In the last year many jobs in computing/software development have gone fully remote. If given the opportunity to work remotely from anywhere in the world where would you go? Or if you've recently transitioned to a remote work environment where are you thinking of moving?
- Safe almost everywhere even at night and generally very clean
- Infinite amount of things to do, you'll never finish exploring new restaurants (with delicious food) and stores
- International events happen there: conferences, concerts, etc.
- Very walkable (including the metro), especially around city center
- Reasonable housing prices - high, but comparable to cities in the US
- Politeness is baked into society and unpleasant interactions with strangers are very rare
- Rest of the country is fairly accessible by train for a weekend trip, and there's plenty of beautiful nature if you get out of the city
Cons:
- Difficult language and few people speak any English
- Fairly closed society/culture, you'll always be an outsider (but there are plenty of expats)
- Toilets in restaurants often suck and public trash cans are rare
- Bureaucracy is quite bad and inaccessible if you aren't fluent in Japanese
- Work culture is bad, though being remote could make that a non-issue
Some runner ups:
- Lisbon (excellent weather, low prices)
- Copenhagen (super safe, great quality of life)
For me though, the top 3 criteria by far are 1) a lot to do, 2) very safe, and 3) don't need a car, and Tokyo is pretty much the only major city that meets those.
Cons: It's very humid in summer and very chilly on winter. The traffic is less than ideal if you are a car person (although this doesn't matter to you).
Coming from Tokyo to Bay Area and having family here, I wouldn't miss it much. Only things I miss are friends and food, which are both from my cultural attachment.
That's said, many youngstars from Tokyo go back after staying here for several years, probably because of the loneliness and the boredom. So your points well taken.
I’ve lived in both. They’re not that similar - mostly because Spanish/Catalan and Portuguese cultures and personalities are pretty different. Both great cities and you’d probably have a great time living in both.
Curious about your experience, are you female or in some way a "targeted" demographic (whatever that means)? I've lived here since 2014 and I can't really say I've ever felt scared, not even once. I feel more unsafe in Scandinavia where I am from.
The U.S is probably uniquely excessive when it comes to McMansions and overall bigness of everything. You don't get affordable giant places in either country though if you live in a dense urban centre.
Second the other reply. I have been in Japan for 4 years. I will say less than 1% may be able to communicate in English, less than 5% may be able to string together words in English to help you with some common stuff, less than 10% may utter some words in English.
But same is true, in reverse, for western foreigners living in Japan. Very few are able to communicate in Japanese.
It's true. 50% may know a few words, but probably less than 5% speak good enough English to have a regular conversation about something more complex than the weather. You can definitely live in Tokyo without knowing Japanese and do everything you need to do, but your options, socially and otherwise, are always going to be limited.
Might be the city I'm currently living in: Albuquerque, NM.
It's very inexpensive, and sits at the foothills of the Sandia Mountains and Petroglyph National Park. It's almost always sunny, yet is rarely too hot for outdoor activities. As far as bike infrastructure goes it may just be in the top 10 for US cities. You almost need to go out of your way to not be an outdoorsy person here. It has a decent amount of restaurants, breweries, things to do, but if you're particularly starved for entertainment then there are cheap flights to Austin and Denver. Indeed, what makes Albuquerque really great is that you could use it as a nice place to decompress in-between destinations.
There are some downsides though. Crime is pretty bad, as is the poverty rate, but a lot of places here in the US are struggling with that right now. Truth be told the thing that annoys me the most may be the Gross Receipts Tax. Basically, if you freelance, your services are subject to what's basically a ~7% sales tax, only for services.
But given how inexpensive everything is, and how much I get, I can't really complain too much about the GRT.
> Basically, if you freelance, your services are subject to what's basically a ~7% sales tax, only for services.
Try Europe.. In Portugal is 23%.. (For the locals at least. If you are a non-habitual resident it's a tax haven.. This is what happens when contrived ideology meets reality.)
Truth be told I didn't like living there, but I think that's mostly because I was working for a pretty strange startup at the time.
Very expensive for New Mexico, and expensive in general. Getting around can take some getting used to (certain roads predate the US). Wouldn't recommend moving there if you're young as most of the population is of retirement age and most businesses cater to that crowd.
That being said, I enjoy visiting every now and then. There are good restaurants and no shortage of cultural attractions and events. I particularly enjoy visiting for the Farolito Walk.
I would recommend living in Albuquerque and taking the Railrunner or simply driving when the itch to visit strikes.
Not OP but I lived in Santa Fe for a couple weeks. I felt there was some rejuvenating spiritual energy in the air. And love the high desert and open skies. And Meow Wolf. People that moved there enjoyed having Taos nearby.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. I currently live in a small town in the mountains. Love the mountain aspect of it. The townspeople are progressive in some ways (they try to be 'woke'), but extremely regressive when it comes to development (NIMBYism on steroids). Housing is a major problem, all the restaurants are shit, nothing gets built pretty much ever, most of the tax burden is on the few businesses there are, etc... But it is one of the most beautiful places in the world, objectively (at least outside the town).
Also, lots of the replies so far in this thread mention big cities. I'm wondering what the appeal of cities would be in a 100% remote world without restaurants as, presumably, restaurant workers would be moving to jobs that are remote, no? Or are they just the new serf class?
A part of me too desires this. For a software engineer, what you need most is good network connectivity, which is now possible in many places.
The other part of me is convinced that would not be a good move in the long run. If I move away from the city, my kids' education will suffer, my mother (who also lives with me) will lose the social connect that keeps her in good spirits. Growing up in a small place, I always longed to move to a city. Now that I have "been there done that" in terms of living a city life, I do not want my children to go through the same cycle.
It would be nice to have the best of both worlds. Have a second home someplace remote, and go live there for short duration as circumstances permit.
The only problem for something too remote for me is my kids. They are still young but I'd like to make sure they have local opportunities to meet other kids, get experience at local employers, and have good schools.
All of this is true. Hence why we're actually moving to the middle of nowhere in Europe. Because the middle of nowhere there is still 30 minutes from cities, whereas even being 'somewhere' in Canada is 4 hours from the closest city, nevermind the actual middle of nowhere. Plus more family in Europe.
But the middle of nowhere, actually, has always appealed. You're right though, it has drawbacks.
Ah gotcha. Saw the title and thought more philosophically about it. Missed that line. I mean, for me, 100% remote is more or less reality (choose not to take a job that restricts me geographically, have some side hustles).
The 'locals' are extremely unfriendly, actively try to sabotage new businesses, bring in foreign workers and lock them into work/living arrangements to take advantage of them, heck (attempt to) take advantage of all workers, etc...
But they claim to not be whatever 'ism' isn't politically popular.
Ah. Fair enough. These people are more along the lines of: "I'm not racist, I have black employees". "I'm not a homophobe, we have a rainbow sidewalk". Meanwhile they exploit and are shitty to everyone not in their group. And all the "locals" are conveniently white while the visible minority transplants never have "local" status.
People in that position tend to try and protect that position through whatever means are available to them, and it wouldn't surprise me that there would be a racial disparity intentional or not. The more isolated and historically homogeneous you get, the more this probably occurs. You probably don't get too many racist people growing up in more heterogeneous communities. I get creepy vibes from most smaller towns anyway, and this is just another facet of that I'd imagine.
How on earth anyone would consider 'Woke' or even trying to be such to be a positive attribute in 2021 is shocking to me. Wokism and Trumpism are both ridiculous cults, where members refuse to concede basic realities in favour of some giant utopian delusion of an ideal.
They're giant diversions I think that distort our ability to just see things for what they are.
It's pretty interesting how people can be many things at the same time, so these kinds of triggering labels - and the narratives that support them in the press don't help one bit.
The recent articles by various media outlets outlining the results of the Virginia election were about 80% playing into narratives of 'each side' further ignoring the 20% of simple truths that I think were the real underlying issues. Those 'truths' just don't line up nicely with the narratives.
This problem has metastasized in the US (and rolled over into Canada) in the last 5 years, which is why 0 'aspirational locations' from the US are on my list, at least for another 5 years as things hopefully calm down.
If I had to choose one, it'd be Stockholm (or perhaps any Swedish city with water access).
A couple years back I did take a two-week trip there consisting of one week sightseeing, one week remotely working for a West Coast agency. My work hours were around 4pm to 1am-2am Stockholm time, which was just on the edge of comfortable. My reasoning is as follows:
1) Fast internet everywhere I went, even the countryside
2) Great tea and coffee -- excellent cafe culture, too
3) Had a chance to meet some of the most kind, intelligent engineers I've ever known while there (and some now working here in the States, too); would love to collaborate and be motivated by working with them again
4) It felt very safe at all times of day (compared to where I live now, at least)
5) Active sailing culture, as I've recently become interested in that sport/hobby
6) Really fun bike culture, especially groups like at Bagarmossens cykelkök
7) Didn't seem like owning a car is necessary, even to travel outside the city/intercity
8) Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I enjoy how vices like alcohol and rich foods are more expensive there, so I went easy on them and felt healthier
Finally, nothing to back this up on, just a "feeling": the vibe is simply more chill, less dysfunctional than here in the States. Felt like many sectors of the citizenry, government, and business community had agreed upon a framework for a basic and decent standard of lifestyle. Certainly Swedes could chime in and tell me some hard truths that I missed while there (I've only stayed in Sweden for a month, cumulatively).
Things that would be hard are, definitely, finding housing that doesn't break the bank (Stockholm is majorly backed up, with rentals expensive). Also, my wife and I mastering a new language now, in our forties could be a challenge. I did start taking classes for it, for fun, before the pandemic.
If Sweden were off the table, my other remote choice would be Kagoshima, Japan. Nothing like living next to a volcano!
An erstwhile Londoner here who now lives in Stockholm. Technically I'm Swedish having been granted citizenship this year - another plus, it's relatively easy to get residence and citizenship is mostly a matter of waiting.
I've been here for a few years and would agree with most of your points. I absolutely love it. Boat trips into the archipelago in the summer months are the icing on the cake of an amazing place to live.
As for the language thing - you can (and lots do) live here without learning Swedish. There are also various intensive courses (e.g. at Folkuniversitetet) that will get you up to a dull-conversational level quite quickly.
As an ex-Londoner, the house prices seem very reasonable - we've just moved into a 3 bedroom apartment in the suburbs with a view of the lake and adjacent to a nature reserve. In London the same money might have bought us a pokey 1 or 2 bedroom flat.
London had more arts and so on, and I miss the English language theatre stuff, but in general it's just an amazing place to live. Now, you must excuse me, we're off to see Candide at Kunliga Operan :P
Language is something I would relish learning in the actual setting of Sweden. Having learned Japanese for three years in Japan, it was (and remains) a difficult thing to master and I suspect conversational Swedish would be simpler to pick up, at least. My short time spent in Sweden, the people I met were very happy just to hear my few halting phrases of their language, as are my Swedish friends here, in California. That's always encouraging.
About housing (and prices of things overall), yeah, I suppose things are reasonable relative to our respective hometowns. My impression was that local salaries were also lower, though. My recollection from a couple years ago was that front-end devs (my current employment, 6-ish YoE) were making around SEK 400k-500k/year, which is a good deal less than my current salary. Perhaps my view of tech salaries is highly skewed due to my location, though. Also, this conversation does revolve around remote work, so maybe a moot point.
I have been living not too far from Lund for 7 years and it's a mixed bag here. Sure in Lund it's full of expats, people are friendly and generally almost everybody speaks English.
But 15km away in the country side it's quite different, here 35% voted for the far right in recent elections. You are clearly not "one of them", you consistently get the cold replies, shit quotes and let's say having a social life for us is not happening where we live (were we work it's much better).
Then yes, we own some land, I can walk 5min to a forest, we have wild animals passing through our garden, we have fiber coming to our living room.
But I wouldn't boast about the weather :)
That said many things are great: administration, school for small children, parental leave, housing is still quite cheap.
And some are just odd, like the healthcare system (lots of gatekeeping, slow, so so quality).
At this point we want to leave Sweden, it's not making it for us.
I am swiss, lived there for most of my life but I also lived in France (south and Lyon) and in the UK. I also work remote for a swiss company (have been working remote for the past 15 years).
I've been nomadic living in both rural and urban areas. Because cities have events, people to meet, food to eat. There's a lot of conveniences.
For rural, I've lived in a town where there was only one restaurant, and it was a Mexican place that closed at 4PM. One small grocery store during height of the pandemic, no masks. I've driven 3 hours to make a grocery run to an Asian grocery store and get boba tea. In the US at least, I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb in rural areas in a time people were getting randomly attacked due to skin color. The nature is great though.
For urban, I've been able to go out at 1AM+ and get delicious cheap food at a restaurant and feel the energy of the city as everyone was still out drinking and wandering. Or I can get into pickup basketball games. Or listen to porch concerts walking down the neighborhood
Sounds like you are comparing the extremes there! There are city suburbs too which sometimes can feel like you are not near a city at all but you have most of what you need. There are also small cities.
Yeah, I lived in Idaho Falls and Santa Fe. I describe it as pleasant and comfortable. Definitely in between, not as many restaurants, quiet, nice natural areas, not as much energy, but has stuff like WinCo.
I do prefer the extremes, haha. Either super rural Utah, or New Orleans/ Mexico City.
For me personally, quality of life. No need for a car, I love theatre and as a kid I had to commute two hours to get to the next chess club because I lived in the middle of nowhere.
College towns. Easier to go to the theater than in the city, and most interesting stuff comes through town eventually. When I lived in SFBA, I went to a show every month or so. In Hanover NH pre-pandemic, it was once a week. And less need for a car, except in winter snowstorms.
Enough good restaurants to not be boring, two hours to Boston, two and a half to Montreal (by car) and NYC (by air) for easy weekend trips if you need a big city fix.
I hope that's a joke because sitting in front of a screen isolated at home isn't a replacement for experiencing a play live. I've played enough online chess during the pandemic for a lifetime, I want to sit in a club with a beer and my friends over a physical board having face-to-face conversations, there's no online replacement for that. And in a city that is always only 15 minutes away by foot and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
That's why there are different kinds of people in the world. I wager there are lots of people like me on this site. If warm food regularly appeared at my door, I'd be happy never leaving my room and interacting with the world exclusively using my computer. I think it's useful to be aware that not everyone is a social butterfly who demands constant IRL interaction!
A lot of commenters come from wealthy / well off backgrounds. I agree with you, I like the openness and quiet that rural towns and areas bring. My only requirements are clean water and fast internet.
Both of which were a problem in the farm house I grew up. Since moving to a city I’m always marveled at the difference between city water and well water. And now I get internet faster than 25 Mbps, consistently.
Software engineers like openness and quiet even more so than average. To get away. Hence why everyone is a hiker that wears Patagonia :) I'm sure lots of people's long-term dreams here are not software, but to live some Stardew Valley life or bake bread and make beer or something
It depends on the well and city. I've had wells that had poor water quality. I've also lived in cities that had terrible water. So far the best water for me has been from a high quality well.
Because people like living close to other people, and living in a human-dense environment makes this a lot more practical and easy. I don't understand what is there not to understand? You do know that some people are social creatures right?
To me it's the exact opposite. If I could live anywhere in the world, why the fuck would I not live in a huge city like NYC. It's a no brainer. The only argument right now is that I don't have a job there and I can't afford it.
Weather is the best - warm but not hot, cool but not cold. No extremes.
People from every state of India. So great food. Culturally very diverse and really a melting pot. Good sports/fitness scene and culture. Safe.
Locals are mostly fine with outsiders. In fact that’s the economy here other than IT. English (more) and Hindi (less) are the connecting tongues. Local language is not forced other than some isolated incidents.
Decent amount of open space. Very easy and quick access to the hills. And in a way to the sea too, but drive is longer. Easy connectivity to everywhere by train, road, and air.
Decently open and alive dating scene, though it gets way too hard in 30s.
I had played with the idea of moving to a small town or a rural area or a quaint hill station but due to overall poor infrastructure in India those places easily get ruled out as candidates of a sustained working place.
You don’t want to have total lack of social life, patchy Internet, and very absence of even half decent medical facilities where you live for long. So you got to stick to major cities in India.
Other cities in India simply don’t have most of what Bangalore offers (except traffic is really bad here; and metro is designed to be useless; and political atmosphere is rapidly sliding to the extreme right but that’s the entire country). I tried living abroad, didn’t work for me. So Bangalore it is.
I live in Bangalore but I disagree. Bangalore is not such a good place to live in.
Reasons being:
1) Dirty. Yeah, Most places in Bengaluru are very dirty. No effective dirt management system. Also, people throw trash on roads, on empty sites, on footpaths, and everywhere making it very dirty.
2) Roads and Traffic.
First of all, let me tell that Road Infrastructure is not at all good. Also, People don't seem to value life of others. People many times don't follow traffic rules. Thanks to Lack of infrastructure, Crossing the road is also so difficult here and there are chances People will run over you(people seem to be hurry).
3) Water
Water Quality is Bad. It's also causing baldness in many people.
4) Corruption
Many people with power seems to be corrupt. You get to deal with them if you live here.
People are mostly conservative here. Although Dating Scene exists, it's very very less(nil to most people). You will be disappointed.
6) Commutation
Huge amount of Vehicles, many not following rules, many hurrying to overtake, to get inserted into the road, lot of honking, and time-eating traffic congestion. It's not at all a good experience and will suck energy outta you.
7) Power cuts
Power cut is very rare but it exists.
8) Food
Food is good, you get variety of them.
9) Internet
Cellular Data is very cheap but also relatively slow. Fiber network seems to be available.
10) Education
Education Quality is not much good for price they ask.
Feel free to ask anything about life in Bangalore.
I think it was about which city and country one would want to live in, given the opportunity of always remote. And for me that’s India and in India that’s Bangalore.
All these points you’ve gone on about - compared to where?
Dating scene worse than Chennai? Ahmedabad?
AQI worse than Delhi?
Water and sanitation worse than Kolkata?
I mean I didn’t get your rebuttal like response :)
My ideal city would be where I’d want to live; unless question was also about fictional, made up places.
For example I had job offers from Amsterdam and London and they have much better <a lot if things> but I didn’t want to live there. So they aren’t my ideal cities.
Anyway, no. I don't think drinkable tap water is a developing or underdeveloped world phenomena. But I may be wrong.
> What about the air quality?
Again, it depends on which country you are comparing it with. Among Indian cities - pretty good. And I don't mean comparing with Delhi - that'd be an unfair comparison.
As someone who spent most of his life at or below 32° latitude, but has visited cities in the north a few times, I find NYC too gray and depressing.
The light is very different there, the water is gray instead of blue-green, the bricks are brown instead of red, and in general it's a bit grim and colorless. Even the sky is desaturated.
Stuff like light maybe subtle, but over time it wears on you and affects your mood.
A village in nature less than an hour travel from a city with an airport. Done that for 2 decades in different countries (pt,es,hk,nl) and it is perfect (also: cheap). I like cities for a day or 2 and then I cannot imagine why anyone wants to be in one; I had that since I was a kid (my parents say I asked when I was 7 why people would want to live in NYC when we went on holiday there).
In almost every respect (with the weather being the only thing I might wish to see improved), Dublin, Ohio (and Columbus in General) has exceeded my wildest dreams since we moved here in June.
Valencia, Spain. Amazing weather all year long, great biking, great beach, and beautiful old city along with beach city all in one place. Oh and they Turia is a giant park that runs through the middle of the entire city and is sunk into the ground.
I think about this a lot as I have been fully remote since 2019, but have yet to execute on a family move.
If I didn't have a dog, I would definitely spend a few years in places like Portugal, Thailand, Vietnam, and other countries in which I could have a nice experience relatively cheaply. The time zone is a bit of a challenge though, as work starting at midnight makes it hard to enjoy.
For settling down, though, I would have a hard time living too far from a big city. I've tried to live the quieter life, but I just need the energy that comes with those large communities. Boston, NYC, London, Toronto, Chicago. Preferably a small town house near public transportation.
This kind of “what city is the best?” question isn’t very useful. There is a kind of efficient market phenomenon which causes all cities within a country to be nearly equivalent to the median person once you take into account cost of living, crowds, traffic, etc - if one place is clearly better than others, people will move there until it’s not. The key is to estimate your particular comparative advantage with respect to each city - do you want music, walkability, safety, climate, ambitious people, etc? Figure out what you value more and less than other people value, and then move to the place that aligns with those preferences.
It's true that daylight is limited in the winter months but I really like the weather in London because it doesn't get extremely hot in the summer or extremely cold and snowy in the winter.
Oh I understood the context and I stand by my answer. It's okay if it isn't for you, people make decisions in different ways and have different priorities.
* most diverse and cosmopolitan English-speaking and relatively-free city in the world, by far
* compact with good public transit, creating an incredibly high points of interest per commute hour ratio - the best metric for measuring urban qol
* not the BEST tech/entrepreneurial communities, but still has very good ones, and is better rounded than the very top tier tech hubs: high quality art, design, games, music, publishing, fashion, etc scenes
All very true. The one thing that worn on me about NYC: most people leave after 5-7 years. If you stay longer than that, everyone you built relationships with early on will be gone and the ones from the middle will be planning their departure. You can keep meeting new people to fill up the leaky boat, but gradually as you get older, you lose access to the spaces where all these new, exciting (mostly young) people meet each other.
I love it for so many reasons, but that one aspect does wear on me.
I don't get what would be so interesting about nyc after age 35 or so. Just people trying to make it, money to be made, tourists and visitors, etc. The young people you can kind of classify and thus they're not that interesting.
After visiting many countries, and living in 10 US states this past year...
Mexico City. I lived there a month, I enjoyed the food even more than Japan, Vietnam, LA. People are friendly, lot of action and culture, felt extremely safe, cheap.
Based on these criteria, I think I've landed on Austin, Texas as the best option. Here are other places I considered, though:
- California: L.A. or San Francisco would honestly be my top choices, but the high income tax rates push the cost too high.
- Phoenix: A cool city, but my perception is that its music and tech scenes are not as vibrant as Austin's. Also, I don't think the desert is very beautiful.
- Nashville: In a lot of ways it's like Austin, but smaller. It's still one of my top picks right now because it's closer to my family, but I'm leaning toward Austin because winters in Nashville are still relatively cold.
- Miami: This city excels in all of my criteria except for the music scene, which appears to be severely lacking. So, that takes it out of the running.
- Denver: Meets a lot of my criteria and seems beautiful, but I think its winters are too cold.
I'm not sure what kind of music scenes you're looking for, but Miami has one of the best for electronic music in the US, as well as probably latin and reggae.
You're right—I should have mentioned that for live music, I'm mostly into indie rock and indie pop. I do like some vocal-driven electronic music (like Sylvan Esso), but when I checked Songkick for concerts in Miami, I mostly saw shows for pure EDM and DJs, which aren't my cup of tea for live music.
I've done extensive business travel in Denver, and, being a CA native, I did not find the winter to be that harsh. In fact, because it's up in the mountains, most of the cold and snow melts away by high noon. You're left with sunny skies until the frost returns at night, but it definitely helps with needing to shovel snow I'd imagine :P
Don’t listen! Denver is prone to harsh winters that weed out the weak. Yearly winter total population fatality rates average around 8%. If the weather doesn’t get you first you might asphyxiate from the extremely low oxygen.
Moved to Austin this year myself, I think it's a great choice for everything you've listed (although the cost is getting up there, but still affordable in many areas!). I'm definitely not planning on leaving anytime soon with how nice it's been.
Thanks for your feedback! I'm glad to hear it has gone well for you. I visited Austin last week for Levitation music fest and quickly became fond of the city and weather. Hopefully I'll be back there soon for a longer stay.
Interesting—it sounds like I may have overestimated how cold it gets there. Basically I'm looking for a climate that is noticeably warmer in than the winter than my current location, Indianapolis.
Montpellier, France. Moved here from Chicago, and can't believe I missed doing so many, many years ago. Amazing weather, extremely friendly people, fantastic public transportation (local, regional, country-wide (e.g. TGV), and all across Europe), *and* unparalleled delicious food and inexpensive great wine.
If starlink/rural fiber is more broadly available, I’d see many people forgo cities altogether. Why live in 500sqft when you can have 500 acres all to yourself.
If you can get line of sight, from a hill-top chalet on one of the many islands, to a cell tower: Croatia is fantastic. Fishing, sailing, people with a big sense of humour.
Toluca, Mexico.
It's extremely cheap, cool/temperate all year, and some of the suburbs (e.g. Metepec) are quite safe.
Reasonable proximity to the US (geographically, temporally, and to some extent culturally) would make it a practical option for Americans.
It's a profoundly "not hip" city, but as someone who just wants to be left alone in my apartment all day, I consider that a plus.
The main downsides are extremely high elevation and sub-par internet speeds (likely requiring some careful apartment hunting).
Where I am now, nearish to central Vancouver. I'd love to live in other places for some time for other reasons, but they're all cities in Europe with different ages and cultures. Smaller places are great to visit, but are boring and lack breadth of novelty. It takes me 4 mins to walk to the gym where I bump into people I'm gradually getting to know, then 2 mins to the next cafe where I might get to know someone, then 2 mins to groceries, 30 mins to the mountains, 2 hrs to whistler if I can get a car or bus.
wow really? I'm currently in Richmond and i've finding the housing issue here so out of hand that it's depressing... Even with FAANG salary my friends are finding it tough to afford a decently sized home :l
If you have enough means to consider the concept of home ownership, you have different issues than me, but you're not the first to consider leaving for that reason. I like my neighborhood a lot and would be sad to leave it. Have lived in other areas though that I wasn't so attached to.
Berlin has all the benefits and little to none of the disadvantages of a place like London. Why does a place need to be diverse to be great? Does the absence of a heap of Mincéirs make a city worse?
I'm happy where I live now. Bangi, Malaysia. Great food, and it's cheap enough to eat at a restaurant every day. Everything from the humble fried rice to wagyu steak.
It's next to Putrajaya which has some amazing parks, whether it's skate parks or just picnic spots. Weather is great. Lots of beautiful people. About half an hour's drive from a cinema or major mall, but that's not too bad.
2nd this^^
Though i'm 100% more a KL person , but bias since i grew up there lol. I feel Malaysia is so so so underrated. It's almost perfect in the sense that it's a foreign country u can get away with with just english, everything's cheap. There's luxury if you want it, malls up the wazoo. Only con would be the price of cars and alcohol i guess but heyy Proton's getting pretty good
Much better. I've turned down jobs in KL/PJ because it's not worth moving there. KL actually ranks very low in terms of quality of life, imo. Too angry, too much traffic, not enough parks, far too expensive for no reason. People buy homes in KL because it's close to offices, and people make offices in KL because it's close to other offices. Infrastructure in KL is very bad; roads and public transport don't suffice. The reason that so many companies like HappyFresh and Pop Meals are HQed in KL is because buying groceries is such a pain point.
Bangi is a middle upper class area, similar to Bangsar in quality of life and cost. Much less alcohol but more suburban. It's a university town, so there are smart and beautiful people, many of whom decide to become a fashion designer instead of an engineer, hence the booming young businesses around here.
A lot of events happen in Cyberjaya too. Cyberjaya is a bit out of the way for KL folks, but half an hour from Bangi.
A second choice would be Kuala Terengganu. A major enough city but not too crowded. Parks, great fresh food, nice people, and really nice islands. All the benefits of city and beach life at half the cost of KL.
Vancouver BC is magical and (IMO) one of the most beautiful cities in the world. In July & August, hands down the most beautiful place in the world, but still, 8 months of the year it's dark, wet and cold. If you're passionate about getting into the mountains or on the water and you can tolerate the rain, it's a wonderful place. Lots of wealthy people in Vancouver own boats to go sailing in the summer and a condo in Whistler to ski in the winter and their quality of life unbeatable. On the other hand, I know a couple people who moved from Vancouver to Canmore, Alberta because they still got their fill of mountains, but they traded a bit colder of climate for significantly more days of sunshine. It's all a trade-off in the end. Regarding affordability: Vancouver is expensive if you're working for a local company & paid in CAD, but if you're earning a US salary (esp Bay Area), Vancouver feels substantially more affordable than most large US cities (again, IMO, it's very hard to compare cost-of-living between countries).
Remote worker and Vancouver resident here. Vancouver is the second most expensive city in the world, measured by cost of living to prevailing wage. Only Hong Kong scores higher.
If, like me, you work in tech with American funding, it's conceivable to have a "normal" life in the downtown core, including buying property. But everyone else is fleeing the downtown core, the Greater Vancouver Area, or even the entire province.
Anecdote: I know an arts administrator who moved to semi-rural Nova Scotia. She went from barely being able to afford a basement apartment to buying a pretty large house. It's pretty weird to imagine arts administration even being possible from a town in nowheresville... but the pandemic has created strange situations. She just flies into cities when she has an actual event or performance to manage.
I'd really like to go check out Slovenia. Everything I've read / heard indicates that it is a more affordable Switzerland. Be at the beach and skiing in the same day, high quality of life, etc.
Thinking about my ideal place to live sends me into a spiral of conflicting requirements that ends up with the conclusion that any environment my simple human brain could think up will inevitably fail to satisfy somehow or feel like a static, boring utopia. I love nature and space but there is something about the change and pace of cities that is stimulating as well. The closest to how I’d want to live is probably like Mr. Miyagi with cool old architecture and space to tinker with old cars but nearby a city.
I've been remote for a while and so I stayed in Orange County. It's very nice, strikes a good balance of the other big cities in CA but lower CoL compared to Bay Area and Los Angeles.
I've traveled all over europe and my favorite city for living would be Budapest. It seems like it had a low CoL but a very vibrant community in addition to being walkable and beautiful.
Haven't met any Hungarian engineers so I don't know how the developer/startup community is, so if anyone knows chime in.
Serious consideration : Much of the discussion is conditional on remote being the norm in the future, no? What if very few companies support remote 3-5 years from now?
This feels unlikely, particularly in software and skilled tech knowledge work.
First, "What if very few companies support X 3-5 years from now?", where X could be health insurance, paid vacation, or a 5-day work week. Yes, Remote-by-default was not demanded/bargained for, but it's still a historic concession toward labor. These genies are hard to put back in their bottles, even though companies try.
Second, if you're not leasing office and parking space for each employee or requiring them to commute every day, you're definitely saving money and possibly increasing their productivity (depending on which studies you believe).
Third, if you set aside the short-term labor shortage across all economic sectors, there is still a long-term labor shortage of software engineers and similar people. It's really hard to recruit and retain them, but it's easier if you build a remote-friendly workplace, which gets you access to a much larger candidate pool.
To pre-empt someone offering a FAANG as a counter-example, those are all weird outliers.
Well, hopefully. A lot of cats are getting put back already here. And what will happen when the big next financial crisis hits? It is a sellers market now, but that will turn around; wondering what companies are going to do then.
Maybe doesn't hit all of your points dead on, but Chattanooga Tennessee might be close to what you're looking for. It has the some of the fastest internet in the US, can be more politically moderate for a southern city, is not too far from Atlanta, and is really affordable for the U.S.
I been working remote for the last 8 years, and thank you covid for even more work!
I moved far out the country side and picked up farming, animal keeping and all that.
When I need some think time, I have a 1-2 hour walk in the woods listening to the birds and experiencing nature.
This is where I want to die. I left the big city and am never looking back.
OP, why do you consider living in a city for remote work???
My city Toronto,
Summer is awesome everyone parties,
Winter except snowy days is great, I do ice skating , which is one of the best activities I learnt,
Taxes are high in Toronto, but good healthcare for all and free schools and visa free life is a blessing.
Real estate is another bad thing but o already got a house, so I stopped worrying
I’m already living in one of my top choices: Cambridge, MA. (Four real seasons, high educational attainment generally, good public schools [some of them anyway].)
I’d love to buy a place on a TVA lake in TN and spend most of the summers there.
Younger and without kids, I’d have given serious consideration to moving to Costa Rica during/after COVID.
Tech scene in the balkans is great for a couple weeks. Athens, Belgrade, Zagreb, Sofia were great remote weeks for me, in nice coworking spaces, cheap accommodation and food and lively night life and friendly people to hang out.
Having worked from almost everywhere around Europe, my next plan would be Seoul though.
I want a place with narrow streets (fifteen feet wide at most). There should also be a lot of restaurants and tiny parks and cafes and the like. I want to live in an old flat a few stories above all that.
Munster, Indiana is one of the perfect Chicago suburbs. It's the first exit across the border. Top rated schools, it's the food court of the region. Comcast internet seems to hold up ok. The taxes are reasonable, and the local politicians aren't too radical.
(For some strange reason though, a lot of people have been driving cars into buildings here)
If you want to go further away from Chicago, Crown Point, Chesterton, Valparaiso might be good choices. The further east you go, through, the more likely you are to suffer lake effect snows in the winter.
Most towns in the area have lake Michigan water, which isn't subject to depletion. Chicago is also in one of the sweet spots for stability during climate change.
In LA that's 2700$, plus in LA you need a car. This is 500$ a month between gas, insurance and a car note. This is if your exceptionally smart with your money.
That's 3200$ before you even buy food.
Compared to Chicago, a metro pass is like 100. Meaning you have 1700$ more in your bank account.
I'm strongly considering buying a condo in Chicago assuming I can get a permanent remote role. It's also by far the friendliest city I've ever lived.
Chattanooga is wonderful. Good tech scene, especially in the innovation district. Great rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking, white water rafting. Nice downtown near a waterfront with some of the best municipal internet in the country. Biggest downside is no direct flights to SF if you need to fly out occasionally.
Heck yeah. Beautiful area nestled in the Smokey mountains, first major city in the U.S. to get gigabit internet, and access to both Nashville and Atlanta with a short drive without needing to live in the awful traffic.
Wouldn't say walkable though. Public transit doesn't feel super well-connected. If you have the cash to Uber everywhere, it's good though it's a lot of traffic to go through to go a few miles.
The time of the slow sparse public transit or the costly Uber ended up having me still just drive everywhere, and then worry about parking everywhere I went.
I found walking + biking + buses + muni trains to do pretty well in San Francisco.
Figure out the major muni train or bus stop I'm trying to get to, and then either walk to it or walk to a shared bike dock and bike to it. Same thing on the other side, if necessary. Often I just bike the whole way to get some exercise and see the city: "it's about the journey, not the destination", right?
The hills make it less walkable than other cities, but if you are healthy you should get used to the hills pretty quickly. I loved walking back to Nob Hill or biking back to NoPa after work. The hills are daunting at first. Sometimes you'd need to get off your bike and walk up parts. But once you get used to it it's not a huge issue.
The cool weather also helps cooling down after you get to your destination. Compare that to somewhere like Austin, TX, where you start sweating the minute you get out of the AC and into the year-round humid weather...
I used to bike Outer Richmond to Mission daily. It's okay, but not ideal. SF isn't very well known for being bike-friendly outside of the major bikeways (worried about getting doored heading down Mission or Valencia). Some stretches were great (GGP, Page). Weather is nice for it, although a bit chilly at night.
I used to take Muni daily as well, but just doesn't run active enough for me, and was not competitive with UberPool pricewise.
Experience with docks wasn't often good, sometimes it wouldn't register my bike was docked, or the dock is full, or the dock is empty, or the bike is out of battery or smeared with poop. Plus was worried about sharing bikes with COVID. Just personal experience.
Definitely not dense. Portland is extremely sprawly. Have lived in Portland for years - no one there thinks of it as dense - as that’s one of the main draws of it.
Not super dense no, but denser than most places in the US. In fact, there are actually laws on how far it can sprawl.
I lived there for 14 years or so and never lived there more than walking distance from a grocery store. I think the farthest I lived from school or work was a 40 minute walk or 20 minute bike ride. I wasn't rich either. I worked through college at PSU.
I've been putting together a list of walkable cities to potentially move to, and Madison and Burlington are on the list.
Most of America is a 1/10, they're 6/10s, which isn't bad. All ranked by my totally arbitrary scale. But what I'm looking for is a 9+/10. Aspen, Colorado is a good example, but I would never be able to buy a house there as they start at $8 mil.
tax system etc is insane though... but agreed, if they could build a working gov/economy it is one of my all time fav places. Patagonia and amazing coastline not "far" too.
I’m Argentinian and I can tell you no one goes to jail over taxes. It’s not the US. First of all because no one has to file a tax return every year, and second well… because it’s Argentina.
For non residents you’re only taxed on your Argentinian income, so you wouldn’t be breaking any laws by staying in the country and working remotely and getting paid in a US account. You do have to pay US taxes though. After 90 days renew your stay and that’s it
It has great weather, a nice mix of people since there are a lot of transplants both from other parts of India and international, good food/restaurants, good nightlife, relatively clean compared to other large Indian cities and it’s safe.
Are you originally from Africa? I'd put Lagos very near the bottom of places to live from what I've heard, but I'm sure it would be "exciting". If I was single I'd probably pick something like Pucon, Chile ( a beautiful town with great kayaking / outdoors ), Beachburg, Ottawa in the summer for kayaking, NZ for the beautiful environment and low population density.
As I'm not single and have a family to attend to I'd probably stay where I am or move to a village in the Peak District (UK).
Pros:
- Safe almost everywhere even at night and generally very clean
- Infinite amount of things to do, you'll never finish exploring new restaurants (with delicious food) and stores
- International events happen there: conferences, concerts, etc.
- Very walkable (including the metro), especially around city center
- Reasonable housing prices - high, but comparable to cities in the US
- Politeness is baked into society and unpleasant interactions with strangers are very rare
- Rest of the country is fairly accessible by train for a weekend trip, and there's plenty of beautiful nature if you get out of the city
Cons:
- Difficult language and few people speak any English
- Fairly closed society/culture, you'll always be an outsider (but there are plenty of expats)
- Toilets in restaurants often suck and public trash cans are rare
- Bureaucracy is quite bad and inaccessible if you aren't fluent in Japanese
- Work culture is bad, though being remote could make that a non-issue
Some runner ups:
- Lisbon (excellent weather, low prices)
- Copenhagen (super safe, great quality of life)
For me though, the top 3 criteria by far are 1) a lot to do, 2) very safe, and 3) don't need a car, and Tokyo is pretty much the only major city that meets those.