regards Honduras proper, it’s hard to be bullish on a country where armed guards patrol gas stations and you’re strongly advised not to go out after sunset. 🤷‍♀️ Visited: 2023 | Rating: 5/10
🇭🇺 Hungary Budapest is nice (6/10), but overall, intermediate between Visegrad and the Balkans. Visited: 2023, 2024, 2025 | Rating: 7/10
🇮🇪 Ireland Incredibly green and quite empty outside Dublin (6/10). Visited: 2001, 2006 | Rating: 7/10
🇲🇪 Montenegro Inland it’s derelict and demoralized, but the touristy coastal cities and beaches are nice – esp. Kotor and Budva. Bad drivers. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 5/10
🇲🇦 Morocco Exotic locale, and the deep desert is sublime; but the Third World dieselpunk vibes and souk grifters get old fast. Favorite city: Casablanca (6/10); Rabat too bourgeois-bland, Marrakesh too grimy. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 5/10
🇳🇱 Netherlands ⭐️Amsterdam (8/10) has been an EHC magnet and incubator of capitalist institutions for centuries, from stock markets to network states! Functional, liberal, can smoke a marijuana joint by the canals on a rainy day. Visited: 2022, 2023 | Rating: 8/10
🇵🇱 Poland Warsaw (8/10) and Kraków (7/10) probably my favorite cities in ECE. Holy Poland memes are outdated, and the language is easy to pick up for Slavonic speakers. Visited: 2019 | Rating: 7/10
🇵🇹 Portugal ⭐️Libson (8/10) is a solid downshifting hub. Staid, warm, pleasant… vinho verde. Visited: 2018 | Rating: 8/10
🇷🇴 Romania Bucharest (5/10) is hard on the eyes and noisy, but it’s easy to escape to the sylvan fastnesses of Transylvania! Visited: 2018 | Rating: 6/10
🇷🇺 Russia I am a native Muscovite. ⭐️Moscow (10/10) is my favorite city in the world obsolete, ~8/10 now due to war + authoritarianism – a metropolis that combines function, history, and human capital concentrations like no other. ⭐️Saint-Petersburg (8/10) is also great, but the climate and melancholic vibes of lost 20C alternatives is depressive. Visited: 1998-1994, 2016-2022 | Rating: 8/10
🇷🇸 Serbia If you want to experience “Russian privilege”, Belgrade (7/10) is the place to be. Kebab central. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 7/10
🇸🇰 Slovakia Hungarian province that somehow became a country. Bratislava (6/10) is ur-ECE postcard town. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 6/10
🇪🇸 Spain In Spain, I visited Malaga (7/10) and Granada (6/10); they are are cheap, pleasant, and scenic, and infrastructure is good, but petty crime is an issue, and locals have ambiguous views towards tourists. Visited: 2025 | Rating: 7/10
🇸🇪 Sweden Visited Stockholm (7/10). Highly digitized, expensive, a specific but refined aesthetic sense. Visited: 2024 | Rating: 7/10
🇨🇭 Switzerland Zurich (8/10) is an S Tier city: High function and clockwork attention to detail loading on Europe’s highest national IQ. But overly staid and bourgeois relative to Vienna’s high aristocratic vibes. Visited: 2024 | Rating: 8/10
🇹🇭 Thailand Bangkok (9/10) offers First World amenities with Second World infrastructure at Third World practices. Perfect country for downshifting. Visited: 2026 | Rating: 9/10
🇹🇷 Turkey Istanbul (7/10) and Izmir (7/10) are my favorite Turkish cities. Melange of European, Balkan, and MENA influences. Excellent desserts and Cappadocia is beautiful. Visited: 2023 | Rating: 6/10
🇬🇧 UK I mostly grew up in Scotland and North England, and TBH rather disliked it. However, ⭐️London (8/10) and South England are quite nice. Culturally degrowth and anti-free speech. Visited: 1994-2006/08, 2022+ | Rating: 6/10
🇺🇸 USA ⭐️San Francisco (9/10) Bay Area, where I spent a decade, is my favorite US city: Extraordinary EHC concentrations that might build God within this decade. Other cities: NYC (8/10), LA (7/10), Chicago (7/10), D.C. (5/10), Boston (6/10), Seattle (6/10), Las Vegas (8/10), Miami (6/10), SLC (7/10). That said, the US is very strong these days; no sense in living in the US long-term if you have a remote income. Visited: 2006/8-2016, 2024, 2025 | Rating: 8/10
🇻🇳 Vietnam
🌐 Network States As a proponent of Open Borders and the replacement of nation-states by network states, I treat them on a level playing field here. To the extent I have a favorite “country”, these are Network Societies such as Zuzalu, Vitalia, and Frontier Tower. Visited: 2023, 2024, 2025 | Rating: 10/10