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

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

#581

Post by dtkav »

shoo wrote: post #309
dtkav wrote: post #34

I 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 tria…

tasmania has historically been a relatively poor part of australia, recently hobart has been having an issue with availability and affordability of housing, particularly relative to local wages: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/hobart-beats-sydney-mo... hobart is not a great choice if you are looking to find software-related work locally. you'd be better off in one of the bigger "mainland" australian cities, mel…

I agree that this isn't a place to find a software job. I interpreted op's "follow my own intellectual pursuits" as not working. If they are coming from the bay area as a software engineer then their savings will go a very long way here, but not so much in other big cities.

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

#582

Post by dharma1 »

nailer wrote: post #532
jonathanstrange wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Lisbon and work as a foreigner at one of Lisbon's universities and can confirm that the living quality in Lisbon is absolutely top. It's a fantastic city. And our bridge is similar to yours - looks smaller but is longer! Caveats: - If you intend to work within Academia, you may occasionally have to deal with fairly incompetent professors. It depends on the research unit and area, but there tends to be a cer…

Thanks. I'd like to consider this seriously - what's a good place to browse places to rent in Portugal?

https://www.idealista.pt/en/

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

#583

Post by hycaria »

galfarragem wrote: post #514
hycaria wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really confident about the quality of the cultural life in Portugal (let alone Braga). Do musicians tour there ? What about the classical music offer (a good marker in my opinion of intense cultural places) ? How many art museums, do they host touring exhibitons ? Also education is not very convincing (considering op might want a family). Universities in Portugal are not that great nor renowned. Many qualifie…

> Universities in Portugal are not that great nor renowned. I disagree. Universities are not the problem. General school is. As a rule of thumb, public universities are better than private ones and the opposite on general school.

At least in my domain (veterinary, idk about medicine but if the same, that's frightening), they have seemingly no selection and numerous universities are offering the degree (even much more than smaller countries). So their degree is shit (no time for practice, only theoretical and you'll learn more once in the job), there are too many of them anyways and they can't find jobs.

Also can't think of any portugese scientist, or portugese based lab renowned for anything in biology or computer science.

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

#585

Post by pimmen »

Many good suggestions in this thread, but I would suggest looking into cities in the 100 000 - 150 000 range with a good university nearby if you want to try something different from living with millions of people.

I moved from my million person metropolitan area to Sundsvall, Sweden and it is very cheap (I pay about €600 for a two bedroom apartment in the absolute center of the city, I have no need for a car when it comes to day-to-day transportation) and the intellectual community is very vibrant here with meet-ups for software engineering and machine learning, as well as a maker space run by people with degrees in electrical engineering.

Only problem? You climb in salary by switching jobs and small places are often dominated by a few players when it comes to tech. But, for people who are fine not climbing as fast as in a big city I can definitely recommend it.

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

#586

Post by sitepodmatt »

SiqingYu wrote: post #113
jpatokal wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Two downsides: * Non-English speakers. * High housing prices.

There are downsides to KL, but in my opinion its not either of those.

House prices - Not according to https://www.propertyguru.com.my, I looked up Cyberjaya as an example (~15mins on train to KL sentral) and freehold $120,000usd for a 4bedroom/2bathroom place, 1 bedroom condo for much less. That would buy you half a car parking place in Hong Kong (on leasehold no less). Regardless you'd just rent anyway, at least for first few years, $300-$400pm for a nice serviced condo with pool/gym. No point buying unless you eventually get a permanent residence.

English language - I never had a problem with English in KL or Penang or even Alor Setar, except maybe one of the old roadside tea vendors, but that's probably my northern accent. It might not be Singapore or HKG level but it aint significantly off.

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

#587

Post by candyman »

There's much discussion here about Portugal and other countries but what about the US? Could one go closer to a place like Colorado Springs (near Denver) or Cincinnati? There are also places like Albany NY? What are some of the lowest cost but good US areas?

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

#588

Post by mattlondon »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #482
nelsonic wrote: post #229

Depending on your ability to work remotely, I would make the "case" that you should consider Portugal . Lisbon and Porto are super popular with ["digital nomad"] remote workers who work for international companies so earn in USD but spend [much less] in Euros for a superb lifestyle. There's a reason @paddycosgrave moved Web Summit to Lisbon. It's one of the cheapest cities in Europe and [unlike Barcelona] everyone sp…

Yes Portugal is a good choice now, I moved here 1 year ago from UK because of various factors, Brexit, tax, quality of life etc also because I believe it will be a great location to recruit IT talent to. I live in Cascais which is a bit expensive, (still much cheaper than San Francisco of course) but has wonderful quality of life for family, Capital city amenities next to beach. Great infrastructure, motorways, ultra…

> private medical cover including dental, for family of 4 unbelievably cheap, less than 200 Euro pm, i paid nearly that much for just dental in UK

Almsot 200 EUR a month on dental seems outrageously expensive.

Getting a simple figure on the prices is difficult but it seems like the going-rate is appox £16-21 pm (lets say 20-30 EUR): https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/dental-insurance...

The amount I have to decalre to the tax man for the "benefit in kind" value my health insurance through work (which is private health & dental for me, my spouse, and all dependants - includes private GP appointments, physio etc etc) is about £1600 for the entire year, or £~135/month or ~155EUR/month. I apprecaite that is just from my P11D form [1], but there are some other sources that are in the same ballpark: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-health-ins...

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P11D

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

#589

Post by Shorel »

tropdrop wrote: post #147

If you would like to remain in United States and do not mind having proper seasons, I would strongly consider Chicago, the last affordable big city in the United States. University of Chicago pulls a robust intellectual community (81 Nobel Laureates), but there is also a deep intellectual history around the arts and music that transcends the work of the university - something that I'm not sure I can say for a place l…

What would be authentic Mexican food?

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

#590

Post by lewisjoe »

Chennai, Southern (most) India.

Good intellectual crowd. Home to quite a few top engineering institutions. Inflated with software developing people and companies, with strong focus on making world-class products. I work for one such company, Zoho. Cheap living costs, compared to other software hubs (say, Bangalore) of India and definitely most of abroad. Decent English speaking crowd.

Almost checks out all the items in your list.

Cons: Living standards is a bit behind the curve, if you are from say London, Bay Area, Berlin, Singapore or such. Road traffic and such very-indian-problems will either excite you or bite you, subject to the person.

Even if you don't plan on living here, do visit Chennai sometime. You might even decide to stay back ;)

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