In an old school bus conversion somewhere in Alaska. I spent some time there once and I've always wanted to go back.
Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
501–510 of 759 posts
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#502Kinda living it already; Taiwan. Love it here. Close to Japan and Korea, and my remote company is in Japan. I would like to try living in Europe someday ( Switzerland would be awesome ) but I don't make enough money to do that yet. And there are visa issues too. If I were forced to live back in the states, probably Boulder, Co. Maybe Brunswick Maine. Honestly though, health care keeps me from moving back to the State…
been to Switzerland a number of time and honestly it is extremely boring, I wouldn't wish that to anyone (unless you only care about the nature)
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#503I live in Lisbon. 10m walk from the riverside, 30m uphill walk to the center, gigabit fiber, (currently) 100% remote. Would only trade for something directly on the seaside, or a little more to the West (Cascais, Guincho) for a slightly cooler climate, but those usually imply driving (which I detest) and lack “big city” amenities (most of which I can’t enjoy right now). Have zero intention of ever going back to an of…
I visited Lisbon twice and I always felt like this was the city to work remotely from. The food is good, the people are super nice and chill and seem to appreciate life, the cost of living was low, and the weather was amazing.
Seeing the answers in this thread, I think people should get out of the US and visit cities like Lisbon to understand what it means to live.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#504I've been working almost entirely remote (some occasional short periods of going to a small office with clients) for about 12 years.
For most of it, I've been living in Thailand (almost 8 years). Lifestyle here is pretty laid back, but you need to be more aware of your own/your family's safety, in a whole lot of different ways. It's also not particularly easy on foreigners if you want to run a company here, but it's doable. I believe Americans will have a slightly easier time with this, due to an agreement between the countries.
There is a somewhat-formed plan for us to move back to Australia at some point, and we'll almost certainly end up somewhere outside of the major cities, probably one of the larger towns in Victoria.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just curious, which countries in SE Asia would you recommend?
KL (my hometown) is great. There's reliable gigabit internet, which is important to remote workers I reckon. Dying to convince tech folks to come here instead of Singapore.
As a citizen you might not see it but Malaysia is tough for foreign developers and foreigners in general. I mean it's tough even for decent local developers, all the good ones get out asap. The only acceptable foreigner workers for most of the population are the ones who will do menial jobs, everyone else isn't wanted there. In SG no one cares about you being a foreigner.
Theres few options available to someone trying to work in Malaysia remotely:
- Get business visa sponsorship for a local job, be treated terribly and earn a bit more than local dev rates which are still lower than what you get flipping burgers in the West and work your remote job on the side.
- Apply for the Tech Entrepreneur visa which is inward looking and needs to either employ locals or be focused on the Malaysian market to be successful.
- Third option is buying a house and getting a 10 year renewable visa from that, the recent situation with the government banning permanent residents from returning home due to covid shows how little value PR actually grants you.
Not really conducive to remote workers moving there to live. Internet is great though and most services are well provided for.
I couldn't live in KL longterm, was there for most of a year and it really wasn't for me, there's some nice suburbs and all that but the pollution and soulless aspect of the city really gets to you after a while, it's so car-centric with malls everywhere being the only place you are encouraged to be a pedestrian.
For someone like me who likes to go out and drink a bit it's incredibly expensive. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day costs basically nothing though which is amusing as a non-smoker. It's also hard to justify living in and supporting a country where people pay different prices for the same house based on their race along with a myriad of other race based laws, it's very backwards in a lot of ways. Everywhere has problems but these ones seem quite in your face once you live there for long enough. Bumiputera laws are bizarre and counterproductive to any semblance of a healthy society.
Penang is charming though and has a lot going for it, along with a big expat community, fresh air and always close to nature, Langkawi is a cheap 15 min flight away, it was once the "Silicon Valley of the East" but never really capitalised on that, regardless there's still a lot of tech manufacturing and associated industry.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
KL (my hometown) is great. There's reliable gigabit internet, which is important to remote workers I reckon. Dying to convince tech folks to come here instead of Singapore.
Having spent the last few months stuck in Singapore's awful lockdown, I'm pretty convinced it's not the place for me. Can't wait to get back home to HK. I'm starting to miss the smell of teargas. That said, wasn't the biggest fan of KL when I visited. It gave me "trying too hard to be Singapore and failing" vibes. Was much happier chilling in Langkawi. For a big SE Asia mega-city, BKK or Saigon are far more livable t…
Langkawi is currently reeling from the virus. They are dependent on the Chinese cruise crowd and that have dried up completely. I expect real estate prices will see a hit.
On the bright side, they're likely to be the first spot in Malaysia to get 5G, so that will bode well for an emerging tech scene.
Expats love it because sin items (tabacco and alcohol) are not only tolerated, but duty free. People buy a house right next to the airport and fly to KL / Singapore for their once a fortnight big-city fix.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#507Colorado. I'd move up to a smaller mountain town somewhere close enough to a bigger city that you can still drive down for the evening. But the weather and the mountains up there have been in my heart for years. In the summer it's just all green and blue, sunny but 75 degrees.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah everyone loves those things too, they just don't want to deal with the cost and quality of life from the homeless/drug problem. I walked up to beautiful Corona Heights today and saw all of the amazing views, but then I walked home past the ever-increasing numbers of tents popping up on the street to my overpriced apartment in the mission where I currently have to listen to one mentally disabled homeless person s…
Well if we built housing for those people they wouldn’t have to live in tents. And if we provided mental health services to all people there would be fewer people who slip to homelessness in the first place.
Yes but do we have to build houses for them in one of the most physically constrained places (partly geographic, partly zoning) on Earth?
There seems to be this strange idea that people put forth that your options are simply between living in the most expensive city in the country or being homeless in the most expensive city in the country.
How about Modesto? I think you would find plenty of support from people who genuinely would like for those people to have somewhere to live. The problem is that the opposition wouldn't accept it. It would come off as some perverse form of gentrification, under the implication that anybody "deserves" to live anywhere. I personally have always found the argument that "I should be able to continue living here, because I lived here previously" to be incredibly uncompelling. What about people who weren't born in fantastic cities?
The fact that the Tenderloin is where it is, in what would probably be some of the best real estate in the city, is absolutely insane. I think you would find that there is all the good will in the world from people, if the proposed solutions make sense. They just don't.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#509Still around the Seattle Area, but a cabin deep in the Cascade mountains where I could go hiking every day, or snowshoeing in the winter.
Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?
#510There are three places I would consider, two more practical than the third:
1. Los Angeles, where I am from. Slightly cheaper and I would be close to family. Even though there are plenty of beaches in the Bay Area, they are not as easily accessible as they are down here.
2. Mammoth/Eastern Sierra. When I was in grad school and working as a consultant, I lived there for two years summer and winter, despite not being a skier. I wouldn't mind spending a few weeks working remote here and there (I have a place there), but I couldn't live there again. It's tucked away, snow is a pain, and you get sick of the tourists really fast.
3. Hawaii. I love Hawaii. But, it's a long flight to get home and the Bay Area is already far enough away for me. It's also expensive and I imagine it would get boring quickly since I am mostly into biking and hiking rather than water sports.