Ask HN: Where to live internationally while learning to program?

Im currently in medellin, colombia, 2Mb/s broadband with cable tv,phone, costs around $50/month, and my reasonable sized apartment is $370/month (6 month contract). In buenos aires, rentals were almost double for something similar (capital city pricing), and rio was slightly more expensive again (the Brazilian Real is very strong at the moment). If you would prefer not to stay in one place then most countries have 3g in major cities and usually you can find a prepaid plan which is reasonably priced as long as you use it for browsing rather than lots of youtube.

India, and thailand are less expensive than latin america, but it would be harder to learn the language and you'll more likely be spending time with other travellers. Although, given you're on a gap year, then travellers hangouts in asia (beachs, mountains etc) could be fun. I enjoyed Salvador in Brazil, lots of live music and dancing, Rio not so much, Buenos Aires feels very european in a good way, and it has the liveliness of a capital city. I've heard good things about Chang Mai and the islands in Thailand. I spent several years in India and it is very cheap and very different , but except for Goa is generally not so much of a party place compared to say, Thailand. In some places, craigslist will give you a rough idea of apartment pricing - although often there are many agents charging ridiculous prices, so find ads from private landlords to get a rough idea. Otherwise use hostelbookers.com or hostelworld.com , as a proxy for rental prices. Lonely Planet thorntree forums are probably worth a search to get some kind of idea of a destination and/or prices.

But if you don't speak foreign languages, I would consider n. Europe as many of them speak good English and you won't feel so alienated. You can also sign up for prog. courses in English abroad. Also, if you are not a super duper independent learner, being in a class or in a study group will get the best bang in the shortest time.