Ask HN: Cheap places to live with a good intellectual atmosphere?

I'm sure it's just a slip of tongue but never ever say things like that in Portugal...

In reality there is nothing to be afraid, Poland is one of the safest countries in the World (there are multiple resources about that), people are traditionally hospitable, in bigger cities like Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw there is pretty a lot of people from many Western Europe countries, there are also a lot of (about 1 million) refugees and emigrants from Ukraine, emigrants from Belarus, quite big Vietnamese community. So far everyone live in peace together.

A fun fact - my daughter goes to a regular primary public school and in her class there is a boy from India, a boy from western Ukraine, a girl from Ukraine and a girl from Belarus and. They were assimilated very quickly, without particular teachers assistance (public school, so teachers don't have time for anything but teaching); boys soaked into the group immediately, as running around together and screaming plus playing soccer does not require much language skills.

I think that if you consider seriously moving/traveling to country X, relaying on media does not make much sense, as they are chasing something that would make a "news". So, surely, there are people in Poland who bite dogs, yet the reality is that, typically, dogs are biting people.

Luckily, these days it is easy to contact foreigners living in Poland (Facebook groups, native language speakers portals, etc.), so, just ask someone who lives here.

Manhattan, KS has a big university in a small town. When I lived there, it had intellectual things like used bookstores and an incredible local zoo, stuff you don't typically see in small towns. But it is also an Ag college. Probably not really what a techie from the Bay Area is seeking, though I loved it to pieces when I was there (other than the ragweed, so you couldn't make me go back at gunpoint).

When I applied for an internship with a National Lab in Washington State hoping to get back to the Tri-cities, I interviewed for a position in a satellite office in Sequim. They do marine biology type stuff there because of the unique marine ecology right there.

Port Aransas, TX also has marine research stuff due to unique marine ecology. It's a town of under 4000 population year-round, but snow birds and tourism swell the population to up to 60k at times, so it actually has a grocery store, something you don't normally see in such a small town.

I considered moving to Idaho Falls, ID in part because it has a National Lab, so it likely has a serious intellectual environment even though it's just 60k people and very affordable.

So, you might want to flesh out some details concerning what exactly you are hoping to find. Because I'm guessing you don't really want to move someplace like Port Aransas, though I'm cool with tiny little places with an enclave of uber-geeks.

The winters are extremely cold but if you don’t mind that it’s fine. Not sure about the salaries but I hear they are lower but so is the cost of living.