What country are you from, and what in your opinion is the best and worst thing about it?

I'm from Australia.

The best part is that the wildlife and nature is absolutely beautiful. These are some of the critters that have wandered into the yard of my family home recently:

The downside is that the summers here get up to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) which is a nightmare.

How about you?

The best thing about my country is capitalism. The worst thing about my country is capitalism.

The best thing about the USA is either the entertainment or the diversity of landscapes and peoples.
The worst thing? There are several big things, but probably violence (a lot of it done abroad) and the high cost of living.

Lots of places this could apply to haha, from whence do you hail?

The summers are getting that way here (Ontario, Canada) as well. Not quite in actual degrees but with humidity the humidex was consistently 40c+ the past 2 weeks. You sweat, it doesn't evaporate at all, drenched while going for a run from river access point to cold water spring etc to keep body temp from getting out of control. 

But then I get back to our little paradise and jump in the pool. (Which reaches up to 86F in the sun, not that refreshing lol)


The best is all the nature around and few people that venture on the trails in summer. It's rare I don't see deer while going for a run, wild turkeys, eagles fishing in the river next to the house, I sometimes spot a fox or a week ago a coyote pub. At home lots of bunnies around (to the chagrin of my wife who does the gardening) Beautiful birds and butterflies, sometimes it's like walking through a Disney movie just getting to the pool lol. Bats catching mosquitos in the evening and fireflies twinkling all through the garden in June. Magical.

The worst, the overbearing humidity especially when combined with wildfire smoke and the damn obsession with mowing lawns by the neighbors on riding mowers. Sounds of summer. I got an electric mower now, so much better. 


I'm actually from The Netherlands originally.

Best: You can cycle everywhere, from Amsterdam to the beach no problem. 
Worst: Way too many people for my liking.

I'm Dutch

Pro's:
1) Learning languages. Sounds weird, but if you grow up in a small country like the Netherlands you simply do as early as being a child. Also I grew up in the very south, so basically German is second nature with some French thrown in. It proved to be very helpful in both my professional career as in my personal life.

2) Well organized. Obviously we dutch like to complain, but just a hop across the border will show how Dutch infrastructure seems more organized in comparison. Including Cycling infrastructure.

3) Being direct and pragmatic. It's culture in this case. Dutch people might come across as being rude, but they tend not to keep you guessing in their intend.

Contra:
1) The Netherlands has a high population density. Eventhough we have no 1 million cities, we also have no real nature areas of significant size. It's impossible to let's say hike for a few hours with no civilization in sight.

2) As I said, we can be rude. So everyone has an opinion about anything. Can become very tiresome.

3) Taxation is borderline. You pay a LOT of taxes. Prepare to spend 1/2 your working life on funding the government and more.

Also Dutch. I parrot what SvennoJ and Tober say just above me.

The obvious point is indeed how well organized we are. Svenno and Tober mention infrastructure as in roads and cycling, but it’s everything really. From that to general services to all sorts of events to the organization of the landscape itself. I dare anyone to find a “people” that’s even better at this. It does connects to Tober’s point of having no ‘real nature of significant size’. I’d go further; we have no nature at all. We have a few areas that have a natural origin, but everything is man-made and man-maintained so to say. Even the dunes and the Veluwe forest. We have pretty cities because of this, but pretty outdoor places are scarce.

This organization is culturally ingrained though, because it has been a necessity since Medieval times as population grew and the water and usability of the land became a big problem. So this is both impressive as it is a shame. I mean, we have mastery over the water now, and at one point we could make half the country an island at the blink of an eye to deter invasions (which worked until airplanes were invented) but on the other hand Tober is right that there aren’t really any places where you can really ‘get away’.

This is also getting harder and harder by the fact that the population keeps increasing quite rapidly, Svenno also mentions this. Towns and cities grow ever closer to each other putting more and more strain on the outdoor space that is left. This naturally results in social problems. People’s patience with other people is wearing thin in certain places and the tolerance for continuing immigration, while immigrants have been a thing since the Middle Ages as well, is shrinking rapidly. There’s pretty much literally “no more room”. The population puts strain on healthcare, the education system and infrastructure and public transport. Housing is a huge problem meaning many are forced to keep living with their parents for even as old as 40 in some cases. To keep up with the increasing costs of trying to combat all that and to keep everything on the level we are used to (which is high), everything gets more and more expensive. From taxes to groceries to fuel and energy to housing. It’s a downward spiral. To use an untranslatable Dutch word; It’s not getting any more ‘gezellig’.

At least we still know how to party and everyone can be who or what they want to be.

Yeah that organization can't be understated. Once on a company 'team building' (get blind drunk for a weekend) trip we drove to Zeeland along the port of Rotterdam and all the British colleagues coming along were commenting on how even the industrial scrap piles are all neat and tidy, everything in its place. 

And it is in everything, advertising on shopping streets included. It was quite a culture shock coming to Canada with all the 'variety' overwhelming visual stimulation driving down the main street. (Then getting yelled at for cycling on the road lol, no cycle infrastructure in 2002 here)

The funny things is, I got used to it here and now Holland looks a lot like an amusement park to me. So organized and regulated it's borderline stifling. Like if you want to paint your house a different color you have to get permission. My parents had to hire an architect and submit plans for an extension to their house in Utrecht to have it fit in the 'plan' for the neighborhood. Where I live now no 2 houses are the same and apart from road regulations for fences, do whatever you want. 

Nature is the biggest difference. I don't remember seeing many/any fallen trees in 'forests' in the Netherlands, it's all open with well maintained paths, signposted (and always people). Here trees stay where they fall, after a while someone brings a chainsaw to cut out a section after a tree has fallen over a path. Paths are mostly made/'maintained' by usage and volunteers taking a weed whacker to fight back the nettles and raspberry bushes from closing them up. Some paths can't be used in summer, too overgrown and when a part slides into the river from erosion or gets blocked by a fallen tree people make their own little detour and it becomes the new path. The trails change like flowing rivers. Which are all fixed in place in Holland, organized, here the rivers shift every spring and this year they had to fix the erosion prevention again at the local trail head. 

The main gravel trails also aren't maintained in the winter months, sign posted no winter maintenance. And the hilarious, "trail closed when flooded" as in we're not gonna do anything about it, it will fix itself. I follow snow mobile tracks while running in winter after heavy snow. 

One of the coolest things about Holland is you can walk along the beach uninterrupted along most of the coast. All public space, would love to go for a run along the beach from Ijmuiden to Den Helder or The Hague. (Not all the way that's over 50km!) You can have an entire beach marathon. All meticulously maintained and always somewhere close for refreshments. But you'll be dodging people all the way.

I'm from Brazil.

The best thing here is the nature, like the landscapes, beachs (mainly in the northeast), dunes, forests, rivers etc.

The worst thing is the brazillian. Everything that come from us or we touch, gets worse: the politians, violence, the "Brazilian way" (trying to take advantage of everything and everyone), the public services, anything

Well, there is the Strand6Daagse. Starts monday.

Not for me, I like walking, finished the Four Day Marches in Nijmegen for the 13th time yesterday, but walking such lengths on the soft sand of the beach and dunes is torture.