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Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

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Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#31

Post by stephenr »

Honestly the biggest thing no one seems to be acknowledging here is the legal issues with this type of business.

Yeah you can just fly to Chiang Mai with your laptop and work from a coffee shop and no ones likely to care. Because you’re one person.

Setting up a company in another country is hard and often expensive. It’s hard to imagine how the business you describe wouldn’t come under the scrutiny of local immigration and/or labour officials, and face legitimate legal barriers and/or expectations of bribes (obviously depending on the nature of governments where you chose).

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#32

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

anm89 wrote: post #20
istorical wrote: post #19

I spent a good year trying to develop a website to answer this question and collect responses from people who'd done just this to try to aggregate their qualitative and quantitative experiences, before ultimately realizing this is something where you can sort of point out some of the obvious trade-offs but the value system and preferences of the individuals vary so much that unfortunately the only way to really deter…

Hey I would be very interested in touching base with you to hear what you learned in your research as I'm working on opening up a coliving space at the moment. Please reach out to the email in my profile if you are open to it. Thanks Andrew

Not OP but as a hobby I created and ran one of the most active backpacking/nomad group on fb and also a site wikinomad.

FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AussieBackpacking

The major issues with creating a one size fit all site is the bureaucracy of visas/immigration that depends on the user's location/passport/country of birth etc.

Then, it's hard to run a business from a different country. Its easier to visit as tourist but running a business is extra complicated.

If you have remote teams, timezones are major pain.

Apart from that the best place I found was Hawaii & Toronto. Australia is also really first class with free public amenities everywhere.

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#34

Post by remyp »

dbish wrote: post #16

If you’re catering to Americans and might want to move beyond just short term stays, Puerto Rico might be a great option for tax reasons and that you don’t need a visa. There are infrastructure and other problems there, so choosing the right location is important, and having a plan when hurricanes show up as well.

Most full-time American nomads claim the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion via the physical presence test, which would make anything on US soil a non-starter for them.

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#35

Post by BayAreaEscapee »

remyp wrote: post #34
dbish wrote: post #16

If you’re catering to Americans and might want to move beyond just short term stays, Puerto Rico might be a great option for tax reasons and that you don’t need a visa. There are infrastructure and other problems there, so choosing the right location is important, and having a plan when hurricanes show up as well.

Most full-time American nomads claim the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion via the physical presence test, which would make anything on US soil a non-starter for them.

Puerto Rico has its own tax system that you can elect instead of the United States Federal Income Tax. For some people this can result in a significant tax savings.

https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/06/02/puerto-rico-tax-incen...

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#36

Post by imwillofficial »

WorldPeas wrote: post #8

I've heard the Philippines are a pretty good place to stretch a buck... if you can stomach their draconian free speech restrictions and authoritarian politics

I look at it as being a good guest. I don't go to somebody's house and tell them how to arrange their furniture.

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#37

Post by digianarchist »

stephenr wrote: post #31

Honestly the biggest thing no one seems to be acknowledging here is the legal issues with this type of business. Yeah you can just fly to Chiang Mai with your laptop and work from a coffee shop and no ones likely to care. Because you’re one person. Setting up a company in another country is hard and often expensive . It’s hard to imagine how the business you describe wouldn’t come under the scrutiny of local immigrat…

It's worth noting that working in Thailand without a permit is illegal. Even if you're self employed or working for a foreign business.

In fact, there's only a handful of countries that you can work in without a permit.

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#38

Post by stephenr »

digianarchist wrote: post #37
stephenr wrote: post #31

Honestly the biggest thing no one seems to be acknowledging here is the legal issues with this type of business. Yeah you can just fly to Chiang Mai with your laptop and work from a coffee shop and no ones likely to care. Because you’re one person. Setting up a company in another country is hard and often expensive . It’s hard to imagine how the business you describe wouldn’t come under the scrutiny of local immigrat…

It's worth noting that working in Thailand without a permit is illegal. Even if you're self employed or working for a foreign business. In fact, there's only a handful of countries that you can work in without a permit.

I used to try telling people that too.

It doesn't get anywhere. The responses are any one of the same set: "they should appreciate my high $$ income supporting their economy", "I'm just one person who will notice", etc etc.

I'm well aware of the legalities of working in Thailand. I've lived here (Thailand) for 8 1/2 years, I'm director and own (with my wife) a company here.

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#39

Post by magicroot75 »

istorical wrote: post #19

I spent a good year trying to develop a website to answer this question and collect responses from people who'd done just this to try to aggregate their qualitative and quantitative experiences, before ultimately realizing this is something where you can sort of point out some of the obvious trade-offs but the value system and preferences of the individuals vary so much that unfortunately the only way to really deter…

Seems like you're just lacking robust statistical analysis. Survey 10,000 digital nomads on personality traits, where they have/haven't enjoyed, and then do factor analysis to identify buckets of digital nomad "types". It's extraordinarily unlikely that "every person needs to find out for themselves by trying a bunch of places."

Use similar questionnnaire to identify which nomad "type" the user is. Recommend them cities using a bayesian adjusting system.

Figuring out how many digital nomads "types" there are will take a while and be tricky. But I don't think this is an intractable problem.

Re: Ask HN: Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?

#40

Post by cosmodisk »

fy20 wrote: post #30
crossroadsguy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there such places in Europe? Spain? Portugal? And by good weather year round you meant warm or non-cold/wet weather, didn’t you?

The south coast of Portugal and the east coast of Spain have the mildest winters in mainland Europe, but it can still get a bit nippy (15c/60F highs in the day) during the coldest parts of the year. If you want to travel a bit further the Canary Islands will be warmer. Compared to northern Europe where this year has seen 5 months of winter, that's like paradise though :-)

I'm on the opposite when it comes to this: I like to have 4 proper seasons and all that comes with it. I remember visiting Malta and even though the sea and nice weather is nice,I don't think the novelty would last for too long, especially when you have to go around sweating all the time because it's simply too hot.
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