I think List posts are interesting, from an enjoyment perspective, and sometimes gives you new travel ideas, but again, sample size is a crucial issue here! Unless you have been to EVERY bar in SE Asia, how can you possibly list the best ones!!

I think there are different expectations in customer service around the world – I found the customer service in central Europe to actually be pretty bad (I found many of the staff to be just downright rude and dismissive). However, in South Korea (where I live), people will go out of their way to help you (and it’s not even a major tourist destination).

You’ve brought up some great points here. Thanks for sharing!

Objectively listing subjective values….not possible.

Friendliness is so subjective in both interpretation (personal cultural bias being the most influential) and in presentation (depending on so many factors within a culture, gender, race, economic status and so many other things) that boiling it down to a top 10 list appears to me to be almost the opposite of any reason for travel. Would anyone really not go to a place if it didn’t appear on a top 10 friendly places list?

It is an interesting observation you made about the friendliest countries being most accepting of Euro-centric behaviour.

In general, I’m sick of the top advice for bloggers being “make a list”. Personally, I find it goes against the other top rule of any writing genre: “write what you know”. In my profession, I have to do a lot of research & writing – so when I blog, I write a lot (hey, look at this comment as an example). If that puts readers off, so be it. I blog to keep my travel in a central place where anyone can read it if they want. I love seeing the little counters going up, knowing that people are reading what I write, but that isn’t motivation enough for me.