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Somewhere in the world, there is a photo of me smiling next to Pablo Escobar's grave. I'm not going to show it to you. But it exists.

A few weeks ago, I posted a video about the Pablo Escobar museum closing. Yes there was a museum. No, it was not sanctioned. Yes, people did not know that, and yes, it had visitors.

The city of Medellín shut it down (the mayor said the city couldn't allow spaces that glorify narco-trafficking), and I turned this news into a video asking Colombians if they thought people selling Escobar merchandise to tourists should also be stopped. The same way Hitler merchandise is not allowed in Germany. Or, if this were a freedom of speech issue.

But what I led with wasn't about policy or tourism economics. It was personal. I admitted that in 2011, before I understood what that era actually cost this city, I went on a tour to Pablo Escobar's grave. I was fascinated. Like a lot of people who come here.

I didn't know what to expect from the comments.

What I got was a conversation. An overwhelming majority applauded and many great ideas were discussed: having the city promote more tourism, like ecotourism (Colombia is the world’s second most biodiverse country, second only because Brazil is so vast).

There is plenty to work with without having to resort to “dark” tourism.

Most people were generous about my admission. A few said it took courage to say it out loud, which I appreciated, though I'd push back on the word “courage.” Honesty is only brave when the stakes are high. I was just telling the truth about who I was before I knew better. Most of us have a 2011 version of ourselves somewhere. The question is whether we're willing to look at it.

One comment stuck with me more than the others. Someone made the case that banning Escobar merchandise was pointless. That people in Medellín are trying to survive, the market exists because tourists create it, and prohibition doesn't make a market disappear. It just moves it. They weren't defending Escobar. They were being realistic about economics and human behavior. I don't entirely agree, but I couldn't dismiss it either. That's a useful feeling.

Then there was the comment about the schools.

Someone brought up the fact that Escobar built housing, funded community projects, paid for infrastructure in poor neighborhoods. The implication being that this complicated the picture. That maybe the monster also did some good.

I don’t disagree with the facts. What I disagree with is treating those actions as evidence of character.

Every powerful criminal in history has done some version of this. Al Capone ran soup kitchens during the Depression. The Gambino family sponsored Little League teams. Gangsters the world over build schools, pave roads, show up at funerals. And the reason isn't complicated once you see it. When you are in the business of violence, community goodwill is a security apparatus. You pay for the policeman's kid's school fees because that policeman might be the one, one day, standing in between you and freedom. He will think twice. It costs less than a bribe and lasts much longer. Generosity from power is rarely generosity. It's risk management dressed up as philanthropy.

No one installs an ADT security system because they are desperately wanting to support the employees of ADT.

Pay attention to the incentives.

There's a practical version of this, too. When you land somewhere new, pay attention to what you're being funneled toward and ask who benefits. The Escobar tour exists because tourists created the demand for it. The merchandise moves because people keep buying it. You can't legislate that away, and you probably shouldn't try, not in a country where the gap between rich and poor is the widest in Latin America.

When survival is the daily struggle, ethics can be a luxury. Who really cares if someone sells a t-shirt with a mafioso’s face on it if it puts food on the table.

But you can make a different choice with your own money.

Buy the little Chiva bus replica instead. Buy the handmade things, the stuff that came out of the culture rather than the mythology. I have a yellow license plate on my wall that says Medellín. It's just as cool. Actually, it's cooler. And nobody died for it.

Every place has a version of this. The thing they're known for abroad versus the thing they actually are. The gap between those two things is usually where the most interesting stuff lives. That's what's worth paying attention to.

What struck me about that whole comment thread, the honest ones, the pragmatic one, even the one I disagree with, is that it was worth more to me than most things I've put out that performed better and got more “views.” I've posted things that got thousands of views and generated nothing but laughter or applause emojis. The Escobar post got fewer eyes and produced actual thinking. People brought information I didn't have. They pushed back in ways that made me refine my own position. One comment genuinely changed how I see something.

I was watching Trevor Noah's podcast recently. His guest was Kareem Rahma, the guy who makes Subway Takes, a show he shoots on the New York subway. Rahma said when he started the show, virality wasn't even a sliver of the intention. He made it because he had an idea he needed to get out of his body. The reach came later, as a byproduct. And he said you can feel the difference between content made to get people to watch content, and content made because someone actually had something to say. It has a texture. A smoothness. Everything already resolved before it starts.

I know that texture. I've been tempted by it.

The 2011 version of me stood next to that grave and smiled for the camera because I hadn't thought it through yet. The comments reminded me that thinking it through, out loud, imperfectly, in public, is the only thing worth doing here.

🇹🇭 Thailand - Quiet but significant: the Thai Cabinet quietly cut visa-free entry from 60 days down to 30 for 93 countries, making the Destination Thailand Visa (DTV) effectively mandatory for anyone planning a serious long-term stay.

🇵🇹 Portugal - The citizenship clock just got longer: President Seguro signed a revised nationality law in May, extending the wait for most applicants from 5 years to 10, though the Golden Visa residency framework itself remains unchanged.

🇮🇹 Italy — The digital nomad visa just got friendlier for families: spouses and dependent children can now accompany the main applicant with no waiting period, and family members are authorized to work without any labor market test.

🇳🇿 New Zealand - Updated its Golden Visa rules as of this month, allowing Growth category applicants to direct up to 20% of the required NZ$5M investment toward eligible philanthropic donations.

🇲🇾 Malaysia - The DE Rantau Pass is still one of the best deals in Southeast Asia on paper (foreign income tax-exempt through end of 2026, family-inclusive), but processing times have ballooned to 4–6 months in practice.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria - Officially launched a digital nomad visa, requiring €31,000/year income; notable because it joined Schengen and adopted the euro in 2025, making it a new low-cost backdoor into the EU.

🇳🇵 Nepal - The long-promised digital nomad visa appears to be live or imminent, with some of the most accessible thresholds anywhere: $1,500/month income or $20,000 in savings.

Check your target country’s official immigration page for exact income thresholds and application windows. They move quickly.

I run a newsletter. Graydon Carter ran Vanity Fair for twenty-five years. Same business, different zip code.

What makes When the Going Was Good more than nostalgia for a world that no longer exists is that Carter doesn't start at the top. He starts in Canada, directionless, tanking his college degree to work at a small magazine, then more or less begging his way into a job at Time. The stumbling, the false starts, the years of not quite knowing. That part of the story is as honest as anything in the book, and it earns everything that comes after.

Once he lands at Vanity Fair in 1992, the memoir becomes something else entirely: a masterclass in building a thing. Carter assembled one of the great editorial rosters of his era: Hitchens (the insider stories about Hitch alone are worth the cover price), Bryan Burrough, A.A. Gill, Michael Lewis, Dominick Dunne, and shot it all through the lenses of Helmut Newton and Annie Leibovitz. He shows you how the sausage gets made: the advertising machinery, the luxury holdouts like Hermès and the whole LVMH universe who refused to follow the magazine into digital, the wrangling that went on behind every cover. The Hollywood issue. The Oscar party. Anna Wintour, always early, always wearing sunglasses, always in the front of a fashion show or the back of a black car.

He's also honest about what it cost. The workaholism. The other “-aholisms.” The health (no tennis!). The relationships. The once-upon-a-time borderline hedonistic dream of the expense account. The origin story of a certain president's smallish hands. He also has opinions: monograms on clothes are idiotic, and you should always make your own phone calls. That last one would get him fired in Hollywood.

Three cables become one. The Intoval sits on my kitchen counter and charges my iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods simultaneously in one sleek design.

No fumbling, no tangle, just set it down and walk away. The aluminum build runs cool, charges to 100% without drama, and works for Android phones, too.

My favorite function is that the phone pad has two charging zones, so you can prop your phone sideways to watch YouTube (for example, my YouTube channel… like and subscribe!) while it charges.

If something in here stayed with you, pass it on. The right essay finds the right person. Help it along.

See you next week.
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Rio is a hummingbird who's been everywhere and trusts almost nothing he reads online. Ask him about visas, nomad life, or whatever the travel blogs are getting wrong this week.