@steph_danforth

Chiang Mai has had a deep Buddhist influence running over the last 1,000 years and this can be felt in the helpfulness, patience and generosity of the Thai and long-term transplants you come across. The city has an active community scene (nomads, spiritual seekers, hikers, creatives), several mountains with hiking spots and waterfalls surrounding the city, over 20 water bodies inside the city -- many have cafes and walks around, several public parks, and over 13 national parks with campgrounds w

All in, Austin is a good city. We live in Hill Country now so we're a bit removed. But it's beautiful area once you get away from the highways. A good tech scene. Not too expensive (~$2100 for a nice 2 bedroom apt) for the U.S. Has wineries and breweries galore. Not a great place if you are a recovering alcoholic (!). Cons: extremely hot in the summer; reaches 110 F (43.3 C) in summer afternoons from June - September. Not very diverse. Highways are loud and obnoxious.

Great place if you like to connect with nature and prefer to live in a small city. People are very nice, I felt very welcomed as a latino and intertwined a lot with locals. Good restaurants. Nightlife is lame.

I lived in Beijing for almost 3 years from 2014-2017. It's an incredible city with a lot to offer. It's an imposing place and not the most welcoming, but that's because it takes time to adjust. In a nutshell: beautiful parks, very modern infrastructure , friendly people, good transportation (the subway is FAR superior to London or NYC, for example), amazing food, relatively cheap, extremely safe, loads to do, incredible history. The one major con is the air pollution—it can get really bad, so

Budapest was on my list about cities for living. I stayed for 7 days and was a little disappointed People are not very friendly, lots os places very dirty, people smoke a lot and the costs isn't affordable as people indicated here. Its a beautiful place, walkable, people have a good level of education, lots of things to do, but not as i imagined. Even so its a nice place.

Pros: Food carts, local microbrews, lots of outdoor activities within day trip range, high property values. Cons: trash everywhere, out of control crime, violent drug-addicted "houseless" everywhere, mediocre public schools, some of the highest taxes in the country, ineffective police force, antiquated inefficient form of city government, very high rents, passive aggressive culture.

Melbourne is a fun and cute compact city. There are so many fun things to do here such as visit is beaches, go to its theme parks out of the CBD area. Its city CBD is so much fun as well. You can visit the Queen Victoria market which is the largest outdoors market in the world! You can also visit Federation Square which is a beautiful park on the edge of the CBD, and you can visit the Eureka Skydeck and Australia 108 which are the tallest buildings in Australia if you exclude the antenna from th