Yeah, I don’t get it. As I said, if you’re so concerned about not doing an imperialism, the mainland US has so much to offer in terms of natural beauty, there has to be a beach somewhere ffs.

Also, if this is actually such an important ethical problem for you, you literally can’t go outside the mainland without a guilty conscience.

thanks for listening! And hey, mainland America has so many beautiful locations, you can definitely still travel and have really fun trips and memories.

ooohh then maybe Vietnam, its also one of the best places for vegans to travel!!! listen I don't think its WRONG to travel just that the tourism industry is inherently exploitative and there is no place untouched by colonialism. if you pick a place, do your research, actually engage with the culture, always tip really well, and leave as minimal impact on the environment as you reasonably can I think that's fine. but as you can see in this very thread there are examples of white "leftist" saying the most repulsive chauvinistic about these countries. simply try to be the opposite of that and you'll be good. (also TIP goddammit nobody fucking tips, tip as much as you would in America) you cant buy a t-shirt without engaging in exploitation ya know. you just need to be aware of that and act accordingly. 99% of white tourists fail at basic human decency.

Vietnam gets so many tourists you can travel pretty much anywhere without a word of the language, though knowing the basics isn't going to hurt.

Same is true of most of the world honestly. Is it an American thing to think you can't travel without language skills?

no idea. my parents went last year and speaking french will get you a long way according to my dad who speaks french.

you could buy a phrase book that spells things out in english phonetically, you'll sound like a dingus but it would work

I found a english-vietnamese phrasebook PDF http://www.culturalorientation.net/resources-for-refugees/phrasebooks/english-vietnamese-phrasebook-with-useful-wordlist , its not phonetic so the accent marks are gonna be tough since its a tonal language

text to speech could probably work though

In tourist areas you'll be fine but if you're off the beaten path then it's going to be harder. It also depends on who you want to communicate with - bartender? They probably speak some English. Street vendor? Depends if they are in a touristy area or if they are in any area less frequented by tourists. Person on the streeet? Maybe, especially if they are younger, but maybe not.

Vietnamese is hard because it's a tonal language and it uses a mostly-Latin writing system but it can be quite deceptive as to how to pronounce words (e.g. the last name Nguyen), so it's better not to assume that you can't say the word just because you can read the letters. Vietnamese people are generally very friendly and accommodating, so you could absolutely ask a person on the street to help you with translating and you've got a good chance of them saying yes. Also they tend to be very patient so it's unlikely that you'll get a rude response by doing things like pointing at a menu and holding up one finger to indicate an order.

Do you have any dietary requirements? I'd recommend learning the words for those if you do. Otherwise a few phrases will be enough to get you by such as "Xin chào" for hello (Sin Jow - as in the word jowl minus the l), "Cảm ơn" or "Cảm ơn nhiều" for thank you/thank you very much ("Gam/Gum ehh-n new"). Note that the letters are recognisable but if you tried to pronounce these words phonetically as a native english speaker it will be utterly incomprehensible to a Vietnamese person. It's not the most English-friendly country in SE Asia that I've ever been to but it's not that hard either.

I haven't been to Hainan specifically but I have been to China a couple times and loved it.

Yeah I am leaning toward that option honestly. If I can just save up like 10k I can probably just figure shit out when I get there.

Also the apartment in question is in Santos which is a very touristy town.

As far as I’m aware the Seminole Nation doesn’t discourage tourism in the same way indigenous people in Hawai’i do. I am in no way an expert and if I’m wrong I will happily change my tune, but if I understand right the Seminole Nation’s economy is about as reliant on tourism as the rest of the state.

Imo it falls into the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” bucket but not the “especially unethical consumption even within capitalism” one.

There’s the other argument that giving money to US companies is particularly bad, but that is a bit hard to get around when you live here. So “no ethical consumption”