Zürich
12-15 euro for a kebab. They must be seasoning everything with gold there. But it's a nice city if you manage to live there and its expensiveness works generally as a quality filter so most people are educated and smart.
Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
101–110 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#102Check out http://numbeo.com for a great way to compare the cost between different cities.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#103Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Both of these cities have loads of expats and intellectually stimulating environments.
Big and spacious apartments for $1000/mo or less. Fibre @ 40mbps for $100/mo or thereabouts. A country that has both tropical and Mediterranean climates (think of the fruit and veggies!) with beautiful nature (esp. CT where it's integrated with the city).
Eat out every night in style at prices cheaper than a European corner cafe. In my experience EU food is overrated and expensive. Have been to America many years ago an all I can remember is that people and portions are big!
Yes, there's crime. Happy to answer any questions.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was talking to someone about tech culture in Germany earlier. How easy is it to get a tech job out there?
Comes down on what you want to get. It is easy to find jobs at startups because there is a shortage of developers here but on the other side it is hard to find entry level jobs overall. But I guess this is true for most of the major cities. Mentioning here that startups are not really obsessed by technology, at least most of them. There is this a weird mindset going around I think that technology is a 2nd class citiz…
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Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#105In order to give any kind of really meaningful feedback I'd have to ask a couple of other questions: 1) Define "cheap". You're in the Bay Area, which is by every definition the opposite of "cheap", but substituting that with something like Seattle or Austin or Brooklyn doesn't sound like it's accomplishing what you're looking for to me, even though it's absolutely cheaper. You said you want to focus on your own intel…
Living in the Bay Area means you're used to cool and rainy Rainy ? Rain averages 13-14 inches a year in San Jose.
I'm not saying it's Seattle or Portland... should I have said "misty" or "gray and miserable"? The specific amount of sky water wasn't really the point of the question.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Avoid working for local companies in Poland unless you like low pay. Just find yourself a nice remote gig (there's plenty of them if you know how to find them) and live like the top .001% of the country or whatever. There's a good reason why being a "digital nomad" is becoming more and more popular. Healthcare starts at ~$130/mo if you manage to not pay for the retirement fund scam (rarely possible), goes up to like…
> find yourself a nice remote gig (there's plenty of them if you know how to find them Any starting point?
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#107I can wholeheartedly recommend Amsterdam (or surrounding places).
Everyone speaks English, pay is good, and work-life balance makes a lot of difference.
Commutes are generally short, you get ~26 paid holidays per year (sick leave is separate from that)...
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#108Barcelona - 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…
I second this. But definitely try to get a remote SE job there. The pay is laughable compared to for example Berlin. Which is also a great city to work and live in.
Not sure if it is much of an English-speaking friendly place, though. After visiting Barcelona and Valencia, I definitely think that without learning Spanish one can hardly thrive in these cities.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#109I live in SF as well, I find Portland a very good alternative.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#110Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Both of these cities have loads of expats and intellectually stimulating environments. Big and spacious apartments for $1000/mo or less. Fibre @ 40mbps for $100/mo or thereabouts. A country that has both tropical and Mediterranean climates (think of the fruit and veggies!) with beautiful nature (esp. CT where it's integrated with the city). Eat out every night in style at pri…
The northern parts of Durban (Umhlanga / Ballito) is also nice. Good fibre infrastructure, relatively safe. Well developed. Tropical Climate.
Very English.