
Ask HN: How did you decide where to live? - keiferski
For the remote workers out there (and anyone with a mobile career, really), where do you live? And how did you decide to live there?
======
todsul
This is a favorite topic of mine. My wife and I spent about 10 years living on
five continents and traveling extensively though six (~50 countries) looking
for the perfect place to live. We define "living somewhere" as renting a home,
connecting the utilities and exhausting our visa. Long story short, we decided
to settle in Boulder, CO (USA).

It's worth mentioning we're pretty independent, probably to a fault, and have
no interest in living near family, despite having children (sorry fam).

We've lived in the following places: Bay Area, USA (twice); Berlin, Germany
(twice); Montreal, Canada (twice); Chiang Mai, Thailand (twice); Sydney,
Australia; Bangalore, India; Cusco, Peru; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and a
handful of other places for shorter periods.

We first settled on Montreal, but on our second visit, we decided to try
somewhere else. The same happened with Berlin and it's still my wife's
favorite city to visit. Boulder was just a major step above the rest for us
personally: friendly people, very active lifestyle, some tech/startup scene,
sunny weather, mountains, etc. We've been here three years now, which is our
record for staying anywhere, and we've never once thought about anywhere else.

If anyone is at the beginning of a similar journey and search, get in touch.

~~~
personjerry
I'm still at the beginning of my journey, but I've found that in each new city
I have to establish and grow a friend circle and it can be slow and difficult
and lonely (I don't travel with a partner). Do you have any solutions or tips
for this problem?

~~~
sova
Creating a new network in a new dwelling place can be a great experience
because the bonding experiences you have with people will create your mutual
history. For example, if you walk across campus with a lady it's not too
distinct a time for either person, perhaps. But, were you carrying just one
umbrella and offered to share it, your joint venture under the canopy,
shielded from the rains, would be [more of ]a bonding experience and help
swiftly build a relationship. In short, don't shy away from adversity, it is
the wall you scale to reach the horizon. My usual strategy is to go to places
where I can meet other travelers (typically a low-key hostel i've found via
guide-book) and once you start connecting with travelers it's easy to grow
your field of friends. Which is cool, because the bigger your field of
friends, the more likely you are to connect with the someone who is super
groovy for you as you are for them. Or the crowd, or the group, or the
sextuplet. The singular-pair partnering is a bit antequated for my tastes, the
relationships of harmony and Love among people can appear in so many ways.
(Thinks to self: This is such an involved question I almost regret beginning
to answer it at this point but I would like to add in finality, that) finding
a partner is not an easy task to be undertaken like shopping for a one-time
commodity, it is a joint journey of co-discovery that begins when one person
is whole in their own, and both be able to comfortably accommodate a binary
star system in their heart.

In meeting people, you may want to simply be in places where you can peaceably
interact with new friends. It depends on the calibre and quality you seek. A
library near a research institution will likely yield interesting discussion,
but that's not to say you won't run into a chemist on the beach. Probability
(odds of interaction) is good if you want to try and get a hold on events and
mingling. Consider Tokyo, a hypertech culture compared to many places that
requires scheduling a month or two out on your calendar just to meet up with a
buddy. It's bizarre, and perhaps a trend common only to the big city, but it's
interesting to take note of and do-as-they-do. In Japan, people use Mixi for
networking, oftentimes there are get-togethers situated around specific
activities like tennis, movie-going, karaoke, enjoying the cherry blossoms
with SLR, etc. Getting roped into an activity or finding local get-togethers
like that can really expand your network rapidly, and with a shared-interest
you at least have a reason to keep meeting up.

Bees are attracted to a variety of flowers, and every flower is vibrant, has
strength, has fragility and delicateness, and it has its own lock on the
situation. The flower is always a flower, but unfolded to different degrees.
It doesn't waver in being a flower. When the flower is 100% its best flower,
the bee comes to the flower.

~~~
warent
> _The bigger your field of friends, the more likely you are to connect with
> the someone who is super groovy for you as you are for them. Or the crowd,
> or the group, or the sextuplet. The singular-pair partnering is a bit
> antequated for my tastes_

This is something that personally put me off the nomadic lifestyle. It seems
to be a very common theme, and the concept of "locationships" as well.

If GP is the same way, I'd recommend to GP to first find a partner that's open
to traveling, and then go traveling with them. Otherwise, the world is your
oyster as sova said.

------
nightbrawler
We live on the edge of the grid in a very remote New Mexico near the Gila
National Forest. With 3 kids, 6yrs and younger that we home school. I've
worked remote since 2010 and absolutely love it. Working remote plus home
schooling the kids means we can travel and pretty much go anywhere we want any
time. We do a lot of RV travel plus spend lots of time outdoors in the Gila,
hiking, hunting and exploring...

As for the deciding where to live, it was pretty easy for us. We were already
coming to New Mexico for the outdoors multiple times per year, and land in our
favorite area is cheap. We were able to locate 43 acres with a log home and
relocated here 5 years ago... was the best decision for our family.

Our first couple of years here the internet was a bit spotty as I had to use a
Verizon hotspot and typically had 2 bars of LTE on the best days.
Surprisingly, there is fiber run all over the place here even tho its super
rural. Eventually the local phone company installed a DSL box on one of the
fiber runs near our property and that allowed us to get DSL. It's only 5/1 but
fits our needs and my VPN connection works fine with it along with my VOIP
desk phone.

~~~
Sephr
1Mbps uplink would cause a severe hindrance for any remote work involving a
team and heavy collaboration tools or videoconferencing.

~~~
gm-conspiracy
Uploading large binary files is an issue.

I have no problems using zoom with only 768kbps upload. I was surprisingly
impressed.

Slack remote screen sharing sucks, but I never had a problem with Screenhero.
Chatting is fine.

~~~
scruple
> Uploading large binary files is an issue.

I've been in situations like this in the past and would SSH to a build box
that had a fatter pipe. Depending on the situation, it may be a cheap
alternative.

------
kyleblarson
I live in a tiny town in North central Washington state right by North
Cascades National Park. We have about 200 full time residents. Originally
built our house as a weekend place (about 4-5 hours from Seattle) but started
working remotely in 2011 and was getting sick of Seattle going the way of San
Francisco so we decided to move full time. I have to go to SF a lot for work
and the travel can be tough with mountain passes, weather and flight delays
out of the tiny airport I use but it's 100% worth it to be within a 5 minute
drive of hundreds of pitches of climbing and right in the middle of the
largest maintained network of nordic ski trails in North America.

~~~
starpilot
Note, find a SO before moving to a tiny mountain town.

~~~
RomanPushkin
what is SO?

~~~
grzm
Significant other

------
warent
Treat living in new places like dating. You're learning and growing the whole
way, and for many people the ultimate goal is to find a good long term fit.

Right now I live in Indianapolis. My ex girlfriend and I wanted to try
somewhere new, so we looked at a bunch of different options and listed the
pros and cons. Ultimately our decision to live here was based on the high
population yet low population density, the growing tech scene, the cleanliness
of the city, and the low crime rate.

Those are all great qualities, but I've learned a lot along the way about more
things that are important. First of all, I really can't stand the cold. My
house had the heater on even during some summer days (running endlessly now in
the winter). Also, everything is too spread out in Indy. There's not much
outdoorsy stuff nearby. Being landlocked sucks and I love the ocean. Finally,
I love Asian culture which barely exists here.

So again, now that I've learned all this, I'm applying this knowledge to my
next place. It turns out that Oahu, Hawaii seems to fit the ticket. It has all
the positive qualities I mentioned above. The super high prices out there are
less than ideal of course, but living in San Francisco already taught me that
it's not a deal breaker (plus I'll finally save some energy with the heater
turned off)

So, hopefully I'll make cool friends and find that Oahu is a great fit. It
seems like somewhere I could live for years, and possibly settle down in.

~~~
dorfsmay
> high population yet low population density

As somebody who hates driving I immediately wondered how that could be a good
thing!

> everything is too spread out

Ah! Yes, I can imagine.

~~~
warent
It's a really good point! Super high population densities seems to make people
much more grumpy, increase sickness, and increase pollution. But admittedly I
wasn't prepared for exactly _how spread out_ everything actually is here, and
I sold my car before coming here.

Hopefully Oahu will have a good balance where I can be a bike ride or short
drive away (considering buying a cheap truck) from downtown Honolulu while
still living in a super green, peaceful area. But the great thing is that I
can always just make slight adjustments to my distance to the city the longer
I live there.

------
etxm
I grew up in Florida and went to college in Tampa. I just kinda stayed around
after school.

I was working in software at Raymond James unhappily wearing my business
appropriate attire in 90% humidity everyday. (I am VERY temperature / humidity
sensitive).

After work (in 2004) I used to go to a bar and code a bit. No WiFi, I don’t
think Starbucks even had WiFi. Needless to say, no one else ever had their
laptop at the bar.

I do this for a few months. One day another dude walks into the bar wearing
board shorts and a tshirt with his laptop and sits down at the far end of the
bar.

The bartender says to me, “I bet he’s a software developer.”

And I said, “what would make you think that?”

“Who else would bring a fucking laptop to a bar?”

Good point, I thought.

So I ask the guy if he’s a software developer and he says yes. I ask what he
does that he gets to wear board shorts to work. He says he works for a start
up in Los Angeles.

Now at this time in my life I’d never heard the phrase “start up” ... I
thought it was the company’s name.

So I ask what Start Up does? He explains it’s not the company name. I feel
dumb.

He goes on to explain a start up as “some MBA tricks a bunch of rich people
into giving them money and then they hire software developers that pretty much
get to do whatever they want.”

So I quit my job the next day and moved to LA that weekend.

Should I have moved to SF? Probably would have made more money sure, but I
also don’t enjoy temperatures below 72° F.

I traveled for quite a while a few years after I moved, developing from “the
road”. My favorite place was Routan, Honduras.

I lived in “the woods” (maybe they call it the jungle, but I’m from Florida -
so it’s “woods”) on the beach in a little hut WITH WIFI!

I eventually settled in Pasadena. Close proximity to nature and city things,
affordable houses with a yard relative to the rest of LA.

~~~
phd514
Pasadena is beautiful, but affordable houses? I have family there and the
7-figure prices they paid for their nondescript houses are eye-watering.

~~~
etxm
Compared to LA. I sold my condo on the westside and bought a 1/4 acre for a
fair amount below the selling price of my condo.

------
pbhowmic
My wife wanted to be with family in her hometown, so I moved with her. I have
regretted that decision ever since.

~~~
throwaway713
Same problem. Our biggest issue while dating. My wife said she wanted to stay
permanently in the South to be near family but agreed to move for a few years
if a really good job became available.

Well, we got married, and shortly afterward one of the well known tech
companies made a really good offer. My wife threw an absolute fit and said she
had taken a gamble while dating and didn't believe I would ever _actually_ get
a job offer at one of those companies. I nearly filed for divorce because of
how horrible she was treating me, but instead I accepted the job and told her
I was moving to the Bay Area regardless. Soon after, she agreed to honor her
promise and came too, but every single day here she complains about how much
she hates California.

When my few years are "up" I'm really dreading going back to a non-tech
region. The company I'm at doesn't generally allow fully remote work, so I am
somewhat seriously floating the idea of commuting to their office in the
Northeast by plane each day from Atlanta. Sounds expensive but the plane
tickets would be balanced out by the much lower cost of living. I don't know
if the idea is actually feasible; I'd have to test it for a week.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Don’t have kids if you haven’t already. I’ve seen this exact scenario tear
apart many relationships. Where you live often reflects underlying values, so
long-term sustained disagreement in this area is very hard to survive from
what I’ve seen. Not trying to doom you, but look at the language you’re using:
she complains every day, you’re dreading moving back, etc.

Not to imply that where you live has to be both partners’ first choice, but if
you can’t be on the same page that it’s a good compromise, one of you is just
going to be miserable.

------
chung-leong
I moved to Poland mainly for cheap booze and smoke. The latter aren't cheap
anymore due to convergence with the EU. Alcohol is still cheap though. Some
places sell beer for less than half a euro on special nights. It's always fun
to take visitors from Norway to such a place and watch their jaws drop.

My Polish friends always wonder why I would leave San Francisco for their
country. Poles love America and San Francisco in particular is a symbol of
civilizational achievement. There's even a popular song about it. Well, one of
my friends went on a work trip there and stayed at a hotel on lower Market for
a week. When she came back she told me "yeah, now I understand why you're
here" (or something to the effect).

~~~
dawidw
> When she came back she told me "yeah, now I understand why you're here" (or
> something to the effect).

Why she didn't like San Francisco?

------
nathan_f77
I'm a remote web developer. My wife and I live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and
we've been here for about 4 years.

I think I first heard about Chiang Mai on NomadList [1], where it was ranked
as one of the top cities for digital nomads. (Side note: I made a typo while
typing that URL and now I'm the proud owner of MonadList.com.)

My wife was teaching English here for a few years, and now she is studying
music. I'm still a contractor and am also working on my own projects.

We really love Chiang Mai, and it's been a great place to live for the last
few years. But we're planning to move somewhere else soon. A few candidates:
Berlin, Melbourne, Toronto

[1] [https://nomadlist.com](https://nomadlist.com)

~~~
stephenr
What visa have you used for 4 years?

~~~
nathan_f77
Lots of tourist visas (60 days + 30 day extension.) My wife had a work permit
while she was teaching English, and I was on a dependent visa. We also did the
hand-to-hand combat visa for a year [1]. Now I have a work permit with Iglu
[2], and my wife is on a dependent visa.

[1] [https://hand2handcombat.com/en/](https://hand2handcombat.com/en/)

[2] [https://iglu.net/](https://iglu.net/)

~~~
stephenr
What %/amount do iglu charge you? I find it quite weird that a company saying
“use our invoice and billing system, and we’ll pay you a salary” doesn’t
mention how much they’re going to charge for that.

~~~
nathan_f77
You can find the fee information under "How Does it Work?" on this page:
[https://iglu.net/join/](https://iglu.net/join/)

Iglu takes 30% of your total invoices. I think ~20% is for your Thailand
income tax and social welfare, and the Iglu fee is around ~10%. There's also a
minimum of $2,500 USD per month. So you're paying Iglu about $250 per month.

I think it's a pretty good deal. It's one of the only legal ways to live in
Thailand long-term if you're working as a web developer or startup founder.
The other options are:

* Marry a Thai person and get a marriage visa

* Get a retirement visa if you are over 50

* Buy a 5 year Thailand Elite visa [1] for 500,000 baht ($15,000 USD) -- This also works out to $250 per month. However, it's technically a tourist visa, so you're not legally allowed to work. You also have to file your own taxes, and I don't think you're eligible for the social security system.

[1] [https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/01/22/thai-elite-
visa/](https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/01/22/thai-elite-visa/)

~~~
stephenr
I'm aware of the options - I've lived in Thailand for 6 years, and started a
company here.

30% seems like a lot - I guess they know they have a market with few choices.

For reference, in a month where we had client invoices worth 4 times the
amount you've given in your example, our outgoings for Tax, Accountants, SSO
and rental for a business address, was about 7.5% of revenue - and a good
chunk of that is a relatively fixed fee.

~~~
nathan_f77
Oh, nice. Yeah it might be worth setting a company, but I've heard a lot of
horror stories. I met someone who actually shut down their Thai company and
switched to Iglu because it was a lot easier.

I'm not sure if you're comparing the 30% with 7.5%, but that wouldn't be very
accurate. Iglu pays all of your personal income tax, social welfare
contributions, visa application fees, etc. So I think it's more like 10% vs
7.5%, which isn't too bad. Definitely a good start for a solo
developer/founder.

~~~
stephenr
> Iglu pays all of your personal income tax, social welfare contributions,
> visa application fees, etc.

That 7.5% _includes_ both company and personal taxes, SSO, etc.

My visa application fees are about $70 a year now, they're inconsequential. I
realise this isn’t viable for some - I started on a business visa and it was a
lot more work and money each year.

> because it was a lot easier

I'm sure it is easier, particularly if you're a foreigner without any kind of
ties to the country (e.g. no spouse+family to trust/rely on). But it's
definitely more expensive if you're intending to operate for more than a year
or two, and expect to have reasonable income.

------
camhenlin
A year after getting my first remote job, I realized that there was no way I
could ever move back to an in office setting. No more commute, no more
traffic, no more office drama, etc. On top of that, I had a much increased
productivity and focus - all while being infinitely more relaxing and less
stressful.

So I left the medium sized city I lived in, sold my moderately expensive
house, and picked a small town over an hour away with a rural fiber build out,
and bought a much larger property with tons of room for my kids to run around
on, with a larger house, for much less money than my previous house. I’ve been
working remote for a few years now and don’t regret any of my decisions, and
wouldn’t change a thing.

In my opinion the advantage to technical remote work is that you get to choose
the location that works for you - meaning you’re no longer tied to cities and
large tech hubs. If you’re like me and don’t like or enjoy cities, remote is
the way to go

------
simonsarris
Where to Live (Du Fu)

    
    
        West of the Flower Washing Stream,
           not far downstream from the bridge,
        the master has chosen a quiet spot
           here in the woods by the river.
        
        Living apart from the city crowds,
           the world loosens its grip;
        murmuring of this clear water dissolves
           the sadness that burdens a stranger.
        
        Countless dragonflies play in the air,
           dancing up and down;
        a pair of wild ducks out in the stream
           swim and dive together.
        
        You could take a boat downstream,
           thousands of miles to the east­
        or else forget the boat, and live
           here by this stream forever.
    

I live in New Hampshire because it is where I was born, so it is as close to a
homeland as I have. I wish it had nicer things, like better food culture, so I
will improve it as much as I can.

Many friends I know want to move to the city when young and then to the
country with a house when they are old. This seems backwards to me. I want a
home now, with workshop and woods I and my children can run wild in. (I am 30
and am in the final month of building a home just 5 minutes walk from Amherst
village, on 4.5 acres). When I am old I may sell my house, maybe all my
things, and move to a small flat in a city, like Cambridge MA or Paris.

~~~
contingencies
Nice translation. AFAIK Dufu lived in Sichuan. The river he referred to was
probably the Yangtse, which flows through southern Sichuan across central
China to Shanghai (which didn't exist in Dufu's day, Yangzhou, Suzhou and
Nanjing were far wealthier). You can still find quiet places on the upper
Yangtse where land is cheap and nature plentiful, though mostly in
neighbouring Yunnan province.

------
NickM
Smaller, less "glamorous" cities are often the best option for remote workers
in my opinion; there are a lot of cities out there in places like e.g. Ohio or
Western NY that are looked down on as "boring", but which actually have a lot
of culture and fun things to do, and are still large enough to have a decent
amount of nice restaurants/amenities/etc... And at the same time, they also
have very low cost of living and avoid a lot of the overcrowding problems you
see in bigger, trendier urban areas.

Personally, I live in Rochester, NY, and I absolutely love it. There are
definitely some neighborhoods that I avoid, but there are also extremely nice
areas in the city with beautiful yet affordable housing and lots to do. There
are all kinds of fun events, concerts, and festivals going on all year; lots
of nice restaurants, bars, and coffee shops; an assortment of beautiful parks;
the list goes on. The community of friends I've met here is also much more
tight knit than anything I've encountered in bigger, busier cities.

I think a lot of people tend to gravitate toward extremes: I see a lot of
answers in this thread pointing to very large cities, or super-rural areas out
in nature, or far-away international metropolises. There's definitely
something to be said for picking a middle ground, though - I feel like I get
to have my cake and eat it too, and if I want to occasionally go to a Michelin
star restaurant or climb a mountain, I can always do that on vacation (which,
of course, is easy to fit in the budget too, given the amount of money I save
by living here).

~~~
RomanPushkin
Thanks for sharing! What kind of outdoor activities do you have in Rochester?
Any mountain skiing? How far from the city is that? Thanks!

~~~
iacutone
Bristol Mountain and Swain are both around an hour outside of Rochester.

------
jacobn
SF. Immigrated to the US ~20 years ago. >90% of people I know in the US are in
the Bay Area. Walkable. Goldilocks weather. Bright (can’t take the winter
darkness of the far north). Good access to activities I like (hiking, Tahoe,
Napa, etc).

Have been unable to find that mix anywhere else + fear of the unknown/devil
you know.

Married w children + house, so friction of moving pretty high. Wife really
wants to stay.

There are a host of downsides of course, and sometimes I think we’re crazy for
staying.

~~~
pcen
Have thought about moving to SF with the family, curious to hear what the
downsides are other than real-estate prices

~~~
jacobn
Homelessness - there are a lot of literally crazy people in SF (not just
startup people ;), which didn’t bother me that much as a single guy, but does
bother me as a husband/father.

Schools when the kids get there: public school lottery, private is $30-35k/y +
donations + extras, budget $45-50k/kid/year, after horrendous taxes (worst in
the country for high earners?).

Traffic can be pretty bad, parking sucks and public transit is there but not
that great. Seems to be at least one crazy person on the bus whenever I take
it. Muni (= bus+subway+light rail) breaks down quite a bit.

Mostly it’s the cost (everything is ridiculously expensive, not just real
estate) and the homelessness.

You need to be ok with people being quite leftie and your vote generally not
mattering if you’re not.

~~~
arisAlexis
I don't get the mix of highest salaries and real estate prices and unicorn
companies within a primarily leftist society. I just can't

~~~
eldavido
It's actually pretty easy to understand. Affordability is not and never was
the priority in San Francisco. What are the priorities are things like
environmental issues, keeping the police in check (making it politically
impossible to enforce any norms of civilized behavior, e.g. don't use drugs
outdoors in plain sight), catering to every imaginable niche in society (the
city has five legally-sanctioned languages and every ballot is printed in all
five), having the best food, and providing some form of health insurance to
even the lowest people on the income ladder.

A lot of this policy is admirable in its intent but has the (mostly)
unintended side-effect of making everything horrendously expensive. How could
it be anything else...new construction in San Francisco requires years of
permit approvals, solar panels on the roof, there's pretty much a ban on any
non-union labor in construction, etc.

All the employers know this, so they pay salaries that make it worthwhile for
people to show up. So you end up with hordes of people making $200-300K paying
$100K/year in taxes and $40-50K for a babysitter for your kids because your
parents or other family live halfway across the country and nobody can afford
to live here on $20-30K when single rooms in a 4br place cost north of
$1K/month after tax. Oh, and the schools, roads, and other infrastructure are
pretty bad, too, and there's trash everywhere.

The real suckers seem to be the companies willing to pay the wages to keep
this whole huge ponzi scheme going. The whole thing is a massive transfer from
shareholders to local land owners, and government employees.

I'm not being cynical, this is just how it works, after living here for seven
years. The city has 800K people and an operating budget of $8 billion. That's
$10K/head and it's still potholes and unfunded pensions.

~~~
ibash
All of the above is spot on.

Except: “How could it be anything else...” - my wife is french and one thing
that constantly surprises her is how little we get from our government for the
taxes we pay. It is possible to make government more efficient, and not resort
to the private sector (which has other problems).

------
code_duck
I make a circuit around the southwest US based on the season and which friends
I would like to visit. In the past it was based on a combination of weather
and available glass studios, but now I’m more concerned about urban flavor. I
spent too long living essentially in an Arctic cabin, and like being in the
city.

I assume my criteria is like that of anyone else, but I have great flexibility
with no spouse, children, no home ownership and self-employment.

Naturally, I look for cities that have culture that I like. I’m drawn to
cities like Denver, Austin, and Portland for their strong art cultures, area
tech businesses, and a healthy concentration of educated middle class people
under 45. I also explore and ‘live’ in places like Vegas or Tucson for a
couple of weeks or months, or if I go somewhere for a convention, start there
for a couple of weeks. I enjoy staying in ski resorts for a couple weeks in
the off season, or hanging out at a state park for a while.

I practice and appreciate art and music, and enjoy establishments such as
industrial chic coffee shops and semi-hipster cocktail bars, cideries,
distilleries and wine bars. Cities that have a lot of people moving in and out
are good for me because then you’re not trying to break into closed social
circles - many people are new and looking for something to do.

Weather is a big deal to me, as I spent years slogging through snow despite
being from the southwest. I can schedule my life like a snowbird and go north
in the summer and south in the winter.

Currently, I am deciding whether to stay around Colorado, or head to Texas and
Arizona followed by Oregon and Washington when that gets too warm.

~~~
abecedarius
How do you arrange housing? I assume you’re not signing any leases.

~~~
code_duck
In a variety of modes. I stay with friends, watch people’s property while they
travel, stay at motels, state parks and national forests, rest stops, BLM land
and AirBnB. I lived in a house for 10 years where I was persnickety about 8.5
hours of sleep a night, and that went out the window when I started traveling
to blow glass with people. At this point I’m limited by health problems, also
and could not reasonably commit to even a 6 month lease. So, I remain very
flexible about accommodation. If I shower 2-3 times a week and can cook twice
a week, I’m all set.

~~~
abecedarius
Thanks -- I've thought before about moving with the seasons and hoped there
might be better answers.

------
jobvandervoort
Live in Braga, Portugal.

My wife is Portuguese, but has no ties to our current location, nor do I. We
moved here, because we found a great house, in a great location that we could
buy for reasonable money.

Portugal is an affordable country (if not in Lisbon or Porto), with great
people, great food and great weather. Education is great, and the startup
ecosystem is ambitious and growing rapidly.

Let me know if anyone would like to meet up, if you're here; or any tips on
moving here.

~~~
wenc
I've visited nearby Guimaraes. Not much English is spoken up there. Did you
have to learn Portuguese?

~~~
jobvandervoort
Most people speak English, but are uncomfortable / inexperienced in doing so.
Everyone in tech speaks English just fine.

For day-to-day, it does make your life much easier. Surprisingly, banks are a
pain to deal with, without speaking Portuguese. I learned because my parents
in law didn't speak English very well.

Portuguese is a rich language, and Portuguese people are typically familiar
with the countries famous writers and poets. That makes it a valuable language
to learn.

------
aloukissas
I live in coastal Los Angeles. The city has everything I'm looking for:
fantastic weather (esp. warm winters), non-hectic pace of life, enough
opportunities to become involved in interesting things (professionally and
not), a diverse immigrant population, ocean access, great food scene, etc.

I work for a fully distributed team (Agentrisk), with people across the US and
Europe. I'd be hard-pressed to leave SoCal for any other place.

------
nicthesailor
Seafarer here. After bouncing from ship to ship from 1998-2009, and spending a
few days in each place I was dumped between ships, I narrowed my options to
Viana do Castello in Portugal, Edinburgh in Scotland, and Whangarei in New
Zealand.

I ended up settling in New Zealand in 2009 because I love the culture, the
fact that it's a long way from the rest of the world, it's affordable, and it
has a lot of options for travel. I fly from there to my ship, then go home
when the trip's over.

~~~
jwHollister
How are you able to stay in NZ long term? Been looking for visa options
without a full-time employment gig.

------
jakobov
I live in Jerusalem, but originally from America. I have travelled and lived
all over. Jerusalem is special. In other cities people are trying to be cool,
in Jerusalem people just are. The city feels international and small town at
the same time. I choose to live here because it's the best place I found.

~~~
robertAngst
Do people treat you like a foreigner? That would be my concern about leaving
America.

I have many friends who moved to Europe who say the locals never let them
speak their language and keep their distance.

~~~
hackathonguy
Not OP, but gonna pipe in as a Jerusalemite: in Israel, being a foreigner is
almost a default state. Consider that a very significant portion of the
population only came in the last 30 or so years, and a vast majority of
peoples’ ancestors only came in the last century. It’s a relatively new
country. From a more practical standpoint, there are large English speaking
communities all over & most Israelis are very fluent English speakers.

------
nicolashahn
I'm not a freelancer but it's not that hard to find a dev job in most major
cities. I was living in SF and moved to NY. Reasons include:

\- Getting out of the state I had spent my whole life in until that point.
California is a great state, but I don't think I would have been happy with
myself if I had never lived outside it for a significant amount of time.

\- Moving to a city that doesn't hate tech (as much). Here, there are plenty
of other industries assisting with gentrification, so we don't get singled
out.

\- Public transit is passable here.

\- I originally came for a Recurse Center batch. They just moved to Brooklyn,
and I live a 5 min walk from the location.

I miss my friends back home and being near all the nature that CA has, but
overall it's a pretty good life here.

------
mayhemchaos
When I realised that I no longer needed to live in California in order to run
my business (MusicBrainz), I decided to move to Barcelona.

As a friend of mine said: Barcelona isn't a 10 out of 10 on anything. But it
is an 8 or 9 out of 10 on everything. Good weather, amazing food, great
people, great public transport, great airport, high speed rail and best of
all: No republicans.

~~~
Doctor_Fegg
Well, except for
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Left_of_Catalonia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Left_of_Catalonia)
;)

------
sharms
I live in Denver now but did a bit of analysis off of census and economic
data:

1\. Move somewhere where college graduates choose to move (this is a proxy for
restaurants, arts, high paying jobs)

2\. Move somewhere where desired incoming levels have net population increases
(immigration)

3\. Move somewhere within the major metropolitan statistical areas with
continuous growth (city populations are funny, MSA is more informative for my
case)

4\. Scrape user profile locations off multiple websites to determine "Online
participation" as a proxy for more modern citizens

5\. Scrape job sites by the keywords in my field, full time, non-contract

~~~
PascLeRasc
How did you do #4? What other cities came up high in this algorithm?

~~~
sharms
I made a information map of MSA (Metropolitan statistical areas) and then
linked it to common names for those areas and sites such as
reddit.com/r/cincinnati and then scraped the online users over time. There was
a bit more to it though around sentiment analysis because some cities higher
on the MSA are really in decline, but have increasing populations of very low
wage workers with decreasing high wage workers.

The cities on the top of the list were not surprising given my very limited
scope (San Francisco, New York, Denver, Seattle, Boston etc).

The one that ranked highest that was most surprising was Minneapolis, they are
fairly strong in almost all the metrics I was looking at.

------
FigureTheGreat
Remote SE here - I live in the Sierra Nevadas in Truckee, CA. I chose to live
here because its close to skiing/hiking, easy to get to SF for work once a
month, and easy for people from the bay to visit. Plus Reno airport within 40
mins and I got a 3400sqft house for the same price I paid for a 1br in SF.

~~~
masonic
You wouldn't rather live on the NV side, given the tax savings?

------
gotrythis
I grew up in a small town where every single female left at 18. I moved to a
nearby university town because I read it had a six to 1 female to male ratio,
and was still close enough to everyone I knew, and wasn't a huge city.

Years later, I had to move to a huge city to find the women I ended up getting
engaged to. I had worked out that only 0.5% of the population met my first few
requirements in a partner, so I moved to increase my chances.

So, all my major moves so far have been to go where the women are!

~~~
PascLeRasc
If you're having trouble connecting with people, try avoiding dehumanizing
terms like "female".

~~~
sorum
He’s discussing gender ratios; using the terms “male” and “female” is correct
in this situation.

------
wenc
I chose based on my personality type and social needs. I'm an INTP so I needed
a good intellectual milieu that I could interact with (which meant having good
universities nearby), but I also wanted to be among people who were friendly
and accepting of outsiders (non-cliquish). It was a toss-up between Boston and
Chicago, and I chose Chicago.

Boston would have been a good choice except I hear it's really hard to make
friends there, but once you've broken through, friendships can be deep. Many
people don't break through though.

Chicago people on the other hand are much friendlier, but it doesn't go beyond
the surface friendliness. One doesn't typically get invited to dinners, so one
has to make a conscious effort to reach out. I did, and have managed to get
connected.

For me, two things in life were most important:

\- Meaningful work

\- Edifying relationships

So my choice of location was calculated to maximize the probability of
achieving these goals.

Factors that were not important for me were cost-of-living, personal space,
suburban-level safety, nature, schools (I don't have kids). I recognize that
these are important to others and contribute to achieving their goals in their
lives. I think most people have similar aspirations to mine in terms of
finding meaning, but my path is just slightly different.

~~~
nightbrawler
Fellow INTP here, similar requirements for me choosing where to live with
friendly people accepting of outsiders. However, we ended up in the opposite
environment than you, our nearest community is less than 200 people. If we
don't wave to every passing vehicle, people might think something is wrong...
and in Chicago, if you did the same, then people might think something is
wrong! :)

After moving here, we quickly made friends and I've encountered quite a few
other like minded tech workers in the area (one works for a direct
competitor). My job and co-workers (many 10yr+ relationships at this point)
fulfill my intellectual needs and the main engineering office happens to be
located in Boston!

------
phd514
I work remotely in a flyover state near family which is important with kids.
The low cost of living doesn't hurt either. I lived in NYC and the Bay Area
before kids, so I know they are like, but I prefer where I am now for my
current stage of life.

------
epynonymous
1\. large metropolitan population (1M+) 2\. city, urban environment (i.e.
skyscrapers, concrete jungle) 3\. safe 4\. good hospitals 5\. airport must be
international with frequent flights to major cities like london, nyc, sfo, etc
6\. has a great high tech environment with lots of high tech companies 7\.
speaks at least 1 of the languages that i speak 8\. good education environment
(elementary - university) 9\. not that cold 10\. great food (yet to find
somewhere where this isn't true) 11\. must have excellent broadband (100M
broadband) 12\. there exists an official apple store and shopping is
relatively convenient where i don't have to wait weeks or months to get new
stuff i.e. i remember having to wait several weeks or months before when
growing up in the suburbs, had to wait a long time for sony ps2's 12\. good
transportation system (subway, rail, etc)

some others that didn't make the list:

* must know people, i actually didn't know anyone when i moved to atlanta, boston, tokyo, or shanghai, i ended up making a lot of friends in each place, so i don't find this to be a requirement. * family close by, i think this is more important as i get older, i used to want to get as far away from my parents as possible, now, even though i don't live remotely close to my father, i yearn for the days where i could see him regularly. * great weather, meaning warm usually and good air quality. since i'm in the city, the air quality's not that great, so i've come to deal with it, it's important, but i've never prioritized based on this.

i live in shanghai, it fits all of the requirements above, great city, safe,
lots of good high tech companies, just that my family is in the states, and
the air quality could be better.

~~~
TomMarius
How does a person from the west move to China? Chengdu interests me.

~~~
baybal2
Oh my... do not chose cities in the middle of nowhere in China. Only
megacities there "work" for a Western person

~~~
JBReefer
Why?

~~~
baybal2
Very hard for legal reasons: i.e. you go to a hotel, but they can't accept you
because they have to blanks for police registration of foreigners, or PSB not
being able to register your household simply because they have no computer
system to do so, and there are no option for a foreigner to file for a
residence registration on paper. Not to say, your Mandarin should be as good
as that of locals, along the knowledge of local dialect if you venture far
inland.

------
sontek
* Weather

We eliminated any area that got below 50 degrees at any time. My wife and I
had no interest in being cold!

* School Quality

We have two children so school quality was very important to us. We used sites
like:

[https://www.niche.com/k12/](https://www.niche.com/k12/)

[https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-
schools/rankings-...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-
schools/rankings-overview)

We originally eliminated private schools and focused on public schools since
we had only lived in areas like San Francisco and Miami. We added them back
when we realized other areas like Atlanta have reasonably priced private
schools.

* Community

We wanted a global and diverse community. We wanted our kids to hear multiple
languages and learn about different customs and celebrations.

* Cost of Living

We wanted to have a better life without having to increase our overall take
home pay. So things like cost of house and amount of state taxes was an
important issue for us. When we moved from San Francisco to Miami we stopped
paying 7% to California which went straight to our kids college savings.

So after living in San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City we
decided to move to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The cost of living in Puerto Rico is
comparable to Utah and Georgia, weather is amazing, and the private schools
are top notch. Most people here are bilingual and well traveled. It is an
amazing community to be part of and I'm glad we made the move.

We also have fiber internet for the first time in our lives since it was only
available in small parts of any of the cities we lived previously, so our work
is much better :)

------
stephenr
My wife is Thai, and missed her family/where she grew up, so we moved to
Thailand 6 years ago.

Now we have a son, and we’re planning to move back to Australia in the next
couple of years. Thailand is an interesting place to live but I can’t imagine
trying to raise a child through to the end of school (with western
concepts/mindset) here.

~~~
jakobov
>but I can’t imagine trying to raise a child through to the end of school
(with western concepts/mindset) here.

Why not?

~~~
stephenr
I've tried a couple of times to write a reply that sufficiently explains our
concerns, without writing a novel about life in Thailand.

Unless you live like a hermit, you can't be the sole influence on a child -
they will learn things from their school, relatives, etc.

If you really want to know more, send me an email and I can expand some more,
but it's generally along the lines of even the most basic concepts of
safety/precautions/thinking ahead, combined with not expecting women (be it
your sister, gf, wife, etc) to be your own personal obedient slave.

------
yc-kraln
Greetings from Berlin. My wife said she wanted to live in Europe, and so I
took the first interesting job (which happened to be in Berlin.) Fell in love,
that was seven years ago...

------
punk_coder
My dad was in the military, so we moved often. He finally retired at Ft
Bennington, Ga, and my parents bought a house in Columbus, Ga. Columbus was a
little too small and religious for me, so I got a job and moved to Atlanta.
Close enough to visit the family, but a good city with lots of tech jobs. I
lived all over Atlanta, but one thing I always did was live inside the
perimeter. That refers to interstate 285, which circles the city. After
renting for many years my wife and I bought a house in the city of Decatur. I
live within walking distance of public transport to take to work, we’re a few
miles from the city of Atlanta, and Decatur is a nice walkable town. I will
admit that if my family didn’t retire here, Georgia would not be on the list
of places I would chose to live, but at least we live in a blue spot in this
red, racist, state.

------
artursapek
I got a remote job and moved from NYC to Boulder, CO. My reasoning was it's
also a wealthy place with high real estate prices and good restaurants, but is
in a more natural setting. Clean air, hiking, camping, skiing, etc... also
close to a really good international airport (DEN).

------
baybal2
Shenzhen is my main base of operation, been the best deal for buck for
lifestyle and "having life."

I am nominally employed as a contractor, but am just an inch away from be
being a de-jure full time employee. China was more or less welcoming to high
flyer demographics living in the country on business visas, but the times seem
to be changing. For this reason, I am planning on obtaining a residence permit
next year.

For decades, China was all about it being no questions asked about anybody
with a legit business staying in the country on long term business visas. They
were effectively residence permits. In 2016, they first started looking more
into the legitimacy of the business, and in 2017 they put it bluntly that 10
year M visa holders have to get work visas if they are to live in the country
for any length of time regardless of the origin of their income.

Shenzhen became a very pleasant city to live in the last 10 years, in fact it
is said to be the most liveable city in Asia by many rankings. I can say
confidently that the city scores more on livability than any US megapolis.

For me, it depends on the future state of things if I am to continue living
there. I admit, there is a risk that China may start kicking out foreigners
from the country just for the sake of it.

I am 27. I lived 2.5 years in Singapore, 6 years in Canada. and the rest in
badlands of ex-USSR countries. I worked in electronics, and manufacturing
since my first job when I was an exchange student in Singapore. Even back in
2008, I was thinking about moving to China as one can't do a thing in
electronics industry without doing things in Shenzhen.

I think many here are baffled why in the world so many high flying
professionals from Western countries come to China in their sane mind. I tell
that: yes, the choice for going to China is a bitter pill to swallow; you are
choosing in between comfy everyday life, liberties and freedom on one hand,
and being able to live life to its fullest, exhilaratingly dynamic business
environment, and a chance of becoming somebody before you hit your retirement
age.

~~~
weishigoname
wow, small world, I live in Shenzhen, too. maybe we can keep in touch, and
hang around sometimes. you can drop me email at weishigoname at hotmail.com

~~~
baybal2
Out of the country now, should be back at around CNY

------
sethammons
Just started my remote journey. I went from working in Orange County,
California where I had a two+ hour commute each way from the mountains, to
living in Western Montana!

Why Montana? My sister convinced me to visit as she lives here. Loved it. I
was faced with moving anyway, so I could move into a cardboard box with bars
on the windows, or I could move into a large, beautiful home on lots of
property in a beautiful land. I asked work, and they supported going remote.
It was a no brainier. The cost of real estate is great. I got something in
Montana that would have cost easily 6x in SoCal. The state actually tries for
a balanced budget. Not as many assholes on the road. People are generally
nicer. Taxes are better. The catch? Economic opportunities are scarce.

------
nickreese
We looked for places with no income tax. Interesting people and things our
family was into. Relatively warm climate and near an airport with relatively
connected international flights.

We’ve loved Nashville and Sarasota, FL for these reasons.

Ended up in Sarasota once we had kids to be near family.

~~~
FigureTheGreat
Have you found the additional property tax to cancel out any benefits of no
state Income tax? Especially this year with Caps to SALT ?

~~~
nickreese
In our situation and tax bracket, state income tax was the most important part
of optimizing our overall tax burden.

Property tax and sales tax isn't bad here or in Nashville. In Sarasota
property tax is < 1% per year on assessed value and sales tax is 7%.

Ideologically, I think taxes should be based on consumption, not on earning
power.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Interesting that you put it like that, no income tax, rather than optimal
services for the tax paid. Do you consider that as a richer person you should
directly contribute financially to the improvement of the society that you
live in at all; or is it that you see property tax as a fairer way to do that?
(Or something else?)

~~~
phd514
I'm not the GP, but I don't think that paying more taxes is the best way to
improve society. I'm not rich, but as someone making above median wages and
living in a low-COL area with no state income taxes, I put my money where my
mouth is by contributing an amount roughly equal to my annual federal income
tax to local charities that provide a variety of services to people in need.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Thanks for responding, if I may probe further -- is it that you think the
state can't provide the services those charities do, or that your particular
local incarnation of it won't (ever?)?

Where I am, a poor UK city, the Christian Churches provide a lot of services
to the poor (homeless shelters, food banks, pensioners meals, friendship
clubs, pregnancy counselling, family counselling, pastoral care) often with
referral by front line council workers. Most of those services are free at the
point of need (only family counselling is charged for IIRC) but couldn't
operate on those budgets as council services -- largely because they rely on
donations of buildings from the Churches, and donation of time from
volunteers. The council has to rent, and has to pay at least minimum wage.

So, in a way these essential community services work outside the state machine
doing something that in a socialist setting government is expected to do.

I can see this works inasmuch as those services exist, when they seemingly
wouldn't otherwise, but the payment for those services isn't as fairly
distributed as if it were acquired by taxation IMO. Also, in theory on a state
level you save optimise service provision to save administration and logistics
costs; whilst local piecemeal approaches can be relatively expensive ... but
then in practice government seems to add layers of bureaucracy and expensive
management ...

Any further thoughts?

~~~
phd514
It's a complicated topic and tough to do it justice in a brief post, but a
couple brief thoughts anyway. I believe that I as an individual have a moral
obligation to provide aid to the poor. I do not believe that government has
that responsibility. Ultimately the government is funded via taxation backed
by the threat of force. As such, taxing some citizens to provide aid to others
is a form of legislating morality. I think the legislation of morality is
warranted primarily in the negative, that is, to prohibit things such as
murder, theft, assault, etc.

Secondly, I believe that aid to the poor is most effective and of greater
benefit to both the giver and the recipient when it is done in a relational
context (which is not to say that aid is given directly from the giver to the
recipient, just that it's localized enough that the givers and recipients are
in the same community). The giver can see the tangible effects of his
generosity and the recipient can see the care shown by the giver. By its
nature, government aid is impersonal and therefore less beneficial. The
"givers" in that case, who are "giving" often only under compulsion, often
feel exploited and resentful. Many recipients develop a sense of entitlement
since there's no direct connection between the aid they receive and their
fellow citizens who provided that aid.

I do agree with you that taking government out of the aid business would
result in less uniform funding for aid, but I think that's a lesser problem
than forcing it on everyone. I'm on the board of a local charity and I see the
private donors who fund it, 95% of whom are are middle or upper-middle class,
and I'm pretty amazed by their generosity. I wish awareness of those kinds of
things were greater.

------
Tharkun
I live in Antwerp, Belgium's second largest city.

There are basically only three cities worthy of the name in Belgium. Antwerp
kind of hits the sweet spot between big enough to have everything you need,
and yet small enough to be liveable.

There isn't much in the way of a tech scene. The Belgian tax man makes
startups pretty much non-starters. Wages are taxed to death, so there isn't
much in the way of competition for engineers. The vast majority of software
engineers are working for the government in one way or another (Belgium has so
many governments that this isn't an exaggeration).

As for how I decided where to live: I didn't consciously do so. I basically
looked for jobs, found one over here, and moved here.

------
sys_64738
My wife told me where we'd live. That was it.

------
hnrodey
My wife and I grew up in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, PA. It was easy
to stick around because we had a child and I found a decent job out of school.
I felt lucky with my employment situation at the time because the area has
virtually nothing going for it and is getting worse year after year. The
people who can leave, move away - and everyone else sticks around.

Fast forward a few years and I was doing contract work for a customer in
Denver, CO and they offered to relocate us to Denver and brought me on full
time. Ended up hating that place as a FTE but LOVE Colorado so here we still
are.

~~~
theandrewbailey
I grew up in a small town in Ohio[0], and my first job out of school was in
Pittsburgh, late 2009. After slowly going through 2 other jobs, I found a
place with a team that feels like family (and pays well). I've been living in
the South Hills area for 3 years, and I wouldn't dare live anywhere else.

The T is awesome. I love days when I don't use my car to go to work, and they
allow bikes on the T, so I hit the trails downtown during spring/summer/fall
weekends.

[0] Not near Cleveland, much closer to Columbus. I learned pretty quickly that
Ohio equals Cleveland to people from Pittsburgh.

------
fncischen
I chose Spain (Madrid / Barcelona) because Spain has a lot of walkable city
centers that are closed off to towns.

Many Spanish cities have a very small town vibe, while including high quality
public transit infrastructure, great sunny weather, and very family friendly
environments.

Mexico is my second choice due to proximity to US (close flights to see family
& friends; US is not that bad as some people make it), biodiversity of
climates, great food, sunny weather, and lots of walkable small towns.

I already can speak Spanish, so this is a plus for me.

I like traveling, but those are the two places I'd settle down in or retire.

------
RyJones
Microsoft relocated me to the Seattle area in 2005. I went full time remote
about four years ago. I'm too lazy to move.

I'd like to live elsewhere, but SeaTac is well connected and I like the
weather.

~~~
ianai
What’s spurring your interest in living somewhere else?

~~~
RyJones
Too many people in Seattle.

------
enibundo
Lived in Paris for the last 11 years. Planning to change country again !
(Berlin)

Edit : open minded people is the reason

~~~
kirso
Berlin is actually not very open-minded, after 8 years of living across the
world its probably least I would say. The reason for that is, because if you
don't fit into a "hipster, dj, art" culture, you will be constantly reminded.
Try getting to a bar as a foreigner and wearing a shirt sometime...

------
photonios
I don't work remotely, but I did make a decision to live somewhere else.

I moved from the Netherlands to Romania. I travelled to Romania a couple of
times for business and really liked the atmosphere and the people. Met my
girlfriend in Romania and moved here about three years ago. Been loving it
ever since.

The city I am in has one of the lowest crime rates in Europe and some of the
cleanest air in Europe. Beautiful nature within an hour drive and lots of
friendly people.

~~~
HoppyHaus
I've heard a lot of nice things about Romania, but what are the downsides?
Honestly considering moving there at some point, though I likely won't.

------
rashomon
[North America] I actually hope to jaunt into a remote position, in 2019, and
this specific question has tussled quite a bit in mind. I'd love to hear what
other people are considering.

Seeing that I'm in NYC, I think there are a few cultural, political and
culinary reasons to choose a city to transition few. Here are a few of my
requirements:

-Strong local job economy if in the event I lose my current position (my job is not sought after enough for me to gain remote positions immediately) -Cheap(er) real estate (this isn't hard considering I'm from NYC) -Left/Democrat-leaning locale (the state doesn't have to be blue but where I live should have an unshamed democratic community) -Some clustered seasonality (that removes FL, AZ, AL, and the northern state for their harsh winter)

My top cities I had in mind: -Raleigh or Charlotte (I have some trepidations
about what the Republican leadership did recently) \- Explosive growth which
the city is not accustomed to/for \- Traffic will be a nightmare if the rate
continues (almost 0 public transport) \- Good tech scene (Research Triangle)
and quite cheap real-estate \- Might be suburban hell/boring

~~~
Cyph0n
Heh, I’m considering the opposite.

I’m currently living in Raleigh-Durham but thinking about moving to a larger
tech hub. Options are DC, NYC, and Seattle.

Regarding your list of concerns, I share with you: explosive growth, zero
public transport, and suburban hell.

The job market is good but not great. None of the big tech companies have a
presence here, except Google for nothing more than historic reasons. I highly
doubt that this will change anytime soon, simply because of the poor
infrastructure and transit.

This leaves you with companies like Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, etc. They are not
“bad” companies and there is a lot of interesting work to do, but they are
also not Amazon or Google.

I'm still just starting my career, so I want to at least try out working at a
big tech company. Also, my wife and I travel pretty frequently to Tunisia, and
flights from RDU are long and expensive. As a comparison, a flight from
Seattle to Tunis costs ~$400 less than from Raleigh while taking the same
amount of time!

------
mundacho
I live in Bolivia. My parents and my wife's parents live here. Having our
parents here is great because we have children and are helped a lot by them.
(I studied and worked in Switzerland before moving back.)

So, how did I decide? I just knew I wanted to have children and that
grandparents are a great help, so it's mostly a family related decision. I
work remotely as a consultant in software modeling.

~~~
cuchoi
La Paz?

~~~
mundacho
Santa Cruz

------
weishigoname
This is very complicate topic, because there are so many factors to evaluate
before we can make that decision, but first of all, how are we going to
survive there ? here what I mean are not how much money we earn, but food,
weather, people, health assurance, some basic stuff of living.

the place where we choose to travel and where we choose to live are different,
because we don't just enjoy the natural views, we care more about people,
culture, and health, which is not easy decision in short time, so we'd better
to live there long enough, and try to involve into local culture as much as
possible.

I live in Shenzhen, it is a Chinese city, but much different with other cities
in China, China is trying to build a modern city to beat Hong Kong, this city
is Shenzhen, its policies, especially for political, are much transparent, so
this city's growing is very fast, it is very livable and good to have business
here, startups are come out every day.

but like many fast growing cities, the economic bubble issue, the house is
pretty expensive here.

------
pier25
I'm from Europe but I live near Queretaro (Mexico) in a small village.

\- I have a decent internet connection. Optic fiber 30Mbps.

\- Rent is cheap. $600 USD for a 3 bdr house with garden in a fancy
neighborhood.

\- Almost no crime. I rarely lock the door of my house.

\- Great food at reasonable prices. The area is known for its cheese and wine
production.

\- Very very silent place which is super important for me.

\- Most people you find are honest and peaceful

------
StevenForth
My wife and I have chosen to live in Vancouver twice. Once in 1989 after ten
years in Tokyo (8) and Copenhagen (2) and again in 2012 after six years in
Cambridge MA. I grew up in Montreal. We chose Vancouver for some simple
reasons. Direct flights to Tokyo, decent sushi, a culturally diverse
environment in which to raise our multicultural children (now grandchildren),
an interesting arts scene (in the 80s and 90s, it has declined as housing
prices have gone up) and a relatively open society and political system.
Economic opportunity was not a factor as I have always worked globally. I also
prefer to be off centre, a bit away from the cities that think they are
important like the Bay Area, NYC, Tokyo, Toronto, London etc. as I find that
little of deep creative interest comes from these places. Innovation thrives
on the edges and where different cultures rub up against each other.

------
delecti
I got a job at Amazon before graduating and moved out to Seattle for it.
Within a day of wandering around the city I immediately felt at home here in a
way I hadn't ever before. I didn't really decided to move here, it was just
implicit in accepting the job offer, but since then I've definitely decided to
stay.

------
rockymadden
Where our roots reside and the high quality of life in our area. Once we began
a family, this became all the more important and added in the desire for
stability for our children. It was these choices, combined with living well
outside an hour of Boulder and Denver, that pushed me to focus on a remote-
centric career.

I think a lot about moving closer to technology hubs and there is definitely a
desire to generally work day-to-day with excellent engineers in close
quarters. However, each time I do rocking chair thinking, I come back to the
same conclusion; our lives are more rich with family and friends and the
lifestyle we are able to gain via the lesser cost of living. Though, I admit
it has a large potential cost on career. I'd love to be slinging Haskell day-
to-day, in SF, etc for the rest of my life on a professional level.

------
drummyfish
Implying it is a decision.

I was simply born there. I can't move because I don't make enough money to
live anywhere else than with my parents. I am playing around with the idea of
homelessness in which case I'd be headed south towards warmer weather, because
I am afraid of tough winters.

~~~
cliffwarden
Where are you now?

------
so_tired
Is anyone here from an Greek island, Cyprus or Italy ?

I am really want to try a few months in a Mediterranean beach spot (or
similar). Hopefully a low-ish cost location.

I am doing mostly back-end dev, and also (sadly) some remote lead of a FE
team. SO all i need is sunshine and broadband..

~~~
arisAlexis
Try researching Chalkidiki which is a wonderful besch place close to a big
city and Creta which is an island that includes everything.

For Cyprus I would recommend Limassol many expats there and lively.Taxation in
Cyprus is really good and the state is more organized than Greece.

------
eb0la
Before getting married my wife and me lived about 100km apart. The middle
point was the city we both worked, so it made sense. Now she's remote worker
and we live near our son's school. Makes live easier to all.

------
mathgeek
I live near where my wife and I grew up, exclusively because we find it
important to have our kids spend time with their surviving grandparents.
That's the only important thing in our lives that is location-specific.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
When we first moved, my SO and I after Uni, we made no consideration of
closeness to family. That was a mistake IMO - we're 4 hours from the nearest
close family.

Now _our_ parents are older we would love to be closer. Would have helped
immensely with caring for the kids to have grandparents local too.

------
tomtomtomtomtom
We thought we would like Ibiza a lot, went there for a couple of weeks, turned
out we didn't. While there I spotted a book on tax paradises in a bookshop,
turns out there are a bunch of countries where you don't have to pay taxes
under certain circumstances, which means you double your income when you come
from europe. Made a short list, didn't like the top one, but really liked the
second one. Have been living in Curacao (a Caribbean island 40 miles off the
coast of Venezuela) for seven years and still enjoying it a lot!

------
sandworm101
Easy. I joined the military. Where i live is thier decision/responsability
now. (In reality we select a posting preference. I picked and got a posting
within 100 miles of my home town.)

------
jpablo
Where my wife's family is. There wasn't much question about it

------
K9DRDOh
Like most people here, it is purely an issue of momentum. I completed my
studies and got married in this city.

Where I live is ok, im used to it lots of family around .. but deep in side
somehow I feel stifled

------
pimterry
Barcelona (coming from the UK).

Reasonably cheap compared to other major European cities, great weather, close
to the outdoors & the ocean, very walkable & cycleable with lots of public
transport, good tech community, and amazing food, drink & lifestyle. My costs
have halved compared to London, with a far higher quality of life.

Only real downside is that local salaries aren't great, but if you're working
remotely that doesn't matter in the slightest.

------
KineticLensman
Relocated 30 years ago (from a Sorthern English city) because of work and then
fell in love with the new area (a Southern English coastal city). Now I have a
stupid 70 mile drive to work that I tolerate because I'm where I want to be
when I'm not working. I've since moved a bit within the local area to get
closer to the countryside but am basically within a few miles of where I moved
to 30 years ago.

When I am working, I work remotely quite a lot.

------
how2chooseplace
Please excuse the throwaway account.

I realized a few years ago that the place where you live determines a lot of
what happens in your life:

The type of people you meet, the type of sports you can do, environments you
see, activities & events you can take part in, people you meet, cost of
living, tax, local wages, type of housing, what kind of foods you can eat,
what the weather is like, transportation systems, healthcare, internet
connectivity, what language you will speak, religious activities, exposure to
diseases, peacefulness / safety & stability ... and so on.

Human life also has a certain momentum to it that means you are quite likely
to stay in one place or nearby it for much of your life if you settle
intentionally or get stuck unintentionally. So it's a situation where if you
get it right at the start, you can be happy for quite a long time, and if you
get it wrong, you can be suffering for a long time. Finding somewhere just 1%
'nicer' can integrate well over the years.

I began by deliberately saving up a 'find a new home' fund for a couple of
years while working normally so that I could take some time to travel freely
and in a patient/relaxed way. I spent these years looking at multiple sources
of information:

\- International statistics & websites & thematic maps describing the basic
shape of many countries - quality of life, climate, culture / attitude of
people there, cost of living, tax, etc. Forums for immigrants, forums for
tourists, forums for locals. Newspaper articles. Anything I could find.

\- I made a shortlist of about 10-15 countries (occasionally adding/removing
new ideas over the years) and used a combination of VR streetviews and real
life 3-7 day trips to build an idea of the feeling of being in each country. I
made a point to avoid all tourism, keep costs low, and stick to exploring
widely on foot and visiting residential areas to get a taste of actual life as
an immigrant. I would ask locals where they would live in the town (and
country) if they had the freedom to choose, and why. I would ask immigrants
how they felt about being there and if they knew of any better places (towns
or countries). I kept a list of the top 5 towns or cities in each country that
might suit me best and would adjust my trip following advice from local people
as I travelled.

\- If I found I was having a nice time and felt happy somewhere, I would wait
a few weeks then go back for a second trip staying in my favourite town for
2-4 weeks, to see if I continued to like the place. This gave me a chance to
exclude 'sunny weather' effects, i.e. almost anywhere can seem nice on a sunny
day. Also it helped to overcome the novelty effect. New places are always fun,
for a while. It's useful to ask yourself if you still feel excited about the
idea of going back for another full month having just spent a week somewhere.

I won't say where I picked in the end, because the process is much more
important than a particular result - and because my needs & values &
preferences & language background will be different to anyone else's.

However, some places that might be interesting to begin your search with:
Netherlands, Estonia, Portugal, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Thailand, Japan,
Taiwan, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Sweden, Georgia.

I have no regrets about taking a systematic and extremely patient approach
over several years, utilising every possible source of information online, and
always keeping an open mind (avoiding prejudices about certain parts of the
world). I can see that if I had tried to solve this problem in just hours,
days, weeks or months, I would have found a much less appropriate answer.

If you will be running your own business, PAY ATTENTION to business practices
(laws, accounting, taxes). There are many countries where it is fantastic to
be a salaried employee and you can have a generally excellent quality of life,
but you might be tripped up repeatedly trying to run a business ( _cough_
Germany...).

Equally there are countries where the quality of life has certain things
missing, but running a business is easy and straightforward; or the cost of
living is so low that it makes a transition to running your own business
viable where it otherwise wouldn't be (in particular, the cost of a local
accountant to make things easy for yourself). Some countries have unique
entrepreneurial tax systems like France's micro-entrepreneur system, or
Estonia's 'your company only pays tax whenever you start to pay yourself
anything'. Those are worth exploring. It's also worth looking for places with
plenty of other coders & meetups to hang out with. (Meetup.com will give you
clues).

And there are places that are just so friendly and fun that it may be worth
paying whatever it costs to live there. Last of all, don't miss out on the
chance to try something radically different to what you are used to. If you
are from the US, consider Asia and Africa as well as Europe & Canada. You only
live once.

Finally, a virtual reality headset (oculus rift or htc vive) is probably the
fastest/cheapest/most effective way to explore thousands of villages, towns
and cities for just a few hundred dollars total, and get an excellent idea of
what it's like to be there in person.

You might find these sites useful:
[https://nomadlist.com](https://nomadlist.com) and also
[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/)

Good luck everyone and I hope you all find somewhere nice to live.

------
DoreenMichele
I live in a small town in Washington. Among other things, I moved around a lot
as a military wife. I developed a list of criteria and did a bunch of
research.

I also have a Certificate in GIS, so I briefly took a stab at trying to create
a website and consultancy to help others find their personal best place, but
it didn't really get any further than a very half baked website and asking
around a bit.

~~~
JohnnyFortune
What were your challenges with site creation?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I looked around at other sites doing the same sort of thing and decided that
asking a few canned questions and spitting back a list of cities wasn't really
a good approach. I had already done a lot of research and created a short list
of potential cities for myself. Trying out these sites mostly failed to get me
a list that made any sense to me. So I wasn't impressed with that approach.

I decided it would need to be a consultancy doing custom research. I don't
really know how to make that happen and it seems like there may not be a
market for that. Or, if there is, it wasn't a market a homeless woman was
going to be able to sell to. No one was going to hire me to do that kind of
research so I could improve my income and get off the street.

I've seen people post questions to various forums, similar to this Ask HN but
more focused. And there's lots of free info on the internet already via sites
like City Data and Best Places.

But when I asked around about how people make such decisions, part of the
feedback I got was that deciding where to move was an alien concept. Only
super rich people think like that. Most people live where they were born or go
where the job takes them or similar. They don't pick some personal best place
for their personal best life.

I was homeless at the time and trying to decide where to move to try to get
back into housing. It never occurred to me that only very, very privileged
people ever wondered where they might prefer to live. I was dirt poor. I
didn't see myself as very, very privileged. But that's part of the feedback I
got.

Free or very cheap info on the topic is very popular. You see a lot of
articles with lists of "best cities to retire" or "best cities for young
families." But it's very generic, really, and I'm not aware of any pricier
custom solutions for the space.

I never figured out what the next steps might be. I asked a couple of people
from HN for feedback. One replied and the other never answered me. I don't
have experience doing something like that and I don't have good connections
and couldn't get enough feedback to figure out where to go next with the idea.

I think I eventually took the website off the internet and stopped bothering.

It's potentially something someone else could maybe tweak and run with,
someone who knows how to set up a consultalncy or has the right connections
where they could get good feedback. That doesn't happen to be me.

Oh, also, if you google terms like "personal relocation," you mostly get
moving companies, not services helping you decide where to move. The
assumption is you already know where you are going and you need help making it
happen. The idea that you would pick a dream location seems to not really
exist, in spite of the popularity of questions like this one in forums and
"best places" type books and articles.

~~~
senderista
If you talk to enough homeless people, you will definitely find some who chose
where they live.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I talk to plenty of homeless people. I'm well aware they often choose where
they live.

They are not the target market for a service I want to charge money for. So my
awareness of that is not really relevant to my feeling that this would not
fly, at least at the time and under the circumstances that I was doing the
initial research.

------
ojhughes
UK south coast, not perfect by any means but there is enough of a tech scene
for me to be employed and not have to commute far. Cost of living here means I
can comfortably afford to by a 3 bed house in a nice location. UK weather is
crappy but I get 6 weeks PTO so make the most of going on cheap trips to
places like Portugal.

I think if you’re happy within you can be happy wherever you are.

------
jeanlucas
I... Got married. She has a business and I thought I could work remote. But
the city still has a nice tech scene (SP, Brazil).

~~~
gamedna
+1, except it was the worst decision we could have made. Her business is toxic
and has held us back from growing.

------
ilamont
Lived overseas for years in major cities in Europe and Asia, came back to my
hometown outside of Boston. Good schools, lots of things to do nearby in terms
of work and travel, kids can grow up near grandparents.

Regularly travel and work remotely for 1-week to 1-month stints, and hope to
expand that when kids finish high school. So easy to do these days.

------
ericol
I live in Argentina. Been working remote for the past 10 years (I work for a
UK company). Until March I was living in Patagonia (where my family is) but
recently relocated to Buenos Aires because of my wife's line of work (She's a
flamenco dancer - bailaora - professionally, and where we were her career was
at a dead end).

~~~
rmb81
How do you get paid? I'm asking because I also live in Argentina (Misiones)
and I'm interested in working remotely, but I have no clue where to start.

~~~
ericol
I started working for this company 10 years ago in Barcelona, so I have a
spanish bank account. the first 5 years or so I used my CC to withdraw money
from the ATMs (I know, expensive) but then bitcoin happened. Nowadays I buy
bitcoins in the corresponding market (UK in this case as last year I went
there to open a bank account after I got sick of the issues with the spanish
one) and then sell them here using a couple of different brokers
(Satoshitango, Buenbit). Obviously some money is lost in the movements, but
regular banks rip you off money just as much if not more (Not to mention you
have to triangulate the money - transfert it normally to a bank account they
own in New York - and that it takes a lot more time - weeks, sometimes). For
me, bitcoin has been a godsend.

~~~
thijsvandien
Given how volatile Bitcoin is, I'd suggest you give TransferWise a try. There
are few companies I am more enthusiastic about. They saved me a ton of fees in
the 4+ years I've been a customer and have never caused me any hassle.

~~~
throwaway589439
Sure, until TransferWise decides to screw you over.

I'd rather take the volatility of bitcoin and never have to worry about
another centralized exchange/company locking my funds again.

------
kpennell
I'm in Oaxaca, Mexico. Might swap between Berlin and Oaxaca for a bit.

Oaxaca has: good coffee, friendly people, safety, mountains, amazing weather
(except April/May, which are too hot for me), small scene of digital nomads,
mountain biking, yoga, etc. My 2bd apartment near downtown is $250 usd and my
unlimited coworking is $250.

~~~
spr3zi
Is it expensive to travel to and from there?

------
efrafa
I live in SF now (moved from EU 3 years ago) and while I like it here, this
city have so many flaws that I cant imagine settle here pernamently. My wife
wants to return home to be closer to parents, so we will probably move some
time next year back to our home country. That idea still excites and scares me
at same time.

------
FigBug
Victoria, BC. Born nearby, came here for University and never left. Got into
the Pro Audio industry, and once I left Mackie it was either work remote,
change industry or move. I chose work remote and now have clients in SF and
Seattle. Would like to spend a year in Belgium / Netherlands once the dogs
die.

~~~
Tharkun
Belgian here. Curious to hear why you'd consider Belgium!

~~~
FigBug
Last year I spent some time in Bruges and Attert and I enjoyed it. I'd like to
come back and see some of the big cyclocross races and the spring classic road
races. I do speak a bit of French so that could be helpful depending on the
area.

I'd like to stay in a smaller European city that is cycling friendly that
maybe has some sailing.

------
subway
Seattle. I was previously in the Midwest (with California, and the South
before that), and needed a change of scenery. At the time I'd developed a bit
of a competitive pinball addiction, and Seattle has an incredibly active and
friendly scene. I meant to stay a year or two, but it's now been three.

------
theredbox
I am from the central/eastern europe and have been looking at the USA as a
country to settle but given the circumstances i will never be able to live
there long term.

The easiest way would be to acquire investors visa but I am only in the 250k E
bracket and it would take me too long to acquire at least 500k to move out.

------
remote_phone
I am a dot com migrant worker. I followed the money and will stay here until
there’s no more money to be made.

------
nperez
Grew up in NJ. Most of my family came to the US through NYC and it seemed a
lot more exciting to me than NJ.

That was around 7 years ago and now I'm thinking about moving to Miami or LA.
My only requirements are warmth, some tech jobs, and a little more space.

------
thesmileyone
I based my decision on liking mountains and the sea, so I live near mountains
and the sea. I prefer solitude, I have no friends by choice, and I work
online. In my time off I either go to the beach (in the summer) or I go hike
mountains.

I like mountains.

------
vermaden
Strange nobody mentioned Europe/Malta - member of EU, English language, warm
on most of the time.

... or Canary Islands even warmer but not English.

... and last but not least - Sri Lanka with English as a secondary/third
language (but official) and also warm.

~~~
niij
I assume there are many other places that are also "warm" and have english
speakers, so it's presumably not that strange. What else is it you like about
those places, that you'd singled them out?

------
freyir
I chose San Francisco because it's seemed like the place to be, as an engineer
in the U.S. But I've found the quality of life very poor compared to the other
cities I've lived in, and I'm planning my escape.

------
rayraegah
Usually a combination of work and desire. After a decade of travelling around
and five international relocations (Madras, San Francisco, London, Paris,
Alderley Edge, and Tokyo).

We decided to settle down in Tokyo.

------
byoung2
Full time remote (since 2015) software engineer. I live in Los Angeles because
that's where I was born, and I can't deal with weather anywhere else.

------
ianai
I decided to move somewhere remote after living in Las Vegas for about a
decade. That city seems to offer little more than violence and malice toward
people.

------
sahillavingia
I live in Provo, Utah. I moved here to interact more with conservatives and
those with strong religious beliefs–I felt that was lacking in my perspective.

------
StevenForth
This is a wonderful thread for its diversity of choices, acceptance of other
people's choices and openness to learn.

------
JoshCalbet
Make sure you take into account timezone and costs of living, particularly
rent.

------
visit_from_afar
Spent the first 2 1/2 decades of my life in various US cities. East Coast,
then California. Job wanted me to move back to the East Coast, I didn't want
to; took severance pay and went overseas.

Had an old college roommate in Beijing, so I went there. Didn't intend to
stay. Visited many other cities in Europe and Asia. Launched a digital startup
to have something to do. Winter came, and I headed to a tropical island to see
if I could be productive there. Verdict: no, so back to frigid, windy Beijing.

The pollution is horrid (though much better than it was a few years ago). The
city is dirty and crowded, and the people are loud and blunt. I feel right at
home. The only place close enough to it to be long-term livable for me in the
US I think is NYC.

Great thing about Beijing is all the "new economy" energy. It's a Wild West of
startups and new businesses in a way I imagine American cities and factories
were during the Gilded Age. You meet lots of folks running large, successful
companies. It's hard to not be ambitious here.

These days, I also have children. That makes choosing a good place harder, and
Beijing better. In Beijing, children get the best of all worlds: great
education, highly competitive social and school life of a big city, but also a
united, homogeneous, family-friendly culture without all the funky stuff
children get exposed to daily in Western big cities. I spent a lot of time
looking for a city in the US that would serve as both a big city environment
and funkyness-free education when I thought we might not be able to stay in
China, and came up empty-handed.

Internet access is occasionally an issue here. A few times a year the
government will aggressively throttle VPNs, usually when something is
happening they don't want Chinese netizens to hear about (first order of
business whenever VPNs get throttled: head to Google News, type "China" into
the search bar, and see what the American MSM is saying that rankles Chinese
leadership).

Overall, there is more _actual_ freedom of speech than the West too, which is
just refreshing. When my wife kept her belly too long after giving birth to
one of our children, people on the street would ask her if she was pregnant
again or tell her she needed to lose the weight. So she got on a diet and
slimmed down. People don't pretend to like you if they don't, and no one
pretends to hold opinions he doesn't really hold because he's afraid of being
ostracized. You just feel free in a way that is impossible in the West.

Yes, you can't talk about the government. Or shouldn't. Personally, I think
that's great. The government still feels pressure on it when the citizens are
unhappy about something... the Chinese government in many ways works much,
much harder for its actual citizenry than pretty much any other government I
can think of. Yet in the meanwhile, all the rancor of American politics is
non-existent over here. I don't have to listen to people whipped up about
sensationalized issues that don't really matter, whose eyes glaze over when
you talk about the few that do but go undiscussed.

Violent crime is almost non-existent. There are no ghettos or impoverished
underclasses here. The Beijing government put a lot of policies in place to
discourage the poor from around the country from moving in, and encourage
those who previously migrated here to migrate elsewhere; the city was too
crowded, and they wanted fewer poor. The policy worked; there are far fewer
very poor people looking for menial work (in short supply) in Beijing now, and
an even higher proportion of educated, hard-working, productive people.
Policies like these would cause an uproar in the West, with results for
Western cities as you'd expect. Crime, ghettos, underclasses, impoverishment.
Places in town it's unsafe to be at night. I could fall asleep anywhere in
Beijing at night, and the only thing I'd have to worry about is a policeman
coming up and telling me to move along.

It's great here. I never feel like "not a foreigner"; I definitely am one.
Some day perhaps I will be made to leave.

But that doesn't bother me, perhaps because I've never had a great need for
"belonging." And if someday China made me go, well, I have a list of places
I've visited and liked and would like to try living. I'll pick one and see how
it goes.

------
diminoten
I followed my fiancee, once I secured the ability to work remotely.

Also, Tulsa is starting a program where you get paid to work remotely from
from Tulsa: [https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/careers/tulsa-is-
offeri...](https://www.seattletimes.com/explore/careers/tulsa-is-offering-
remote-workers-10000-to-move-there/)

Dunno if that helps. Also email me if you wanna talk about it at all!

------
InGodsName
I am living where i get effective tax rate zero.

When you are a tech worker, you can afford to work remotely (ofcourse if your
skills are in demand, company has no problem with from where you work)

~~~
Lionga
where is that?

~~~
romanovcode
Dubai

