• Country with weirdest sayings on T-shirts: Japan
• Most ubiquitous fast-food restaurant: KFC
• Most ubiquitous food product: Pringles
• Most ubiquitous product advertisement: Coke
• Most counterfeited food product: Oreos (Okeos, Oleos … the list is endless)
• Worst food: England
• Best hot dogs: France
• Best ice cream (ahem … gelato): Italy
• Worst ice cream: Turkey
• Most ubiquitous product: Microsoft Windows
• Best postal system: Beijing, China
• Most mystifying postal service: Sweden, where there are no post offices
• Worst postal system: Czech Republic
• Most illiterate taxi drivers: China
• Most repulsive toilets: China, with (dis)honorable mention going to the “hotel” in Laguna Colorado, Bolivia
• Most elaborate toilets: Japan
• Best roller coaster: Thunder Dolphin, Tokyo
• Most shoe shine boys per square km: La Paz
• Most Internet cafés per square km: Tie, between Thailand and Bolivia
• Fewest Internet cafés per square km: England
• Best Internet cafés: Japan—wicked fast upload speeds!
• Most littered plastic bags per square foot: Tanzania
• Most Rolex dealers per square km: Zermatt, Switzerland
• Best water park: Wild Wadi in Dubai
• Most aggressive beggars and touts: Arusha, Tanzania
• Most bang for buck: Thailand
• Most stunning scenery: Switzerland, although Machu Picchu and the Lake District near San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina are also fabulous
• Best chocolate: Forget Switzerland. San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina. Go for the chocolate and stay for the scenery.
• Most appalling gutters: Dar es Salaam
• Most colorful hair on old ladies: Japan
• Most aggressive carpet salesmen: Turkey
• Most helpful people: England
• Most friendly people: France—surprised? Of course, we found friendly people everywhere we went.
• Best children’s parks above the tree line: Switzerland
• Best public swimming facilities: Germany
• Prettiest big city: Stockholm
• Most dazzling big city: Hong Kong
• Hardest to travel in: China, as the language barrier is huge
• Most pickpocket attempts per hour: Rome
• Most obnoxious coins: Sweden and Costa Rica (tie); forget stuffing them in your pocket. You need a wheelbarrow to cart them around they are so huge.
• Most on-time trains: Tie between Switzerland and Japan
• Hardest place to lunch: Dubai during Ramadan
• Coolest over-the-counter fireworks: Mauritius
• Most complicated bathing ritual: Japan
• Most blatant product counterfeiting: China, although Bolivia is a very close second
• Noisiest country: Tie between United Arab Emirates and China
• Noisiest city: Panama City with their freaking buses
• Nicest subway: Hong Kong
• Most confusing subway: Paris
• Most elaborate subway: London
• Mean time for solicitation in Bangkok: Twenty minutes
• Worst traffic: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Worst drivers: Istanbul
• Most perplexing economy: Thailand. How can things be so cheap?
• Strangest question asked at a restaurant: “Do you want gas or no gas?”
• Worst pencils: Tanzania—the lead breaks if you dare write anything
• Most dangerous thing we did: cross the street
• Most traveled citizens: Dutch. They are everywhere. Twenty-year-old Israelis are a close second.
• Worst Fanta flavor: Belize. We think it is aspirin flavor.
• The most enduring U.S. personality worldwide: Monica Lewinsky
• Most bizarre law: Kids under eighteen can’t use the Internet in China