Budapest, Hungary:
https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=budapest&tbm=isch
Nice downtown apartments are $300 USD/mo.
Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
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Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#12Personal Preference: Vienna, Austria I'm from there, but part of the reason why I keep coming back is cause its affordable to rent, even in the hip districts (600-700 EUR for 1br) + a great city to live + good bunch of startups + cheap for flying in/out. Prague is similar. Also heard great things about Sofia, but haven't lived there (yet). And Berlin is of course a good option as well.
Salaries and startup scene in Prague are not by far what you can find in Vienna though.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#13I'm in Sofia, Bulgaria right now, doing contract work for international clients. Rent is generally very cheap, 250EU/mo for a central apartment (12mo lease). I am staying here only a month however, so am paying a lot more. Eating out, beer etc is very cheap. Numbeo gets it about right. Amusingly, most Bulgarians I speak to ask why I would want to come to Bulgaria of all places. I guess it's like many places: great fu…
What did you think of Istanbul? I just spent the last half year living and working in Europe, and I was thinking about returning next year, with Istanbul high on the list for a month or two.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#14I'm in Sofia, Bulgaria right now, doing contract work for international clients. Rent is generally very cheap, 250EU/mo for a central apartment (12mo lease). I am staying here only a month however, so am paying a lot more. Eating out, beer etc is very cheap. Numbeo gets it about right. Amusingly, most Bulgarians I speak to ask why I would want to come to Bulgaria of all places. I guess it's like many places: great fu…
Let us know about Istambul please.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#15This was the original thread (I think my post led to this one, which split the responses):
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#16You can move to some low-tax or no-tax country. I can recommend Andorra, 0% income tax and reasonable prices for pretty much anything , rent, food, alcohol etc :) I also heard Belarus has almost no tax and its very cheap to live there, but there will be lots of bureaucracy :)
"lots of bureaucracy" being code for authoritarian dictatorship...
I suppose if you want to learn about how you don't actually live in a police state in the West you could move there.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#17You can move to some low-tax or no-tax country. I can recommend Andorra, 0% income tax and reasonable prices for pretty much anything , rent, food, alcohol etc :) I also heard Belarus has almost no tax and its very cheap to live there, but there will be lots of bureaucracy :)
Hey, I am from Belarus.
True about taxes. There are almost no taxes (fixed 9%) for IT companies especially comparing to western countries. But, there are:
1. No shipment from amazon, ebay.
2. Startup culture is in really early stage. People talking about startups, but there are only few of them who have really achieved something
3. Most of European citizens need to have visa (not sure about price) to get there.
4. Coworking/hacker spaces are at the same stage as startup culture.
Hope these things will get sorted out in a few years :) However, if someone decides to go work from Minsk - send me note, I will show you around.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#18Personal Preference: Vienna, Austria I'm from there, but part of the reason why I keep coming back is cause its affordable to rent, even in the hip districts (600-700 EUR for 1br) + a great city to live + good bunch of startups + cheap for flying in/out. Prague is similar. Also heard great things about Sofia, but haven't lived there (yet). And Berlin is of course a good option as well.
+1 to this based on anecdotal data from friends. That's if considering former "Western Europe" block of countries and excluding Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and others.
Budapest is quite nice too, strong expat community, strong programmers and generally nice people. Bitch of a language though, very contrived.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#19Porto, Portugal: It has a river, sea and beaches, lots of history, nice weather, great food, nice people and it's inexpensive. It also has Ryan Air, which means that you can visit other parts of Europe cheaply (If you like a little bigger city then Lisbon, Portugal is also an option.
Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?
#20Parts of the UK outside London are actually pretty cheap to live in.
I live in Edinburgh, slap in the middle of the city, which is also a World Heritage Site. I have a 5 minute walk to work and flat (apartments...) go for £500/800 for a 1/2 bed.
Other parts of the UK are much cheaper again.