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

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

#221

Post by atlasunshrugged »

jedberg wrote: post #163
dijit wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Helsinki for a short period, and genuinely it's awesome. It was too expensive to live central in Helsinki so I lived in Vantaa. This was not a problem as the public transportation is not over-capacity and is very punctual. When I lived there though, there was only one underground "Metro" line- not sure if that changed. Getting to Vantaa requires an overground inter-city train. As for the experience: everyt…

> everything felt very "human"- like it was designed for comfort and ease When I was in Helsinki, I could tell the entire place had been designed to take care of people. When we first arrived, we tried to buy train tickets, and were then told that families with strollers ride for free! I didn't see any homeless people, and the one sort of "off-balance" person was clearly still getting food and health care. The entir…

RE homeless people - when I went (several times as I lived across the bay in Tallinn) the only homeless people I saw were refugees or pretend refugees (someone told me it was an organized crime thing but I have no knowledge of whether that's true or not) and I'm not even sure those people were truly homeless or just panhandling

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

#223

Post by izolate »

habosa wrote: post #185

Philadelphia It's one of the five biggest cities in the US but most people routinely look past it. First of all it's fairly cheap, less than half as expensive as SF even in the nicest parts. It's got the best restaurant scene of any city I've spent time in (and almost all are free BYO). It's got a great art scene including a ton of amazing live music. 4 sports teams with passionate fan bases. It's racially diverse (n…

As somebody who just started a remote role and is in the process of signing a lease in Philly, this is good to hear :)

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

#224

Post by cddotdotslash »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #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…

I've also been working remotely from NYC - lived here for about 7 years now. Agree with everything you've said. The people and the level of ambition and energy here is unrivaled anywhere else I've been, save for maybe Tokyo or Hong Kong. I'm also optimistic that things will return to some semblance of normal within a year or two. I'm also hopeful that the coming months will provide a bit of a reset with lower prices that will allow residents or businesses that were previously priced out to return.

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

#225

Post by atlasunshrugged »

I would love to go back to Berlin. I'm originally from SF and lived a few places in the US and Europe (SF, SD, Reno, London, Tallinn, Berlin, Shanghai) but Berlin blows them all away. It's got a good mix of people - not dominated by tech or art or anything so you don't have to get the quintessential SF experience of everyone you meet working on a startup idea. Centrally located, you can (or could) jump on a quick flight anywhere else in Europe and many neighborhoods feel small so you can still get the small town vibe even in a big city. Plus, in Berlin your freak flag can really fly and no one cares - SF I think they claim that but people actually are very homogenous and you get penalized for not following the unwritten codes

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

#226

Post by _xnmw »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #215
_xnmw wrote: post #201

Moscow or Saint Petersburg. I'm ethnically Sri Lankan, born and educated in Toronto and I've spent quite a bit of time in the Bay Area, but I've become disillusioned with the West. It just amazes my friends that you can live a comfortable middle-class life in Russia on $800 per month. But aside from being cheap, I just feel like it's a place of great opportunity and future power. There's that immense energy of Russia…

You can live well for that cheap in Moscow or St. Petersburg? I'm surprised, I figured they were a bit more expensive. How is it for speaking English (or do you speak Russian?), making friends, etc.?

Learning Russian is a must. Yes you can live for that cheap, if you like the older Soviet-era grungy apartments further from the metro (I love them). It's hard to make any kind of meaningful connections if you don't speak Russian. And there are gangsters who can be openly hostile to non-Russian speaking people - but if you speak Russian and know how to carry yourself like a native you'll be fine, no matter the colour of your skin. Few people speak more than a few words of English, though there is a small native-English-speaking expat community in Moscow. I've been studying Russian for 6 months part-time, and I speak enough to make friends, though I definitely plan to dedicate another year of full-time studies to become fluent.

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

#227

Post by nsenifty »

canada_dry wrote: post #160
SNosTrAnDbLe wrote: post #93

My village in Kerala, India. I got a house and I have a small patch of land which is very fertile and plenty of water (there are places with water scarcity). I get to watch the monsoon rains. The beach is like a couple of miles away. The mountains are also quite close and its very beautiful and its very much untouched nature. It's also very hot and humid but I am fine with that. Also, they get fiber so the internet i…

Gotta say Kerala looks pretty livable. https://www.google.ca/maps/@8.0832685,77.5565189,3a,75y,326.... Traveling through India for a couple months is on my bucket list, and now Kerala is part of that.

That is from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, not Kerala.

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

#229

Post by DrJokepu »

wenc wrote: post #220
DrJokepu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you’ll feel the same way after your first winter though

I live in Chicago, and to be honest, it's not that bad if you own a car. (Chicago is relatively car friendly). Winters are harder for those who don't own a car -- and many don't, but they manage fine by just bundling up. Anecdotally one hears of people leaving Chicago for a warmer climate, but it's more common for people to leave the city to move to the suburbs (better schools) or to neighboring Indiana (lower COL) -…

I live in rural Northeast so I’m fairly familiar with the weather. We had snow two weeks ago, which is just disrespectful. But I guess it’s all a matter of taste.

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

#230

Post by rr_aa »

_xnmw wrote: post #201

Moscow or Saint Petersburg. I'm ethnically Sri Lankan, born and educated in Toronto and I've spent quite a bit of time in the Bay Area, but I've become disillusioned with the West. It just amazes my friends that you can live a comfortable middle-class life in Russia on $800 per month. But aside from being cheap, I just feel like it's a place of great opportunity and future power. There's that immense energy of Russia…

This is exactly the image that Putin's power wants to project to foreigners - did you travel to russia or know people actually living there? The country is still extremely corrupt and opportunities might be more scarce than you think. A lot of people would move out of there if they could.

No doubt that as a tech worker you can make a decent living pretty much anywhere, and I guess you are lucky enough to not be a woman or fall under the LGBT umbrella to be able to see the uprising of "family values" as a good thing.

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