My name is Hannah Serena, and I've spent my adult life working in the travel industry, as a writer, while traveling and living around the world.

On this website, I share my lists of recommendations. I think of each as a cross between a definitive "Best of" guide ("Best of New York," "Best of Sydney") and something more personal: "Hannah's New York," if you will, or "Hannah's Sydney." Self-expression via city guide.

The first four guides are meant to feel somewhat comprehensive, reflecting the somewhat comprehensive way in which I did my research: exhaustively exploring these cities myself, over periods from 1-10 years.

I have lived in the first four cities long-term (1-10 years). In the process, I explored 80-90% of their parks, beaches, cultural attractions, and noteworthy shops. I dedicated many, many days to this. So, I think of these four guides as fairly comprehensive – that is, created from fairly comprehensive research. I did not try all their restaurants, or bars – but since nobody has, since it is impossible to do so (New York alone has 20,000+ restaurants), I would describe my first four lists as reasonably comprehensive, even in the food and drink category.

As for the other city guides – to Tokyo, to Bangkok, and so on. I have lived in these cities for shorter periods (1-6 months) or in some cases, I only visited for about a week. This is not enough time for me, or anyone (including other travel writers), to represent themselves as an expert or describe a guide they create as "comprehensive." They have not had time to make their own discoveries or choose favorites from a meaningfully diverse selection. In all likelihood, the majority of the guide would be ripped from someone else's recommendations. Or they would have listed literally every place they stumbled upon. Neither of which feels discerning and intentional. Doing that doesn't appeal to me, so even though I explored Tokyo and Bangkok quite extensively (among other examples), living in both for at least a month, I decided to create these lists as a "top five" version of my format ("Best of" meets "the Hannah edit") so I could still have a sort of structure and shape.

Lastly, I have created a graveyard here, for places that would have made this list, but have closed.

A few notes:

- I check these guides every so often for accuracy, to make sure they are up to date, but occasionally places may have closed, or moved, before that was reflected in the copy.

- If an "obvious" place was excluded,

The venues I chose to include represent perhaps 5% of the total venues I chose from.