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Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

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41–50 of 759 posts

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#41
My wife and I live in Mexico. She works remotely, I did that for 10+ years, now I'm building my thing and taking some occasional freelance projects.

I won't deny there are some horror stories coming from Mexico, but I'm a European and have been living here since 2009. I've never seen or experienced anything even remotely violent. I paid for a mordida once, that's it. I've lived in Mexico City, Estado de México, Veracruz, Cancún, and now near Querétaro. I've travelled to most states either for tourism or work. Although I'm from Spain I totally look like a gringo so I never pass unnoticed.

We live in a little village about 3 hours from Mexico City with almost no crime at all. We only lock our door when leaving town. We have 200Mbps fiber. We rent a 3bdr house with garden for about $500 USD. Life is really good for us.

My wife is Mexican and her mother passed away a couple of months ago so we're now planning to go back to Europe in 2-3 years once my gig starts generating some income. There is not much here for her and I'm a bit bored of Mexico. We also don't like how the political situation is changing with Amlo.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#44

I live in Cambridge and its perfect for my needs, for now. Small university town, everything at bikeable distance, cosmopolitan: if I want to meet a person from any country or experience their cuisine, eveything is available here. London is just an hour away by train. And companies like Microsoft, Apple and IBM have their offices here. The only problem is that in UK its extremely hard to get a sense of community and…

Shame it's so astronomically expensive. I don't think I could ever afford a nice family house there. Don't really understand where all the lecturers and tech workers live.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#45

Deepest darkest corner of New Zealand, as long as it has an internet connection. Starlink can't come fast enough.

I can't imagine wanting to use satellite internet as my daily driver. A quick search says that the physical limit for latency is around 500ms? That's unplayable for most video games, and would make things like SSH'ing to a server pretty annoying.

But I imagine you'd probably go there to get away from things, and just rely on internet when absolutely needed.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#48
I would live in NYC, which is where I already live. NYC won't feel like NYC while we have SIP because there are no performances, no arts, etc.

But I'm hopeful that will all return in 18 months.

And so in my idealized remote setup, the balance I want is:

A) Work environment optimized for deep work. I run a company, but I've found a way to do that with very few meetings and very little email. Most weeks I just have one meeting and many days I don't send a single email.

B) Living environment optimized for people and culture. While a lot of restaurants are obviously going to have to declare for bankruptcy, I do think that people working from home are going to crave a social life and so I think the demand for pubs and restaurants will return.

NYC people resonate with me because I experience them as a diverse group of ambitious people. I'm constantly running into people in different industries, but who still share my basic interest/ambition to figure out how to succeed.

In order to make this work you need to have a decent office setup. But I'm sure that coworking will be able to meet the demands of people that want more work/life separation. That's a pattern that people who work for me often use: remote worker at a coworking desk. But I have a nice office setup for myself already even though NYC apartments are small.

(I am coupled, but we are intentionally child free.)

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#49
The same place I do now since I already work remotely. There are plenty of remote opportunities available.

As an aside, I am shocked how many of the responders here effectively say they will willfully violate local labor law in one or more countries and get their employers in potential legal trouble.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#50

For me, it's Montevideo, Uruguay. Now that Brexit has upended where I would live in Europe, this is the next best plan for us.

I live in Montevideo, Uruguay and i’m really interested on why would you like to live here? I was born here and think it’s a nice little place but would like to have the perspective from someone from the “outside”.

How is it living there? I'm from Buenos Aires, but I'm seriously thinking of leaving. Being close and much freer Uruguay is a natural choice, but I'm not entirely sure. Would you recommend emigrating to Montevideo?
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