---
type: Tip
title: Search for the best, not the nearest
description: Harry types "best X" rather than "X near me" and takes the top result — a habit that found him the barbershop of the trip, and that fails the moment he searches for a thing instead of the best thing.
tags: [method, maps, research, restaurants, grooming]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T14:10:00Z
---

# Search for the best, not the nearest

A small habit Harry states out loud and then demonstrates in both directions: in
a city he doesn't know, he searches for **best barbers** rather than **barbers
near me**, and books the first result.

The logic is that proximity is the one thing you can fix yourself. A ten-minute
ride costs almost nothing in most of the places he films, and the nearest option
is chosen by geography rather than by anyone's opinion. Ranking by *best* pulls
in whatever reviews exist and puts a decision behind the top result.

It runs against the usual advice about not trusting the first thing a map shows
you, and he knows it — his answer is that it has worked repeatedly.

## When it works

**A barbershop in [Islamabad](/places/islamabad.md).** He searches *best barbers*,
takes the first result, and gets ninety minutes and seven or eight treatments he
did not ask for and could not name, for 8,000 rupees — about $40. He says on
camera that this is how he found it and that it is his normal method.

## When it doesn't

**A Buddha statue in [Kandy](/places/kandy.md).** He wants a specific one his
friend has told him about, types *buddha statue* into the map, and clicks the
first result. He gets a real one — colourful, seated, on a road junction — but
not the one he was going to, and with no visible way in.

**Which is the rule failing on its own terms.** He searched for a *category*, not
for the best of one, and got exactly what that query deserves: the nearest thing
matching the words. The tip is not "trust the first result". It is that the first
result is only worth trusting when the query you typed ranked things.

## Demonstrated in

- [$45 LUXURY Pakistani Haircut 🇵🇰](/videos/uk2406EO7Kg.md) — *best barbers*, top
  result, and the method stated.
- [Sri Lankan Food and Temple Tour 🇱🇰](/videos/K1wXnnVkodc.md) — *buddha statue*,
  top result, wrong statue.