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Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

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Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#751

Post by gautamcgoel »

rovr138 wrote: post #654
dgudkov wrote: post #632

I'm a bit surprised very few people mention proximity to parents, family, and long time friends as a major reason of picking a place to live. The discussion is mostly around beaches, scenery, and climate. It seems that either social capital is not that important for most commenters, or many simply don't realize what they lose when they move to another country for beaches and scenery.

I would 100% move back to Puerto Rico. My mom, sisters, long time friends, family, beaches, scenery, mountains, hurricanes, etc. I’ll take it all. I would need to be able to have and run a central AC like here though. All I hear from friend is how hot it is right now.

You also get some pretty sweet tax breaks, right? I seem to recall reading that somewhere.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#752

Post by gautamcgoel »

zinckiwi wrote: post #467
nigel_bree wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone from HN who wants to can drop by on the way to a more traditional tourist spot like Mangawhai or further north (although over summer I'm often away at the weekends racing stockcars). The phone number for the library redirects to our house if it's not open. The cheese shop is fine! I know Keith and Marita who have owned it for many years, they are good people - Ad Clarijs who founded it still occasionally runs…

I'm in Tauranga -- I have gigabit fibre, reasonable taxes, an amazing Prime Minister and a 3-5 hour time difference with Silicon Valley depending on the season. I am fortunate enough to have a remote job for a distributed company but I hope one of the few plusses to come out of the current state of the world is the tech industry taking its blinders off, finally, to remote/distributed work.

Dumb question, but how does the time difference to Silicon Valley vary with the seasons? They are a fixed distance apart.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#753

Post by rovr138 »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #751
rovr138 wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would 100% move back to Puerto Rico. My mom, sisters, long time friends, family, beaches, scenery, mountains, hurricanes, etc. I’ll take it all. I would need to be able to have and run a central AC like here though. All I hear from friend is how hot it is right now.

You also get some pretty sweet tax breaks, right? I seem to recall reading that somewhere.

There are some nice tax breaks for tech companies on the island. If you freelance or do contract work, it would be best to get a company setup for that.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#755

Post by mzocher »

bluesplayer53 wrote: post #126

Asheville NC. My wife and I moved here in early March just before the shutdown. Beautiful. I pinch myself everyday that I get to live And work (from home) here.

What's the tech scene like there? Are there interesting nerds building things? Hackathons? (of course, before COVID). We spent 2.5 months in the area during COVID, so we didn't get a great feel for how nerdy the town is.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#756

Post by quercus »

jrockway wrote: post #85
quercus wrote: post #33

I wonder why so many people wishing to live in rural locations pick places with brutally cold winters, rather than the tropics. If you want to live off the land you'll have a much harder time of it in cold places.

I think the issue is that everyone already lives in the warm places. You have what -- Southern California (high taxes, very populated), Florida (it ain't cheap and gets wiped off the map by hurricanes every few decades), Hawaii (expensive), the deep South and Texas (not that warm in the winter really), the desert southwest (it is very nice in the winter, but it's 110 every day in the summer). There just aren't a lot…

Hawaii is not very expensive unless you want to live in a country club neighborhood and survive on imported products.

You left off Puerto Rico.

I know many Americans who have moved to Central/South American countries without much trouble. Costa Rica is so popular they're worried about gentrification. Ecuador is up and coming for expats.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#757

Post by rootsudo »

badestrand wrote: post #533
rootsudo wrote: post #392

I'm really debating Singapore/Japan. I've done alot of time in Manila, PH and love it, and across some USA Cities - Seattle, Chicago, Miami, Tampa, NYC and they're great but it's still the USA. I have been a nomad for the past 2 years, kinda but I position myself down for 2 months at a time because it's hectic to get anything done if you do it every week/few weeks or worse - weekend. I find that I need a solid week t…

Can you recommend an area in Manila or elaborate what you like about it? When I was there for two weeks I experienced it as a suffocating concrete block. I love big, vibrant cities but couldn't really get the hang of Manila.

Sure, it depends on what but if you rent a nice condo in the south starting from taguig and going down it is nice.

Bonifacio Global City is a great starting place, 25,000 pesos should get you a one bedroom.

Then On the highway south, Alabang, Las Pinas, and such easy enough.

I love Manila because of the ease of networking, making friends and then the raw nature, hiking once you're out of Manila itself into the northern provinces.

It's really a LCOL city, if you know how to handle yourself and minimize on electronics purchase - some big purchases I would suggest a flight to HK which was as inexpensive as $1000 round trip.

You can purchase a car in Manila/NCR area for about $3000 USD/150K pesos, they're low mileage for older examples and you should know how to work on a car for best value (I got an older CR-V that I'm not worried about the resale value at all vs a new car which can't go offroad at all.)

Most Filipinos don't know their own history or travel out of NCR (from NCR of coure) so I always enjoy trips where I can agument USA history to PH history, though it's always fun to learn something new - but it's great to see all the quotes of "those who don't know history end up repeating it" and general ignorance because... the country is ripe for opportunity but the overall level of ignorance is extreme and you can make parallels easily to USA and other parts of the world. It really reshaped my way of thinking.

So that's why I enjoy it. Easy of connectivity to locals, easy to do arbitrage of retail products once you hang the hang of things and low out of pocket and more emphasis on your conversational skills to get things done - so self reliance.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#758

Post by gautamcgoel »

alibaba_x wrote: post #722
quietthrow wrote: post #545

Singapore. Quality of life is far superior than the western world. They have a “Mac” govt - it just works :) the govt actually has a Legal helper program in place you where you can get live in help at a very reasonable cost (which before you get judgmental helps uplift a lot of people out of poverty from neighboring countries). Imagine US having that for their tired masses who barely have any time between both parent…

Somebody described Singapore as "Disneyland with the Death Penalty". It's good for those with a deep love for the rule of law.

William Gibson, I think.

Re: Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live?

#759

Post by zinckiwi »

gautamcgoel wrote: post #752
zinckiwi wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Tauranga -- I have gigabit fibre, reasonable taxes, an amazing Prime Minister and a 3-5 hour time difference with Silicon Valley depending on the season. I am fortunate enough to have a remote job for a distributed company but I hope one of the few plusses to come out of the current state of the world is the tech industry taking its blinders off, finally, to remote/distributed work.

Dumb question, but how does the time difference to Silicon Valley vary with the seasons? They are a fixed distance apart.

They are, but daylight saving time means that from April to October the time difference is 5 hours (NZT: +12, PDT: -7) and otherwise it's 3 hours (NZDT +13, PST -8). With a few weeks of a 4 hour difference at the edges since the daylight saving boundaries don't precisely align.
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