I have made such a list myself.
Asia: Bangkok, ChiangMai, Taiwan, Shanghai, Beijing, Hanoi.
Europe: Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Berlin, Varsaw
Not sorted
Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
191–200 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
How bad is it there for sexual/gender minorities (aka gay/trans people). Is it livable if you are visibly transgender?
East Europe is the most traditional family oriented area that I know. Politics and mentalities follow that trend. Despite being a piece of heaven to a lot of people, I wouldn't recommend it to everybody.
Seconded. Poland is probably the most religious and conservative country in the EU.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#193Kiev , Lviv , Kharkiv in Ukraine are extremely cheap, it’s still in Europe, and it has tons of talents. It’s a known talent pool actually. Eating out starts from $2 usd, for $3-4 you could even have a service in the restaurant. Renting a flat starts from $200/mo for some sub urbs areas. You can rent some office space for $150/mo I bet in most places you called cheap you spent more on coffee and smoothies.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#194I lived a year in Vilnius and after the usual struggle to get connected found the startup community there quite thriving. Still, most of my friends where expats. You can live comfortably on 1300 EUR/month. (Average salary is 1000 EUR, but probably a bit higher in Vilnius). To evaluate visit first in winter because it’s the worst time.
Vilnius (and Lithuania in general) also has really great infrastructure - 1Gbps unlimited FTTH costs less than 20 EUR/month, 4G penetration and prices are better than almost anywhere else in Europe.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#195Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is an option to consider. Strategically located in growing Southeast Asia and well connected. Most folks in the city speaks English in the city, so you wont have issues getting around. There is a growing tech community here as well with a some notable startups/companies. Cost of living wise, magnitude lower than neighboring Singapore, as such a good consideration
KL is also polluted and very dirty. I couldn't recommend it to someone used to clean air and clean streets.
He said he's from the Bay area so I doubt he's used to clean air and clean streets. :)
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#196Bangalore, India.
Not a very good place to "live" - the traffic is _insane_, and you have to deal with us Indians.
But on the plus side, a dollar goes a long long way in India. Bangalore is on the expensive side for Indians. To put things into perspective, a decent dev job in India gets you 1300$ per month after taxes and comfortably puts you in the upper middle class. Monthly rent for a 3BHK apartment at a good location will be around 500-600$. So if you're planning to live off your savings, Bangalore is going to be cheap for you.
The weather is great.
The city is dubbed as the silicon valley of India, so lots of nerds, startups, and hackathons. But if you're into the more academic sort of intellectual pursuits, India is generally not the place for that.
Most of the people you want to interact with would speak English. Urban Bangalore is anglicized. But any "locals" you hire for help (yes, you will be able to afford a house help) will definitely not speak English.
On the other side, living in India would let you travel a lot. Just like Europe, the language and culture change every 300-400 km.
I can't stress enough how cheap India is going to be for you. However, keep in mind that everything else in the country is abysmal.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#197Barcelona - one of the best all-around cities in the world (climate/culture/architecture/world proximity/quality of living/beach/mountains) and a growing tech scene. Very easy to pick up development work here for a local company, you won't be required to know Spanish/Catalan for a job. The only downsides are that the pay is relatively low (€43k average for SE) and it can be quite difficult to find a place to live wit…
Barcelona is not one of the best all-around cities for sure. 1) climate -- not moderate, only good if you enjoy extremely hot summers 2) culture -- obscured by the tourism industry in the city. Pretty much all restaurants try to rip you off, public parks charge entry for certain areas, everything culture-related is aimed and priced for tourists. 3) architecture -- nice, but not really exceptional. buildings really ti…
Barca has a specific kind of interesting architecture in places, but in others ... it's like ugly blocks of buildings from the 1960's. It's an odd town.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you compare it to Madrid?
Madrid is a thousand times better. You feel the spanish culture everywhere you go. You’re also not suffocating in Barcelona’s tourism.
The reason for Barcelona not having as much spanish culture might be that they are catalan..
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#199I’d recommend Ann Arbor if you don’t mind the midwestern winters. [0] UMich is there, and you’ll find people in academia working on very interesting problems. Very friendly locals too. [0] https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/most-educated-cities-i...
I grew up in Michigan, and hated it until a few years ago when my sister moved to Grand Rapids. GRR has some of the best veggie/vegan food I've had in the world, a strong arts scene and an equally vibrant underground music scene.
Ann Arbor is also quite fantastic. I study middle-eastern percussion, and Ann Arbor is a hub for my musical world. Every time I visit family in Michigan I take a couple of days to play house parties, go to concerts, take lessons, and jam. The Arabic/Turkish music scene there is very vibrant, and the city itself is unexpectedly diverse for the midwest.
The cost of living in Michigan is lower than in some third world countries. I bought my mother a house in Grand Rapids, in cash, for less than 25% of what it would have cost me for a down-payment on a 750 ft^2 condo in a really bad neighborhood in San Francisco.
The weather, however, is the deal-closer for me. Winters are pretty miserable.
(edited for clarity and punctuation)
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#200Bangalore, India. Not a very good place to "live" - the traffic is _insane_, and you have to deal with us Indians. But on the plus side, a dollar goes a long long way in India. Bangalore is on the expensive side for Indians. To put things into perspective, a decent dev job in India gets you 1300$ per month after taxes and comfortably puts you in the upper middle class. Monthly rent for a 3BHK apartment at a good loca…
Just keep in mind they put their dollars sign on the wrong side of the values. That might be a deal breaker