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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?

#91

Post by briggers »

adyus wrote: post #83
briggers wrote: post #10

I'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…

Be prepared for more of the same in Romania. Just like most of Eastern Europe, lovely place to visit, horrible place to live long-term. That being said, hit me up if you're in Bucharest :)

More of the same sounds fantastic. :)

I'll email you around the 20th, it would be great to have a beer and talk shop.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#92

Post by BTurkE »

Spone wrote: post #69
zalew wrote: post #23

define cheap , but: Warsaw (I may be obviously biased). Berlin. beautiful Praha (no idea how the tech market looks like there though).

I would warmly recommend Warsaw, Krakow or Wroclaw

I've lived in both Warsaw and Krakow. Both are quite cheap, particularly if you cook at home. I contracted for an American company for a while and put about 60% in the bank without trying.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#93

Post by _vn5r »

varsketiz wrote: post #89

Check out Vilnius (I'm obviously biased, but bear with me), Lithuania: Cheap: * Cheap rent. 500eu should get you a decent flat in the city centre without much research * Cheap cabs. Cabs that take you around will rarely cost more than 3-4eu * Cheap transportation options with Ryanair and Wizzair * Cheap internet and communications Not many other places will offer this great quality of life for ~1500eu/month. Obviousl…

How easy is it to get a VISA? I'm Nicaraguan.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#94

Post by askar_yu »

recuter wrote: post #58
aristidesfl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us know about Istambul please.

Seconded. It seems like a fantastic city, but I'm not sure what to make of the recent troubles or whether I could swing it as an Israeli (but I guess that problem is outside the scope of this thread, still I mentioned it on the off chance somebody has some wisdom to offer besides getting a second passport).

By recent troubles if you mean the protests, rest assured that it's nothing to be worried about. At least from personal security perspective.

By swinging, do you mean the requirements like visa, work-permit, residency-permit, etc.?

While seconding on the previous friendliness of Turks one thing I would add which is also something that struck me from time to time is Turks in Istanbul sometimes in a way are more European than they are "Turkish" (I don't intend to imply that they are mutually exclusive, or anything special for that matter. Just a figurative compare/contrast. I'll err on political correctness for getting the message across.)

PS, I spent about 2 years in Istanbul and loved every bit of it.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#95

Post by Cass »

kephra wrote: post #82
moonfern wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they have the "artist/self-employment visa" More info: http://4dayvisa.tumblr.com/ I would recommend Munich nice village with a good climate in the southern part of Germany.

Munich is extremely expensive, the natives there are right wing and known to be unfriendly to foreigners, who do not speak Bavarian. Recommending Munich to foreigners is like recommending southern US states to black people.

While Munich is in fact hellishly expensive, the Bavarian version of "right wing" is VERY different from what most Americans would probably expect when reading that phrase. (My general expression of the American right wing, particularly in the southern US states, as a German, is that it tends to be partly centered around opposition to issues such as gay rights, abortion, and free healthcare, which the average person from Munich tends to have very liberal views on, in my personal experience.) And my friends from other countries have uniformly told me that they've felt very welcome in Munich - there's a very high rate of people who speak English here, for one, more so than in more rural areas or some of the eastern states.

It's not a perfect city, of course, but I'd highly recommend it to any foreigner who's willing to put up with the prices.

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#96

Post by recuter »

askar_yu wrote: post #94
recuter wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seconded. It seems like a fantastic city, but I'm not sure what to make of the recent troubles or whether I could swing it as an Israeli (but I guess that problem is outside the scope of this thread, still I mentioned it on the off chance somebody has some wisdom to offer besides getting a second passport).

By recent troubles if you mean the protests, rest assured that it's nothing to be worried about. At least from personal security perspective. By swinging, do you mean the requirements like visa, work-permit, residency-permit, etc.? While seconding on the previous friendliness of Turks one thing I would add which is also something that struck me from time to time is Turks in Istanbul sometimes in a way are more Europe…

I just meant whether or not I can make friendly arrangements to hang around for a month or two, I think I can read between the lines enough here to conclude that the answer is yes. Thanks. :)

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#97

Post by shutupalready »

sebkomianos wrote: post #6

Depends on what you are looking for really. Are you a freelancer? Do you want to join a startup? Want to create one? Do you have clients already or are you on the hunt for some? Do you like big cities or prefer the countryside? Do you want a warm climate or want to stay in during cold nights?

When I go into a store and ask the salesman for help, his first question is invariably, What price range are you looking for?

Yes, I could answer his question (and the OP could answer your questions), but I prefer not to. I want to hear about all the options.

The OP might prefer a warm climate, but he might be willing to tolerate colder weather if he's told it's super cheap or has city-wide free wifi. He might be a freelancer but might change his objective if he heard that a particular country was granting easy visas for startup founders.

I know you're trying to be helpful by asking the OP to give a precise spec on what he wants, but this entire discussion would have been far less interesting if he had done so!

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#98

Post by zalew »

emilsundberg wrote: post #34

I would recommend you to keep out of Eastern Europe. The people there wants to believe they have left their history behind but they haven't. When I visited Budapest the police acted as Stasi and on the local metro they only asks foreigners for valid tickets. Very unfriendly. I would never recommend anyone going there.

Budapest ticket inspectors are not a representative of the Eastern Europe region, you know?

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#99

Post by igravious »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #5

I live in the UK and we use Pounds Sterling. When I travel to any country using the Euro prices are always relatively higher so I would recommend against a country using the Euro. I found this list showing Euro/Non-euro countries: http://www.aph.com/news/knowbeforeyougo/euro_countries.shtml

topic: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

> I would recommend against a country using the Euro.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone

Dude, 17 out 27 EU member states use the € with Latvia joining 1 Jan 2014 and Lithuania 1 Jan 2015. Population of Eurozone: 330 million. Good luck coming to Europe and avoiding the Eurozone: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

Some of these places are really really cheap to live in and work in, and life on the ground varies drastically _within_ countries as well, especially bigger countries like Germany - witness Munich versus Berlin. Yours is the most bizarre advice I've heard in a long long while.

For the interested check out the variation in GDP per capita by region:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_regions_by_GD...

Goes from ~ €80,000 to ~ €7,000

Re: Ask HN: What's the best place in Europe to live and work cheaply?

#100

Post by lfittl »

phaer wrote: post #57
lfittl wrote: post #3

Personal 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.

But, in general, you don't live cheaply there especially compared to other cities of the area like Bratislava or Budapest. Prices in Restaurants, Coffee shops, etc are the same as in most other capitals of western Europe. Source: I grew up in Vienna and lived there until 3 month ago. I am now living in Chania, Greece and it's quite cheap to live, has a beautiful old town, nice beaches and fantastic mountains around.…

Yeah, agreed. Its all relative, thats why I used "affordable" instead of "cheap".

In my head I compare Vienna with London and the US (SF/NYC/etc) which are 2-3x as expensive, plus healthcare is worse.

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