Best Expat Bar on the Planet? (ex-North America)

I hate to be the first to bust your bubble but even if you find a bar like that it would be difficult to emulate to the extent you have here. One can't plan things like welcoming backpackers but not being overrun by them or spontaneous singing to the Stones. With book of poetry piled in the corner and the Stones playing you'll probably attract hippy-type people. If that's what you're looking for, go for it but you might want to consider other styles of beer along with the Guiness. None of the hippy-type people I know drink Guiness.

Expat bars and bars recommended by LP is what I avoid. They stink one way or another, and attract loads of weidos, so just go ahead.

You'd never make a dime.

Or a Peso.

Or a Peseta.

Or an Escudo.

Or a Shilling.

The key to a successful business is to provide something other people want, not just what you want. And something enough other people want for you to make money from it. You have a dream, which is a great place to start, but be prepared to modify it to take account of your location, customers etc, or you'll be out of business and out of pocket very quickly.

You don't mention if you've decided where your bar should be, but start with that, work out your budget for starting the business and then start researching what you'll actually need to set up a bar in that location. Yes that's the boring bit, but does have to be done.

Best of luck

You can't always get what you want.

You know, when I was a barfly--back before I discovered it was both cheaper and more pleasant to drink at home--I frequented bars with the characteristics mentioned by the OP. But never all of them at once. I could point you to that bookish, TV-less bar in Beijing, the sing-along bar in Scotland, and that fabulous off-the-beaten-track microbrewery any number of places in the Western US. But all these things don't naturally fit together.

And #5 is right. A Bar of Dreams ("If I build it, they will come") is something of a fantasy. Given the low margins on the business, you've got to worry about appealing to customers first, indulging your own whims second. And the reality is that many "travelers" enjoy precisely the things you decry, at least by implication: insipid, generic lagers, blaring TVs, and an atmosphere of easy hook-ups. The qualities you describe are more usually valued by locals, who, in any case, are any bar's bread and butter, unless your dream location is Khao San Road or the like.

Would it not be more rewarding to invest the money in more travelling rather than in a bar?

Return on investment could be more fulfilling!

Oh, heck, I'm being philosophical and it isn't even 9am on a Sunday morning here in the UK...

Good concept but you would have to offer more to make it viable...maybe buy a big house and turn it into a bnb or just rent rooms to travellers in an area that would attract the right clientel, and turn a section of it into your dream bar and then you would have a captive audience/clientelle. Flipside...all this takes money.

If you want to open a bar that caters to North American expats, limiting yourself to attracting backpacker type clientele might be a mistake.
My favorite expat bar has Live music on weekends and a big ass screen with an NFL feed for Sundays and Mondays. It's the busiest expat bar around for that reason. I can't see poetry and books being a big attraction for expats in a bar setting. Maybe a few nights a week as a theme or book exchange and see how it goes, but you are opening this bar to be successful, right?
Not sure how Guinness fits in when you wrote that you're opening a bar geared for expat North Americans.
This is my favorite expat bar that I frequent regularly.
http://roadhouse169.com/