As an extension to the common advice here (move where the academics are), check what research you enjoy and find out which universities produce that research. Then, secondly see if there is a meetup scene where the people doing this research at the graduate level hang out. That should get you into some network or another once you filter the alternative by living cost threshold.
Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
31–40 of 1001 posts
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#32Honestly, I think Cambridge MA may give you that environment.
It _sounds_ like he plans on quitting his job and trying to "get by" for a while, hence needing the cheaper cost of living. While Cambridge would definitely scratch the intellectual itch I wouldn't exactly call it "cheap"...
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#33Just off top of my head...Vancouver, Seattle, Austin, Denver, Toronto, and Waterloo. Cheaper than the Bay Area and still with an intellectually high community.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#34I just moved to Hobart, Australia from SF. It's quite affordable. I pay A$400 /mo rent in a share house, and walk 20 mins to a downtown co-working space every day (also A$400 /mo). Lifestyle is pretty incredible. It's small, but still a state capital city, so there's plenty going on. Hobart is also the home port for the Australian and French Antarctic programs, so a lot of smart folks come through. Plus it was a trial zone for the National Broadband Network, so everyone has cheap fiber to the home.
edit: also the exchange rate is favorable, so if you have savings in USD they will go a long way.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#35I have a software engineer friend who moved to Budapest, and she swears by it. It's a beautiful city with several universities, and it's incredibly affordable.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#36If you feel adventurous you can consider moving to Poland. I would recommend Krakow. Most young people will speak English, there are couple of top Universities there (PK and AGH for technical schools, UJ for humanities, medicine and some tech too and UE for economics). The tech scene seems to be constantly growing, with lots of international companies having their offices there. As a senior dev in Poland you can earn…
+1 for Poland. I am not living there but very time we visit my fiancée family we literally see how the economy is thriving. Exciting times for Poland.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was talking to someone about tech culture in Germany earlier. How easy is it to get a tech job out there?
Not local, but I try and keep up from time to time, and I have seen a lot of hand-wringing on the Internet about how low Berlin tech wages are.
Depends where you're comparing them to in the US but in general most European tech wages are lower than the US. If comparing to SF perhaps even shockingly lower.
It can be hard to swallow at first, but when you account for lower rent, much cheaper health insurance, and far more vacation days (~20-24 by law - and no one actually expects you to be available) along with safer cities with generally higher quality of life, in my opinion it ends up being a very, very good trade off.
I moved to Amsterdam some years back (and have worked for a Berlin based company) and don't know if I could ever move back to the states.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#38I lived a year in Vilnius and after the usual struggle to get connected found the startup community there quite thriving. Still, most of my friends where expats. You can live comfortably on 1300 EUR/month. (Average salary is 1000 EUR, but probably a bit higher in Vilnius). To evaluate visit first in winter because it’s the worst time.
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania
(For anyone unaware like me)
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#39If you really consider moving abroad, then Berlin might be a good option. It has a decent American expat community, it's relatively “cheap” and culturally rich.
I was talking to someone about tech culture in Germany earlier. How easy is it to get a tech job out there?
Comes down on what you want to get. It is easy to find jobs at startups because there is a shortage of developers here but on the other side it is hard to find entry level jobs overall. But I guess this is true for most of the major cities.
Mentioning here that startups are not really obsessed by technology, at least most of them. There is this a weird mindset going around I think that technology is a 2nd class citizen. But it is depending on the startup I guess.
To get into one of the bigger companies like Zalando, contentful, N26, GetYourGuide, Klarna, Auto1, GoEuro, DeliveryHero, HelloFresh or SumUp takes more work and experience but it's completely doable. I am now at one of the companies above after 1.5 years of company experience.
Re: Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?
#40Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is an option to consider. Strategically located in growing Southeast Asia and well connected. Most folks in the city speaks English in the city, so you wont have issues getting around. There is a growing tech community here as well with a some notable startups/companies. Cost of living wise, magnitude lower than neighboring Singapore, as such a good consideration
Plenty of co-working and reasonable hotels around Cyberjaya, good food, fast internet, it is a bit boring though for SE Asia.
The nice thing about KL is that it's the home base for Air Asia, so there are dirt-cheap flights to anywhere in Asia, most of which (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, southern China) can be reached in under 4 hours by plane.