Winners & Surprising LOSERS after 1 Year of Slow Travel (10 countries & 26 cities)

after one full year of full-time pseudo slow travel we've been to 10 countries and 26 cities so we think it's a good time to do a recap and talk about the things we like most and least about each of those places and then at the end we're going to share with you our most and least favorite places overall and at the very end we're going to answer the question that we're getting almost daily now which is are you ever moving back to Ecuador all right guys before we dive in though be sure to hit the

Subscribe button down there if you're thinking about moving abroad because we're going to show you all the best places to live on this channel we landed in Portugal to start our slow travel Adventure on October 21st 2023 which is exactly one year ago today we're going to talk about the first place this is going to be an order of of our travel so we started in Portugal and we spent the first few days in mat zinos gosh that seems like a lifetime ago doesn't it does it seems like years ago that's the thing when you're

doing tra full-time travel like this is the time warps it it seems like sometimes it goes really fast and then other times it goes so slow and it seems like a few days or like it's more like a few weeks yeah it is amazing how that works I guess because we're so immersed in everything new and going out and having all the Adventure and learning our way around and everything so our brains are very full so we spent the first few days in M then we were in Porto for almost what two three weeks or

something like that half weeks I think yeah so that's we just stayed in that area on our first we had planned on staying longer but at that time they changed the nhr tax scheme rule so our we decided to actually cross Portugal off our list because our tax rate would just be too high there compared to some of the other countries on our list which is too bad because we really did like Portugal a lot we really enjoyed the great food scene which may not be the first thing that comes to mind but that was

the first thing that came to my mind because we ate like way too much and the wine and the port all of that was incredible and I really liked the history yeah and it was really affordable we were surprised about how affordable it was especially wine since we like to drink wine you can get a really good bottle there for like $250 cents $3 and you're like you're going a high dollar wine yeah but you can get yourself in trouble so you do have to be careful about that yes it was a bit rainy though

while we were there it rained almost the whole time we were there and I guess we were there during the rainy season so that's part of the reason why yeah the weather was not ideal and so therefore it's not a place that I would want to go back to during that time of year yeah all right so when we left Portugal we flew to Seville Spain and then we took the train from Seville to Granada and then from Granada to Malaga so what did you think about Spain Amilia southern Spain we were in Andalusia oh

that was such an awesome trip my gosh Seville was gorgeous actually I loved all three places they're all fantastic one of my favorite Parts was just the ease of traveling through the country through southern Spain just to be able to jump on those trains it was so stressfree so calming and relaxing and also extremely affordable yeah I loved the train travel I just is something that we just don't have in the US and yeah I love the history the everything it was just so beautiful I mean it my expectations out of the water however I

didn't really like Seville and maliga that much as much as I was expecting I love Granada though yeah me too Granada was amazing I loved Seville I thought it was a beautiful and romantic City I liked a lot too what's really interesting is that all three were completely different yeah they were the I'd say the major downside that we experienced while we were there is the Tourist fatigue there's definitely an anti-tourist sentiment where we were in Spain and it was so crowded I could understand why in Seville and Granada and maliga we were there right

after they lit the Christmas lights in maliga and there was so many people that sometimes you can't even walk down the sidewalk or the streets because there's just so many people and we did experience some of the locals are just not that friendly to the tourists I can't blame them either because it was overwhelming for us we're being tourists in their city and we were experiencing tourist fatigue so I can't even imagine what they must be feeling and some of those tour groups were just massive and they would take over like an entire areas where

you couldn't even get around we experiened that a lot in Granada I didn't think that there was nearly as much tours fatigue overall Granada but we definitely felt it in Seville yeah so when we left Malaga we flew to Rome Italy yeah that was amazing too wow the history oh it was so gorgeous Rome is a beautiful city yeah I've loved it way more than I expected I've always wanted to go I'm a history buff and I love the Roman history and it was just like so much bigger and more fantastic than I even expected

it to be but the city itself was actually really easy to get around which is one of the things I liked about it a lot it was pretty walkable and I liked the neighborhood we stayed in people there were really friendly there were no issues with us being tourists at all they were very welcoming yeah we don't have any real complaints about Rome our only I guess our only regret is that we didn't stay longer we were only there for a couple of weeks and we barely scratch the surface on all the things that we

wanted to see because well we work so we spent a lot of time working and then we tried do the fun stuff in our spare time and we just didn't have enough time yeah the next time we go I want to spend an entire day in the Roman Forum because I just could not get enough of that but also we need to go back to Italy to actually explore the rest of the country kind of a high priority to I know we need to spend time in the North Central and the South including basilicata and

Huga and Sicily and I mean those are like trips all on their own yes I just I wish that Italy wasn't in the shenen zone so that we could just go travel throughout their more yeah that would be nice so from Rome we flew over to Athens where we stayed for a month and we went while we were in Athens we also went to glea and which is kind of a suburb outside of Athens and then end of June and July we were also in Corfu Athens was a neat experience there were definitely some more

cons that we experienced there I was shocked by how incredibly affordable it was I loved the food and I really liked being able to take that tram were you shocked in a good way or were you just surprised oh sorry I was surprised yeah shocked in a good way we talked about being shocked in our won video and all the Brits were like shocked in here means it's negative you're surprised in a bad way you're you mean to say you're surprised because that means in a good way I was surprised in a good way by

the prices I know as Americans we say shock I mean good or bad we would say yeah I love the history of Athens that the Parthenon and the Acropolis and the the ancient Agora and I mean I the history there is just incredible I just love that part of it and the city I thought was pretty and walking around and and seeing all those ancient structures but the culture shock was too much for me I just I didn't feel welcome there I I couldn't like get into the groove of how they do things that a

lot of things just didn't make sense to me and I would do everything wrong and then they would yell at me for doing things the wrong way like at the grocery store on the tram I mean I just couldn't do do anything right in that country for some reason I didn't think it was nearly as bad in Corfu but there it wasn't no yeah they were a bit more relaxed there but they definitely have a bit more of an abrasive personality or their culture is a bit more abrasive and if you're not used to that

it could be a bit of an adjustment and it certainly was for one of us yes it was I read an article about this couple from the US that moved to cre and in their article they talked about public venting and how the Greeks like to get all of their ations out in the street in public by yelling at each other we experienced that more than once of the Greeks yelling at each other in the street it's an interesting cultural difference for sure from Athens we flew to the capital of Albania which was tan and

we and so we spent almost three months in Toran then we also went to durus and schot in the North and then in the end of July and August we spent in the South well part of it in the South we start in s and then to Vora and then we went back to torona for another month so all together we spent over four months in Albania this year yep loved it Toran love Toran I love the Albanian people yeah and they loved us they did everybody was so welcoming and friendly they really like Americans

there our president wood Wilson was the Lone hold out he voted that Albania should be its own country back in like the 19s around World War I or something so Albania exists today because of the American president holding out because all the other votes were no which was supposed to be combined so they're still thankful to have for America for their country and we saw American flag flying all over the place there and people would stop us and tell us welcome to their country and yeah we feel extremely welcome there I will say though that

we felt like the people in the north were a lot more friendly than the people in the South I would agree with that they are friendlier in the north but overall everybody is still very friendly and helpful and the country it's is just beautiful it is a developing country so you don't have as easy of a time getting around as we did in some of the other countries internet Superior internet so one of the things we've noticed about some of these developing countries is that some of their infrastructure is actually a lot better than some

of the old places like that place in Malica that had like negative internet yeah I think it was four mag and and yeah in Rome was we had 10 mag in Rome and the guy our host called that speed yeah so we we have great internet in Albania my main complaint is that train system isn't up and running they have train tracks but they're not in use they're redoing their whole train system and it's been in the process for like five years now and I don't I couldn't find an a end date of that renovation

process so I don't know if they'll ever get it back they're supposed to connect up to month and Aro to pagar which will then allow them to connect to the euro rail network and I wish they would get that that going it'd be really nice too if the train went down to the South to Laur and maybe s would and then if it went all the way into Greece that would be awesome maybe one day they are doing a lot of development they are working on their roads and they're building a new airport and Flora

they have a lot going on right now the country is so affordable that's another thing that we really liked and it's extremely safe everywhere we went we felt super safe it has a lot to offer despite not having a train system and no direct flights to the US but supposedly there's supposed to be one coming in 2025 to New York right okay I think yes yeah so we spent Albania was by far the cheapest place in Europe that we stayed I think we were we averaged less than 3,000 a month and most of that was

lodging so if you do a long-term lease you can cut like a third of the cut that lodging by it by what in a third like a third of the cost of what we were so you cut it by two3 yeah you cut it by two that's right good job so that was the most expensive thing it was super affordable to live there it's actually not as cheap as where we are now so we'll we'll talk about that a little bit later okay what's next next we drove to Pita Montenegro and we stayed in pod

gitaa for a few days and then we went to cotour and stayed for a month you know it's funny because when I was doing the research about pod gitaa it got a lot of negative uh publicity that's not the right word people didn't like it as much they call it the most boring capital in Europe it it's very laidback laidback uh it's a I I liked it I don't think I'd want to live there for a long time but if you really are looking for a chill place to go and decompress that's easy it's walkable

it's not crowded it's extremely affordable I think that's a good option it's pretty I actually really liked it nice wide flat sidewalks and people were friendly everybody was super it's super affordable it's way more affordable than the coast of Montenegro it is so we also visited tat Paras and budva while we were there so those are the five cities that we visited Kor was so beautiful the natural beauty in that along that whole part of the coast is unbelievable it's almost otherworldly I just I couldn't get tired of looking at it we opted to spend

a little bit more on an Airbnb up on the side of the hill with an amazing view of the bay area and I'm really really glad that we did that that was worth it I really enjoyed the dve from Cod GZA over to cotour it was just gorgeous I mean you just cannot get if you like natural beauty that is the place the temperatures weren't bad at all when we were there it was kind of rainy but the weather wasn't bad so you could really get out and enjoy Mother Nature quite a bit more plus

then you have the bay and you have the ocean and the mountains yeah it's got a lot to offer it our main complaint though is that it's really super crowded especially in cotor and budva it's there's just so and Par there just so many tourists there and we were there during shoulder season it wasn't even nearly as busy as it normally gets there was one time where we there were three cruise ships in the harbor there in cotor and the town it just the old town just gets so crowded you just I mean you end

up standing like out of the way for two three minutes while huge tour groups from those cruise ships go by and you just can't even walk down some of those narrow alleys I think that was my biggest complaint well and in the tourist prices the restaurants the prices were higher in the main tourist areas but you know that you're going to get that everywhere you go that's not that surprising I was surprised by how crowded it would get at times and also that made the traffic get really backed up to come in and out of

Cort because there's just that one road but they are working on expanding that so hopefully some of that will become better from Montenegro we flew to Paris France and while we were in France we also we spent a few weeks there then we spent a month in djon and we also went to bone while we were there and then we spent a few weeks in Leon yeah we spent a lot of time in France uh which was not really the part of the original plan but we got there and we really liked it so we

stayed yeah so that's one of the benefits of traveling the way we are is that if we really like a place we stay longer yeah and France I France was like nothing else the architecture the French architecture I just absolutely love it the history is amazing Paris the whole country is just beautiful at least the parts we have seen I shouldn't say the whole country because we barely even scratched the surface of France as well but and again the train travel we love the train travel it was so nice to be able to take that

from Paris to djon and our day trip to Bone and then when we went to Leon it was so nice I love looking at all the history and because they surrendered so quickly in World War II they preserved all of their buildings their old buildings are still standing and I mean that was a nice thing that they weren't all leveled like they were in some of the other parts of Europe if you missed our lies we believed about France video we covered a lot of this in there but I honestly you know there's a lot

of stereotypes about France and the French people and so I was expecting them to be snoody and not welcoming and that was not true at all everybody was super nice and friendly a lot of people spoke English we attempted to speak with them in French and they were very gracious they were not snobby about it not at all they helped us they tried to help us yes yeah that was a major downside is with is the language barrier because they they really appreciate it if you speak French and especially if you're going to live there

you would need to to take French classes and get at least functional with it and it's hard I mean I was trying to tell somebody I wanted a glass of wine and I say and they would just re they're like what and I said a glass of wine they're like oh and then they would repeat it back to me and I swear it's exactly what I was saying I would repeat it they're like no no no yeah it was more expensive there too so so that is a bit of a downside if you're on a

tight budget you know I we've heard that there are cheaper places in France and for sure Dijon was like half the price of Paris you can definitely find more affordable options and desan was just magical I just loved it yeah it was amazing all right from France from Leon we flew to London England and it really wasn't on our travel itinerary except I wanted to get a new camera the one that we are filming with right now and I really wanted to be able to go speak to someone in English and and we could have

done that in France I guess but I went to a like a awesome camera shop in London the guy was Prof the people were professional photographers and they really help it they were it was a great experience and London was amazing and I'm really glad we went but holy cow was it expensive wow it totally blew our budget we were there for what 10 days Days 10 days and we spent more there than we did in for a month in every other place that we were at and that's not because we did a lot of

shopping the lodging that doesn't include the camera none of that just the lodging the dining the transportation it's all just so expensive in London and there's a reason for that I mean they London has it all the train travel was superb the food scene was absolutely incredible it was by far the best food scene we've experienced which is interesting because that's another stereotype that you know England has terrible food well that what we experienced and it was really nice to be able to go and speak English and people were nice and I loved all of

besides the history of course I loved all of the big beautiful Parks I was not expecting that yeah so London is considered a forest by the defin by definition because there's so many trees it is really a heavily treed area it was amazing I I think the major downside though is just just too expensive and too crowded in London right and of course we said that we were in England and all the Brits were like you didn't go to England you went to London it's not the same you need to get out and go to

the country site and I I thought you know if somebody's going to they were like oh if you go to London it's like going to New York and thinking you've seen the United States but like well if somebody was GNA go tour the US I wouldn't say go to a small town in Kansas because I mean why would you recommend that but that's exactly what all the Brits were like go to this small town they listed all these small towns nobody has ever heard of as like a more authentic experience in England and we do

want to do that we definitely want to come back and tour the countryside and the smaller towns places in England but you know one trip we had 10 days I wanted to buy a camera we're going to go to London for that we're not going to go to a small Kansas farm town for that so if you're gonna go to the US and you've got 10 days go to Boston New York Washington DC Chicago Chicago don't go to my my hometown in Kansas all right so next we flew from London to Corfu and then Corfu

to Albania but we've already talked about that so after we left Albania in August we flew to Istanbul Turkey that was a Istanbul was an interesting trip I I'm glad we stayed in the tourist area however I would have done it differently so I would have stayed outside of the main tourist area where we were at and have just gone and visited those places because they were really well it was very touristy and they were crowded and they were really targeting tourists with the tourist scamps and we fell for one of them and boy they

were like Primo with a scam I didn't had no idea until the very end and I was like wow yeah I call it that was painful I call it isan because it's just man the scam were just everywhere I mean everything from taxi drivers to restaurants to the shoe shine scan that we fell victim to and that I'm glad we talked about that because a lot of people posted that they did not fall for that scan because we talked about it in our videos so just because other YouTubers have talked about it doesn't mean everybody

has seen those we didn't we didn't see any videos about that even though I know some of the YouTubers that just talked about yeah we missed that we missed it sorry guys y but anyway hopefully you guys have learned from that don't don't fall for the Sho shine scam if they drop the brush just keep walking but we did have a really good time in Istanbul we really enjoyed it it it was really neat to go from the European history then to well Istanbul part of that is in Europe so they have the well you're

in Turkey so it's completely different landscape different culture architecture yeah it was really interesting and I liked too that it was walkable we had nice weather the people were nice they were nice as they were trying to scam you not like they were aggressive or rude or anything like that super nice scammers it was good shopping I me it was really fun when we left there we flew to Kuala Lampur Malaysia which is where we are right now and we've been here for two months already can you believe we've been here two months no I

cannot but it's definitely been well if you guys missed our other video we got really delayed because of JP's health issues well with you being sick twice yeah that was put definitely put us behind schedule yeah but I would say that hands down though what we've experienced so far in Malaysia is that these are by Mo by far the friendliest people absolutely everybody is so nice I mean in the health care we've really enjoyed getting the healthcare done here and they're so compassionate and friendly and just that has make you feel at ease just by

how friendly they are yeah and everybody we've encountered has been like this everybody's just been nice and helpful and smiling and every it's extremely affordable here and I we both feel very safe I go out by myself all the time CU I had to when JP was sick and I went out and did my video and nobody bothered me and we really like it my only complaint is that it is hot and humid and humid and I like to be outside during the day and doing stuff Outdoors but it is a bit painful to do

that we went out and did some filming the other day and we were both just so drained because we we got overheated yeah we were soaked our shirts everything was just wet from the the sweat yeah it wasn't pretty no it's bad don't worry we won't put that part in the video I think the coolest part though is how futuristic it is it really I told ailia it feels like Blade Runner here it's just the city is so futuristic with all the the digital Billboards the LED Billboards everywhere and the buildings are so futuristic looking

except for the petronis towers they look very 50s retro sci-fi they're so cool I feel like there should be like a bolt of lightning between those two orbs at the top and like some madman up there I I love watching the storms I it's monsoon season and I we've had some comments from people saying they would never want to visit here during monsoon season I have to say it actually has not been that bad because they know how to manage the weather so it doesn't stop shut the city down but to get to actually watch

the storms has been so fascinating yeah before we share what our most favorite and least favorite places were if your goal is to move abroad and get a higher quality life or a lower cost of living like what we're doing then you definitely want to check out our move abroad express ecourse it walks you through every step of the process of moving abroad so that you can do it with more confidence and a a lot less doubt we poured like all of our knowledge from seven years of living abroad into this ecourse so it really

will help you FastTrack your move abroad the money saving tips will more than cover the cost but the real value is in the peace of mind you get because you're going to be so much better prepared we also have a steep discount on it right now but it's only for one more week so scan this QR code here or go to Amilia n jp.com to lock in your discount right now you also get lifetime access to course updates and to our private and supportive community of current and future exps all right Amilia and now for

our most and least favorite places what do you think I guess I have a tie between djon and tana yeah they're so radically different though I mean I loved both of those places I also really like koala L po I do too but I would say I as far as like overall like everything Dijon is my favorite but if you want to factor in cost is like the most important factor I think I actually prefer tan Al Albania there's pros and cons to both because I like the fact that if you're in Dijon then you

can be in Paris which I love Paris but Paris is a little bit out of our price range plus it's a really big city but you pay more still because you've got that infrastructure whereas toron and Albania in general is still developing so it is a lot more affordable plus I don't know kind of reminded me of being in Ecuador which is why it felt so homey to me because it isn't quite so polished I like that's still a little bit of a diamond in the rough in the rough yeah somebody one of our Albanian

viewers commented that it's a box of gems that's rapidly being polished and I have to agree with that I think it's a really good quote about Albania all right well the least favorite least favorite I think I know what yours is you've been very clear mine's Athens the big my least favorite overall was Athens followed closely by London I was I I was in London over about 20 years ago more than 20 years ago and it felt completely different now than it did then and it's I didn't just didn't like it that much this time

also Vora I was surpris Vora Albania I did not really like it's a kind of a beautiful beach city but it just I preferred Sera it's a little bit more rustic yeah I have to agree with that I liked Athens maybe had we gone to Athens First instead of going to Rome first I would have loved Athens but it was a little bit disappointing after being in Rome and also you know with the culture shock that made it pretty difficult yeah I didn't want to leave the Airbnb I was afraid I was going to get

yelled at I really had some anxiety about interacting with people because I just felt like I couldn't do anything right there and London I liked but it was very crowded now granted we were there in High season so what do you expect and it was a fun I have no regrets but I don't really want to go back I absolutely want to go to England and explore more of the surrounding areas in the country but yeah it was and the prices were just they were shocking in a bad way yeah they the prices were ridiculous

all right so now that answer the big question are we ever going back to Ecuador absolutely we are I am homesick for Ecuador even though we just talked about all these great places I I miss it I miss our friends and our adopted family yeah I miss the mountains the weather because it's like in the 70s year round there I just I missed that constant weather you don't have to worry about like is it going to be really hot today or is it going to be cold I miss that part yeah I do like being

able to live in a place where you don't need to have heat or air conditioning because I struggle with the air conditioning and like I said earlier not being able to go out during the daytime and enjoy the outdoors yeah because there's like a span of four or five hours in the middle of of the day here where we just go don't go outside because it's just too hot so yes we will be back in Ecuador next year we have to go back to reset our Visa so we don't lose our residency Visa but we

probably won't be staying there for very long this time because we still want to tour South America so after we are done spending the next few months here in Southeast Asia then we're going to go back to the Americas and do kind of the same thing there work our way from North to South Central and South America Central and South America yeah and I'm super excited about that but Ecuador will be our easier home base we I always say Ecuador is our home base but it's not really a true home base right now because we're

halfway around the world yeah and we don't have a permanent resident I mean we don't have a home there so it's like we don't we stored a bunch of our stuff at some friend's house well well a few things and then she's selling some things still but you know so we don't have like a permanent home there nope just permanent residency yeah not the same all right so we still have all these travels planned and we don't have anything booked yet so if you guys really want us to go see someplace and do an exploratory

trip and show you guys then make sure to let us know in the comments below so we can add that to our list and remember to check out the move brought Express ecourse to Fast Track Your Move abroad all right guys that's all we have for this video be sure to leave us a like before you go and we will see you all next time ciao ciao