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Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

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Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#271

Post by ody4242 »

mahasvin wrote: post #99
59nadir wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungary consistently ranks as having the lowest percentage of English speaking people in Europe. It's perhaps one of the few countries where this would actually still be an issue in Europe.

Well, its survivable. I drove twice via "non-central" Hungary this year. And people understand basic English. However, can't comment on availability of English-speaking communities of smart individuals in Hungary.

As an IT professional living in Hungary atm, take my advice and don't come here. I've been living in Stockholm, Madrid and Wien for a while, so I have comparison. The intellectual community is evaporating, and although the city is nice, that shine will only last for a couple of a weeks. If I had a remote job, I'd go back to Madrid, loved it there :)

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#272

Post by calgoo »

alt_f4 wrote: post #161
siquick wrote: post #90

Barcelona - 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…

As someone who has lived in Barcelona for over 23 years now I agree with some of these points, but it also depends where you go in the city.

1) Climate - Yes the summers are warm, but not extremely hot, I have a lot worse time when i go visit the southern US for example.

2) Yes I totally agree we have way too much tourism in the city. However, the restaurants that try to rip you off etc are all in the touristy areas, and most of us who live here dont go down to those areas anyway. Regarding paying for parks, its 1 park, and if you live here its free. Most colture-related stuff has good cheaper offers for local citizens.

3) This is just personal taste, the city center is the old city with over 1000 years of history, its normal that the streets are small and disorganized.

4) Yes its expensive to live here, but we also have a great quality of life, with lots of places to go eat, drink and enjoy yourself. Yes the local salaries are quite on the low end, but if you find a good international company you should be fine.

5) I dont know where you come from, but its not unbearable; also there is tons of walking culture in this city. There is an great public transport that can get you almost anywhere in the city in just a few minutes. Most people dont drive, or even own a car, its mostly people living outside the city (or on rainy days). We do have days that are worse in regards to traffic and pollution, but this is a problem most large cities are facing and there are projects in place to improve.

So im sorry if you have had a bad time in Barcelona, and I agree there are things that need work, but its not as horrible as you say. Hopefully they keep adding bike lanes and continue to reduce the car traffic in the city center.

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#273

Post by jnaina »

flavor8 wrote: post #65
msadowski wrote: post #22

If you feel adventurous you can consider moving to Poland. I would recommend Krakow. Most young people will speak English, there are couple of top Universities there (PK and AGH for technical schools, UJ for humanities, medicine and some tech too and UE for economics). The tech scene seems to be constantly growing, with lots of international companies having their offices there. As a senior dev in Poland you can earn…

You'd have to be quite apolitical to consider a move to Poland right now.

Warsaw is a beautiful city with quite an active and thriving tech community. I thought of moving there after a visit recently, until I heard about a recent city sanctioned far right rally attended by 60K people demanding a "White Europe". Any dreams of moving to Poland ended after that

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#274

Post by isostatic »

rolleiflex wrote: post #239
nelsonic wrote: post #229

Depending on your ability to work remotely, I would make the "case" that you should consider Portugal . Lisbon and Porto are super popular with ["digital nomad"] remote workers who work for international companies so earn in USD but spend [much less] in Euros for a superb lifestyle. There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. It's one of the cheapest cities in Europe and [unlike Barcelona] everyone sp…

This is awesome. I live in SF, and have a base in Istanbul, which is from what I heard, similar to Lisbon in many aspects — but I would be hesitant to recommend it without at least a willingness to learn Turkish. There are some digital nomads here in HN based in Istanbul, though. Nevertheless - my point was, you’re living my dream and I’ll definitely give a visit when my life allows for a Portugal trip. Never been ye…

Istanbul (and all of Turkey, obv.) is run by a dictator who tortures detainees, and arbitarilly arrests journalists and human rights workers

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/europe-and-central-asia...

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#275

Post by CalRobert »

Kovah wrote: post #168

There are some smaller German cities like Göttingen which have - in my opinion - a high intellectual atmosphere because they are so called university-cities: lot's of students and academics in a rather small city. And, in comparison with big cities like Berlin or Munich, the rents are much cheaper: from what I know you pay 2/3 to half of the price for the same amount of space. Example: a flat with 55-60 qm is about 6…

How would Berlin compare to a town like Leipzig? Seems like Berlin is getting comparatively expensive.

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#276

Post by quantummkv »

blocked_again wrote: post #231
quantummkv wrote: post #201

Have you considered Pune in India? The area has an excellent tech scene with both established companies and startups. It has excellent universities and the area has a lot of students and institutions. Everyone knows English in here. The area itself is has lots of beautiful places around for trekking and exploring if you are into that sort of thing, especially in the monsoon season. And it's cheap. Really cheap. For 2…

What do you mean by Pune has excellent tech scene? There are lot of consulting companies in Pune but I dont think that qualifies as excellent tech scene. What are the excellenet Universities in Pune? The only thing I agree with you is its cheap. So is the rest of Asia and the world compared to San Francisco. Lol. Moving from SFO to Pune would be one of the worst things you can do if you are a foreigner.

> There are lot of consulting companies in Pune but I dont think that qualifies as excellent tech scene.

I am a software engineer, I live here and I assure that I don't work in a consulting company. A lot of my friends actually don't. Infosys and TCS may be big but they are not the only companies in here, you know. It's like saying there no companies in SV other that social media empires.

> What are the excellenet Universities in Pune? Universiy of Pune? Symbiosis? They may not be IIT's or MIT's but they are better than a lot of other universities in India and in Asia. Plus you have lot of other institues such as FTII and a lot of government/military institutes. Certainly a better intellectual environment than other places in Asia.

No offense but it looks like your knowledge of Pune comes from a outdated source or a glance over a google search.

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#277

Post by stef25 »

nabaraj wrote: post #9
baxtr wrote: post #4

If you really consider moving abroad, then Berlin might be a good option. It has a decent American expat community, it's relatively “cheap” and culturally rich.

I was talking to someone about tech culture in Germany earlier. How easy is it to get a tech job out there?

Lots of startups there, if you're the right person you will get hired.

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#278

Post by ur-whale »

msadowski wrote: post #22

If you feel adventurous you can consider moving to Poland. I would recommend Krakow. Most young people will speak English, there are couple of top Universities there (PK and AGH for technical schools, UJ for humanities, medicine and some tech too and UE for economics). The tech scene seems to be constantly growing, with lots of international companies having their offices there. As a senior dev in Poland you can earn…

Weather and outdoors aren't great in Krakow. Language is also a pretty big problem: true, some educated youngsters will speak English, but the bulk of the population doesn't speak a word. Would not recommend.

Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

#280

Post by dathinab »

CalRobert wrote: post #256
sneak wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin is nothing like Silicon Valley. It’s a great city but job offers there are 60-80% lower salaries compared to the US, which makes Berlin being marginally cheaper (but with higher taxes) not really worth it.

The complete elimination of auto expenses helps a lot. And frankly, it's hard to put a price on 6 weeks' _guaranteed_ vacation per year. And true, salaries are lower, but 60-80%?? Obviously headhunters and published ranges are to be taken with a grain of salt but a HH was trying to entice me with 90k in Berlin for data engineering a while ago and that, while not SV money, is better than "60-80% less"

It's min. 4 Weeks (by law) + national/regional holidays, which differ based on region in Germany and might overlap with Saturday/Sunday if anyone is interested in it. It's still pretty nice.
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