Many people go to Vietnam for the food. I went and came back thinking about my portfolio.
That's what travel does when you stop treating it like a vacation. It hands you information you can't find on a screen.
I walked Vietnam the way I walk every country — on foot, through the streets, past the markets, into the neighborhoods tourists don't reach.
Two things hit me that I haven't been able to shake since.
The first was physical.
Whenever I get to a city, I try to walk it as soon as possible, so I can tune into the energy. Xi'An, China is still the most electric international destination I've ever walked. Vietnam is next.
Hanoi, Vietnam is fantastic. The people appear community focused. Exercise equipment is sprawled throughout the streets as you walk, and the energy — you can feel the vibrations running through your veins as soon as you land outside your door.
What did they do differently? They constantly move, and they prioritize togetherness. I came back and looked at my own relationship to movement differently.
The second was financial.
Vietnam is booming in a you-can-feel-it-in-the-streets way. Construction everywhere. Diverse population. Infrastructure accelerating. A middle class forming in real time. I've been in enough countries to know what stagnation looks like.
Vietnam doesn't look like that. It looks like a place in the middle of a transformation that most Western investors haven't fully priced in yet. Compared to Mongolia — which is up and coming but still has some ways to go — Vietnam is worth keeping a close eye on.
The most useful economic research I've ever done has happened on foot in foreign countries. No analyst report gives you what an hour walking through a city's markets does. You feel the velocity of a place before the data catches up.
The next time you travel, observe how healthy (or unhealthy) the people who actually live there are. Learn from what's working and what isn't. Then turn your attention to the economy — is it booming or bust, and why? Dig into it. It will make you a better investor and a better steward of your resources.
Did you get your workout in today? Here’s 1,095 ten minute workouts, so you don’t miss.
— Destiny