Speaking as someone who now works remotely permanently, this has been... life-changing.
So for 10 years I lived in NYC and--don't get me wrong--there are lots of things I liked about NYC but I'm so over the summers and the winters. Also bear in mind that I think NYC is infinitely better for most people to live in than the Bay Area.
But I now live in Florida. It's about the 182nd day in a row where it's been 70-80F. Sure it's humid and that may sound weird after the comment about NYC summers but NYC summers are a special kind of hell beyond the heat and humidity. Here there's usually a breeze. I've been here 6 months and I don't even use the AC.
Add to that that for the same price as my 50 year old 1 bedroom in NYC I now live in a 3 bedroom duplex apartment. I spend a ton of time outside and this has greatly increased my mood and wellbeing.
There are things I definitely miss: camaraderie with my coworkers, free food and the like but honestly I'm just over going into the office. I'm not sure I'll ever do that again.
The ability to live anywhere in the country just opens up so many possibilities.
It's worth noting that this doesn't enable a true digital nomad lifestyle if that's what you want. That's because you still need to be employed somewhere and you and the company are subject to the employment rules (and taxes) in that locale. Maybe that will change in the future.
> NYC summers are a special kind of hell beyond the heat and humidity
That is absolutely wild to me. I also lived in NYC for 10 years, the summers there are magical. The city comes alive in such a unique way, people are outside relaxing in the parks, having backyard and rooftop parties, heading out to the beach on the weekends. There are a bunch of great weekend trips to be had a few hours away by train in Long Island or Connecticut or upstate NY. You can join an after work rec league with friends. There's concerts in the park once or twice a week, and free movie showings on the waterfront. The bars and restaurants are more lively.
One of the best parts of NYC in general is just how much there is to do if you like getting out and being social, and in the summer it's just turned up to the max.
Most apartments don't come with AC, but as long as you can afford $300 for a good floor unit to put in front of the window you can keep your home temperature very comfortable.
>> NYC summers are a special kind of hell beyond the heat and humidity
> That is absolutely wild to me. I also lived in NYC for 10 years, the summers there are magical.
This, to me, is a perfect illustration of why the future of work is neither everyone staying remote nor everyone returning to the office. Some individuals thrive in close, convivial environments, others thrive when given the space that only comes with remote working; still others are at their best with a balance of the two.
Acknowledging and embracing this social diversity will be key to employers attracting and retaining the best talent in the post-pandemic world.
The problem is that any environment that allows work from home but has a significant percentage of employees in the office regularly will have a very hard time managing, in my experience.
It’s very hard to maintain the discipline of holding online meetings and documenting all important decisions when enough people are colocated. Face to face bandwidth is so much higher that it’s easy to forget there are a lot of people without that exposure.
I generally agree with this, but think it falls far outside of the bounds of work (re: "future of work"). I lived in NYC for 13 years, and worked remotely full-time for about 11 of those years. I explicitly lived there because I love the city.
Remote work allows us to live where we want/need and remain productive members of society. I've been working remotely for 20 years, living in wonderful cities the whole time, and I'm not going back any time soon (ideally, ever).
> I also lived in NYC for 10 years, the summers there are magical.
Summers in NYC can be quite mild. If memory serves 2016-2019 were all quite mild with only very brief hellish patches. Some earlier summers though were... horrible.
For me, the magical time in NYC is spring and fall, specifically May and September-October. Those are my favourite times in the city. The days are still relatively long. The weather is nice and mild.
But there is something about the oppressive heat radiating off the sidewalk and the buildings and the air is humid and completely still that is just completely draining to me, in the height of a bad summer.
Did you commute every day on the subway? If so how long?
I lived in NYC for 10 years and I hated the summer daily commute because all that aliveness led to hangovers and me sweating all that magicalness out daily on my walk and wait on the platform.
You aren't wrong that NYC is great in the summer but it's also a special kind of hell with heat and humidity. Both can be true.
Yes, between the sweaty walk to train, sweatier subway station, and potentially sweaty train car.. I started carrying ice water in my bag in summers. I also had a hack of stopping by the Duane Reade on my way to office with a walk-in cooler section and just standing there for 2 minutes before grabbing a drink to take to work.
Also how can we talk NYC summers without mentioning the unique combination of dried dog piss on sidewalks and decaying garbage. This varies by neighborhood, but if you have a lot of high rises you know what I'm talking about.
Lol, fair enough. I do remember once being pretty dehydrated and being about to pass out on the subway ride home from work, standing in the middle of the packed, sweltering train with no room to move. Luckily someone saw me looking pale and offered me their seat.
But at least in hindsight the good outweighs the bad :)
The trick is to keep NYC at an arm's length. Waiting for the Metro North in that dank cavern is more bearable when you only do it for pleasure and not business.
FWIW I was shocked how brutal the NYC summer was, and I’ve spent most of my life in Arizona and Texas. I’d guess it’s mostly the humidity and the stagnant airflow.
> But I now live in Florida. It's about the 182nd day in a row where it's been 70-80F. Sure it's humid and that may sound weird after the comment about NYC summers but NYC summers are a special kind of hell beyond the heat and humidity. Here there's usually a breeze. I've been here 6 months and I don't even use the AC.
You're comparing FL winters to NYC summers? I'm not sure exactly where you are in FL, but... in most of the state, it gets as hot or hotter than NYC in the summer!
Well it's June now. We're pretty close to what summer is.
For the record, I'm in the Miami area. I think it's a little cooler here than some places more inland and upstate. Or maybe I'm imagining things. But what a difference the trade winds make (to me at least).
Like I said, it's June and I'm still not using the AC. I just open up my house and enjoy the breeze. Some people, particularly up north, like the have their AC on 60 and wear layers indoors. For me that's a meat locker. I'm all about it being 75F with a breeze inside.
South Florida has has an unusually dry summer so far and I think that has kept the due points down. As another comment said, give it time and it'll catch up to you. I'm in Boca Raton and it feels wonderful, but by July/August it really gets oppressive. September/October, statistically, has the most rain as well.
I've never lived or spent significant summer time in Florida or New York City, but your descriptions of summer weather sounded surprising to me. I looked up weather data, and Jacksonville, Miami, and Tampa all get significantly hotter (4-7 degrees Fahrenheit higher average temperatures in the hottest part of summer), muggier, and cloudier in the summer. Only Miami is consistently windier in the summer than NYC. Is the wind the only difference you're talking about? At least on paper, it looks like I would vastly prefer the summer weather in NYC.
Not op but have lived in Florida and NYC. I suspect the gap partially relates to the "constructed"/human/social aspects, and not the raw weather itself.
A NYC subway car without AC when it's 87 degrees outside is worse than 100° in Florida; Florida is a lot more effective AC, pools/lanais, open spaces.
Architecture definitely matters. Ever been to the Honolulu airport? Lots of open air. The Lihue Airport on Kauaʻi is open air. Check-in is in the open.
It's more often one section with broken ac and not the complete train; I assume the drivers have AC even when passengers dont. You can try to move to an adjacent car (which are then correspondingly that much more packed). I've experienced it in both NYC and Boston in the last few years.
If you’re moving from NYC to Florida as a techie you’re making some bank and are in a nice, modern place with central air near the water, golf course, or whatever your thing is.
In NYC, you’re almost certainly in an older, smaller building and likely have lousy HVAC. The subway is great, but in many stations you learn to love the unique aroma of garbage juice mixed with hot piss that tends to be a thing.
My guess is that a large part of the difference in indoor environments would be humidity + CO2 levels. Florida buildings are designed for a lot more airflow and have more attention paid to up-front HVAC design, so there's less "sick building syndrome" type stuff going on.
In a Florida summer, the outdoors is a swamp, but you don't have to spend much time there. The whole place is built for cars; you can (if you wish) go straight from building A, to your car, to building B. Presuming underground parking, you might never even touch non-air-conditioned air.
In an NYC summer, meanwhile, in many buildings, the indoors is the swamp. (And often their attached yards / alleyways as well, if they're enclosed around by tall buildings.)
15 year NYC resident, spend many long weekends going down fo FL in summer.
In NYC it may be a little cooler, but your exposure to the elements is constant. You walk to the train, lunch, coffee, dinner, groceries, etc out on the sweaty sidewalk.
When it's 90F, the train station might be 100F and train at best 80F though often much higher.
You can live in a $2-3 million apartment yet have a lobby not be air conditioned, nor the hallways or elevator. No one has pools. You can go down to the park by the rivers, but you aren't going in for a swim. All the concrete & asphalt absorb and radiate the heat.
I'd go down to FL in summer since if it's going to be 90F+ and humid, I'd rather be able to jump in the ocean or a pool.
Imo focusing on weather is overrated. I worked in the bay area for 3 years, and year the constant weather is cool but for me, far more important is where my friends, family and the things I want to be near are. A nice house, cool activities, vibrant community and stores, etc.
Not saying those things are in NYC, there's many other great cities, but I definitely wouldn't pick a place just for the weather.
IIRC part of South Florida (around Ft. Lauderdale) is the only tropical rainforest climate in the CONUS.
I've spent time in the mid-Atlantic region and time in South Florida. Miami in July is the closest thing to hell on Earth. But I'd rather deal with that and live in a beautiful climate year-round than deal with north eastern winters.
> Miami in July is the closest thing to hell on Earth. But I'd rather deal with that and live in a beautiful climate year-round than deal with north eastern winters.
Thank goodness the West Coast exists to relieve us of that dreadful dilemma!
> But I now live in Florida. It's about the 182nd day in a row where it's been 70-80F.
What part of Florida? It generally starts hitting 90 in May most of the state and stays there into November.
I've lived in NYC and yes, January-March can be tough and a few weeks in September are awful but Florida is just oppressively hot for six+ months of the year. The worst part is it doesn't cool down at night so you don't even get early morning or late night comfortable outside time
Miami. I'm not sure it's hit 90F hit but it's definitely hit 85-88F. So close. I'm not sure how much hotter it'll get but I'm all about it still.
I've thought about why this is. Not commuting I think is a big part of it. So the weather doesn't have to bother me if I don't want it to. Like I literally don't have to go anywhere.
I think the trade winds are a big factor too. Hot, humid and still is a special kind of hell.
Another is expectations. Like if you live in Miami you just assume it's going to be relatively warm (even hot) and humid. It's not a surprise.
Lastly, I have more space here and more facilities where I live. I can go for a swim easily even if I don't want to go to the beach.
I have been to Tampa in June/July years ago and that was hell. My circumstances were different and I'm sure my attitude was too. It actually turned me off Florida for years. Up until last year actually.
Funny story: when deciding where to work remotely last year I was strongly considering Dallas (maybe Austin) and decided on a whim to go to Miami instead. I said if I don't like it I'll just go to Texas. I haven't left. Funnily enough, in that time Texas had the big arctic storm and a foot of snow in Austin. I think I made the right choice.
> It's about the 182nd day in a row where it's been 70-80F.
And this is simply untrue (according to Weather.com and Weather Underground). I mention this because there's this big push (I'm sure you've noticed) among tech/VCs/Miami govt to paint a very rosy picture of Miami as an alternative to Silicon Valley.
Every day this week is expected to be 86-89. And to folks not from Florida ... that's HOT in Florida. I've lived in NYC, I've lived in Austin, I've lived in "Hotlanta" ... there's nothing like a Florida hot. And unless you're right on the water, it feels ... like much more.
The last week in January this year had 4 days above 80. The last week in February every single day was over 80 and two days over 85. In 2018 my NYC-based company decided to come to Orlando in the last week of February. Five of the seven days were OVER 90!
There's obviously some creative license even hyperbole here. The point is that in the tropics (which I'd count Miami as in), the weather (in the dry season at least) is very stable. Just looking at the forecast for the next 10 days, literally every day it's a low of mid 70s and a high of upper 80s. Some of those days have a chance of thunderstorms.
In January through march it did dip down as low as the 50s on one occasion but generally speaking it was mid-70s almost every day.
I know this is an anecdote, but.. I run along the Hudson. I see some regulars only during March-October. They have houses in Florida, too, but can "survive" there only during the coldest months.
It’s possible if you become a contractor. That’s what I am now, and I have worked for two companies so far. I live outside the states now.
But it does mean dealing with your own taxes, charging a higher rate to compensate for those taxes and other bills, etc. however, I’ve found that I can charge higher and the company can still save money simply because they don’t have to pay for things they would normally pay a permanent employee.
But, it does come with a risk of losing your job more easily.
Typically for a freelancer/contractor (as against a consultant) yes but also no. On a nominal hourly or whatever rate you come out ahead, but life can throw you curveballs that mean you don't end up ahead.
I grew up in Naples. If you have only been there 6 months, you haven’t lived there during the summer yet.
That said, I actually love Florida’s climate. The problem with Florida for me is the lack of outdoor activities, especially in the summer except for the beach and boat.
I personally prefer the bay areas hiking, access to park, playgrounds etc, but if you prefer beach, Florida is amazing and you adjust quickly to shorts 320 days a year.
It's the best. I was able to move out of the place I was in, which was a traffic-dominated hellscape and a complete "non-place" and the ultimate marriage of convenience (and not even that convenient), and move to a great place with fresh air near a great beach for a similar price. I've got a tan this year already. Not because I'm trying, but because I went from trying my damnedest to never leave the house (the surroundings were that boring and unpleasant) to now getting outside every chance I get, because I want to. It's so obvious - spend your life in a place where you want to be. But it took a pandemic to give me and my employer the nerve to do it.
This makes Florida your domicile, so no state income taxes (but, of course, you're paying Federal taxes regardless of where you reside in the world). The mail processor in question caters specifically to cruisers/yachties and RVers. Give the address to work and family, no one knows you're living the digital nomad life unless you share. Get a Schwab or Fidelity checking account for fee free ATM withdrawals globally, and a credit card with no foreign transaction fee.
Is this recommending that you lie and say you live on this island? If lots of people are doing it with the same island, might some tax agency get wise and audit everyone with that address?
I see how one could, in theory, easily get away with a fake residency while remote working, but sharing the same address with many others and posting about it online seems like asking for trouble.
I'm not sure about the specific details of the island example from above, but residency laws can get complicated. Summering for 3 months is obvious. But what about 5-4-3? What if you own property in one of the states? The list goes on. A given state will have laws specifying who can legally claim residency.
It gets really weird if multiple states attempt to "claim" you - I believe there was a supreme court case regarding state income tax in such a scenario.
Well, tax circumvention never is a good idea, but I know plenty of military folks who get away with it though.
I once saw a sailboat named "Minsc", that had a dingy hanging off the stern named "Boo" but it was gone before I could snap a picture. Probably off to do butt kicking.
It's not tax evasion when active military does it. They have a system and criteria for selecting which state you want to be a legal resident of. I don't recall how it works off the top of my head.
In the digital nomad case you aren’t circumventing state or federal taxes. By saying you are in, say NC, when you are really in Thailand, Croatia, or Costa Rica depending on the time of year—-you are paying more taxes then you’d owe, not less.
Leaving aside timezones, which you could adjust to if you wanted to, the real issue is that your employers can’t be sure it’s complying with Thai, Croatian, and Costa Rica law and doesn’t want to be the effort in to figure out how to be sure.
This is a work policy. These are things I tend to take pretty seriously (YMMV). So, if the policy doesn't allow that that's the standard I'm going to live by rather than playing the game of "will I get caught?"
It's also why I've never taken a single document or line of source code from any company I've worked at.
Never been to Florida, but from all the cyclists I know, it sounds like the third circle of hell from about May to October. Between the humidity and the bugs and the rain (rain? in the summer? crazy to this west coaster!), I couldn't do it.
So for 10 years I lived in NYC and--don't get me wrong--there are lots of things I liked about NYC but I'm so over the summers and the winters. Also bear in mind that I think NYC is infinitely better for most people to live in than the Bay Area.
But I now live in Florida. It's about the 182nd day in a row where it's been 70-80F. Sure it's humid and that may sound weird after the comment about NYC summers but NYC summers are a special kind of hell beyond the heat and humidity. Here there's usually a breeze. I've been here 6 months and I don't even use the AC.
Add to that that for the same price as my 50 year old 1 bedroom in NYC I now live in a 3 bedroom duplex apartment. I spend a ton of time outside and this has greatly increased my mood and wellbeing.
There are things I definitely miss: camaraderie with my coworkers, free food and the like but honestly I'm just over going into the office. I'm not sure I'll ever do that again.
The ability to live anywhere in the country just opens up so many possibilities.
It's worth noting that this doesn't enable a true digital nomad lifestyle if that's what you want. That's because you still need to be employed somewhere and you and the company are subject to the employment rules (and taxes) in that locale. Maybe that will change in the future.