In the last year many jobs in computing/software development have gone fully remote. If given the opportunity to work remotely from anywhere in the world where would you go? Or if you've recently transitioned to a remote work environment where are you thinking of moving?
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Pros:
- Safe almost everywhere even at night and generally very clean
- Infinite amount of things to do, you'll never finish exploring new restaurants (with delicious food) and stores
- International events happen there: conferences, concerts, etc.
- Very walkable (including the metro), especially around city center
- Reasonable housing prices - high, but comparable to cities in the US
- Politeness is baked into society and unpleasant interactions with strangers are very rare
- Rest of the country is fairly accessible by train for a weekend trip, and there's plenty of beautiful nature if you get out of the city
Cons:
- Difficult language and few people speak any English
- Fairly closed society/culture, you'll always be an outsider (but there are plenty of expats)
- Toilets in restaurants often suck and public trash cans are rare
- Bureaucracy is quite bad and inaccessible if you aren't fluent in Japanese
- Work culture is bad, though being remote could make that a non-issue
Some runner ups:
- Lisbon (excellent weather, low prices)
- Copenhagen (super safe, great quality of life)
For me though, the top 3 criteria by far are 1) a lot to do, 2) very safe, and 3) don't need a car, and Tokyo is pretty much the only major city that meets those.
Coming from Tokyo to Bay Area and having family here, I wouldn't miss it much. Only things I miss are friends and food, which are both from my cultural attachment.
That's said, many youngstars from Tokyo go back after staying here for several years, probably because of the loneliness and the boredom. So your points well taken.
1)How long have you been in Tokyo?
2)What part of Tokyo do you live and work in?
3) How easy/hard did you personally find establishing a relationship (in the non-romantic sense) with the locals?
4) (If you're an American) How do you handle you're taxes?
5) What were some of the more surprising things about Tokyo that aren't mentioned enough?
6) How easy is it to get out into the countryside?
7) Where does one find expats to hang out with who aren't coworkers?
/r/tokyo
/r/movingtojapan
/r/JapanFinance
/r/japanlife (don't post unless you already in Japan, but good info on daily life in Japan from foreigner's perspective)
/r/JapanTravel (if you want to be tourist only)
I think Bangkok matches this pretty well.
I'm not saying it's super dangerous but it's definitely not 'Tokyo safe'.
If you count number of bedrooms, but if you look at sq.footage isn't it much much higher than almost anywhere in the US?
Is this true? I would think that at least 50% would be able to speak English. Perhaps even up to 80%. Anyone else with first-hand experience?
But same is true, in reverse, for western foreigners living in Japan. Very few are able to communicate in Japanese.
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It's very inexpensive, and sits at the foothills of the Sandia Mountains and Petroglyph National Park. It's almost always sunny, yet is rarely too hot for outdoor activities. As far as bike infrastructure goes it may just be in the top 10 for US cities. You almost need to go out of your way to not be an outdoorsy person here. It has a decent amount of restaurants, breweries, things to do, but if you're particularly starved for entertainment then there are cheap flights to Austin and Denver. Indeed, what makes Albuquerque really great is that you could use it as a nice place to decompress in-between destinations.
There are some downsides though. Crime is pretty bad, as is the poverty rate, but a lot of places here in the US are struggling with that right now. Truth be told the thing that annoys me the most may be the Gross Receipts Tax. Basically, if you freelance, your services are subject to what's basically a ~7% sales tax, only for services.
But given how inexpensive everything is, and how much I get, I can't really complain too much about the GRT.
Try Europe.. In Portugal is 23%.. (For the locals at least. If you are a non-habitual resident it's a tax haven.. This is what happens when contrived ideology meets reality.)
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Very expensive for New Mexico, and expensive in general. Getting around can take some getting used to (certain roads predate the US). Wouldn't recommend moving there if you're young as most of the population is of retirement age and most businesses cater to that crowd.
That being said, I enjoy visiting every now and then. There are good restaurants and no shortage of cultural attractions and events. I particularly enjoy visiting for the Farolito Walk.
I would recommend living in Albuquerque and taking the Railrunner or simply driving when the itch to visit strikes.
Also, lots of the replies so far in this thread mention big cities. I'm wondering what the appeal of cities would be in a 100% remote world without restaurants as, presumably, restaurant workers would be moving to jobs that are remote, no? Or are they just the new serf class?
> Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
A part of me too desires this. For a software engineer, what you need most is good network connectivity, which is now possible in many places.
The other part of me is convinced that would not be a good move in the long run. If I move away from the city, my kids' education will suffer, my mother (who also lives with me) will lose the social connect that keeps her in good spirits. Growing up in a small place, I always longed to move to a city. Now that I have "been there done that" in terms of living a city life, I do not want my children to go through the same cycle.
It would be nice to have the best of both worlds. Have a second home someplace remote, and go live there for short duration as circumstances permit.
That was supposed to be the idea behind suburbs, but a lot of people think of them as the worst of both worlds now.
Personally I think it's pretty nice to live 30 minutes outside a city but still have enough property for trees and open space, though.
But the middle of nowhere, actually, has always appealed. You're right though, it has drawbacks.
The 'locals' are extremely unfriendly, actively try to sabotage new businesses, bring in foreign workers and lock them into work/living arrangements to take advantage of them, heck (attempt to) take advantage of all workers, etc...
But they claim to not be whatever 'ism' isn't politically popular.
They're giant diversions I think that distort our ability to just see things for what they are.
It's pretty interesting how people can be many things at the same time, so these kinds of triggering labels - and the narratives that support them in the press don't help one bit.
The recent articles by various media outlets outlining the results of the Virginia election were about 80% playing into narratives of 'each side' further ignoring the 20% of simple truths that I think were the real underlying issues. Those 'truths' just don't line up nicely with the narratives.
This problem has metastasized in the US (and rolled over into Canada) in the last 5 years, which is why 0 'aspirational locations' from the US are on my list, at least for another 5 years as things hopefully calm down.
A couple years back I did take a two-week trip there consisting of one week sightseeing, one week remotely working for a West Coast agency. My work hours were around 4pm to 1am-2am Stockholm time, which was just on the edge of comfortable. My reasoning is as follows:
1) Fast internet everywhere I went, even the countryside
2) Great tea and coffee -- excellent cafe culture, too
3) Had a chance to meet some of the most kind, intelligent engineers I've ever known while there (and some now working here in the States, too); would love to collaborate and be motivated by working with them again
4) It felt very safe at all times of day (compared to where I live now, at least)
5) Active sailing culture, as I've recently become interested in that sport/hobby
6) Really fun bike culture, especially groups like at Bagarmossens cykelkök
7) Didn't seem like owning a car is necessary, even to travel outside the city/intercity
8) Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I enjoy how vices like alcohol and rich foods are more expensive there, so I went easy on them and felt healthier
Finally, nothing to back this up on, just a "feeling": the vibe is simply more chill, less dysfunctional than here in the States. Felt like many sectors of the citizenry, government, and business community had agreed upon a framework for a basic and decent standard of lifestyle. Certainly Swedes could chime in and tell me some hard truths that I missed while there (I've only stayed in Sweden for a month, cumulatively).
Things that would be hard are, definitely, finding housing that doesn't break the bank (Stockholm is majorly backed up, with rentals expensive). Also, my wife and I mastering a new language now, in our forties could be a challenge. I did start taking classes for it, for fun, before the pandemic.
If Sweden were off the table, my other remote choice would be Kagoshima, Japan. Nothing like living next to a volcano!
I've been here for a few years and would agree with most of your points. I absolutely love it. Boat trips into the archipelago in the summer months are the icing on the cake of an amazing place to live.
As for the language thing - you can (and lots do) live here without learning Swedish. There are also various intensive courses (e.g. at Folkuniversitetet) that will get you up to a dull-conversational level quite quickly.
As an ex-Londoner, the house prices seem very reasonable - we've just moved into a 3 bedroom apartment in the suburbs with a view of the lake and adjacent to a nature reserve. In London the same money might have bought us a pokey 1 or 2 bedroom flat.
London had more arts and so on, and I miss the English language theatre stuff, but in general it's just an amazing place to live. Now, you must excuse me, we're off to see Candide at Kunliga Operan :P
Language is something I would relish learning in the actual setting of Sweden. Having learned Japanese for three years in Japan, it was (and remains) a difficult thing to master and I suspect conversational Swedish would be simpler to pick up, at least. My short time spent in Sweden, the people I met were very happy just to hear my few halting phrases of their language, as are my Swedish friends here, in California. That's always encouraging.
About housing (and prices of things overall), yeah, I suppose things are reasonable relative to our respective hometowns. My impression was that local salaries were also lower, though. My recollection from a couple years ago was that front-end devs (my current employment, 6-ish YoE) were making around SEK 400k-500k/year, which is a good deal less than my current salary. Perhaps my view of tech salaries is highly skewed due to my location, though. Also, this conversation does revolve around remote work, so maybe a moot point.
In my area of southernmost Sweden countryside we have 99,8% fiber connectivity.
You pay about 2000 dollar no matter what to get fiber ditched and connected to your cabin unless it's already connected.
Also it is:
- way warmer than Stockholm
- way cheaper
- way less douchebag people
- 2 hours to Denmark (3 to Germany)
SOURCE: lived in Stockholm for 20 years doing software dev. Moved away. I never worked inside of US so I cannot relate to your back story fully.
That said many things are great: administration, school for small children, parental leave, housing is still quite cheap.
And some are just odd, like the healthcare system (lots of gatekeeping, slow, so so quality).
At this point we want to leave Sweden, it's not making it for us.
I am swiss, lived there for most of my life but I also lived in France (south and Lyon) and in the UK. I also work remote for a swiss company (have been working remote for the past 15 years).
For rural, I've lived in a town where there was only one restaurant, and it was a Mexican place that closed at 4PM. One small grocery store during height of the pandemic, no masks. I've driven 3 hours to make a grocery run to an Asian grocery store and get boba tea. In the US at least, I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb in rural areas in a time people were getting randomly attacked due to skin color. The nature is great though.
For urban, I've been able to go out at 1AM+ and get delicious cheap food at a restaurant and feel the energy of the city as everyone was still out drinking and wandering. Or I can get into pickup basketball games. Or listen to porch concerts walking down the neighborhood
It's nice to go back and forth.
Enough good restaurants to not be boring, two hours to Boston, two and a half to Montreal (by car) and NYC (by air) for easy weekend trips if you need a big city fix.
Both of which were a problem in the farm house I grew up. Since moving to a city I’m always marveled at the difference between city water and well water. And now I get internet faster than 25 Mbps, consistently.
To me it's the exact opposite. If I could live anywhere in the world, why the fuck would I not live in a huge city like NYC. It's a no brainer. The only argument right now is that I don't have a job there and I can't afford it.
Weather is the best - warm but not hot, cool but not cold. No extremes.
People from every state of India. So great food. Culturally very diverse and really a melting pot. Good sports/fitness scene and culture. Safe.
Locals are mostly fine with outsiders. In fact that’s the economy here other than IT. English (more) and Hindi (less) are the connecting tongues. Local language is not forced other than some isolated incidents.
Decent amount of open space. Very easy and quick access to the hills. And in a way to the sea too, but drive is longer. Easy connectivity to everywhere by train, road, and air.
Decently open and alive dating scene, though it gets way too hard in 30s.
I had played with the idea of moving to a small town or a rural area or a quaint hill station but due to overall poor infrastructure in India those places easily get ruled out as candidates of a sustained working place.
You don’t want to have total lack of social life, patchy Internet, and very absence of even half decent medical facilities where you live for long. So you got to stick to major cities in India.
Other cities in India simply don’t have most of what Bangalore offers (except traffic is really bad here; and metro is designed to be useless; and political atmosphere is rapidly sliding to the extreme right but that’s the entire country). I tried living abroad, didn’t work for me. So Bangalore it is.
Reasons being:
1) Dirty. Yeah, Most places in Bengaluru are very dirty. No effective dirt management system. Also, people throw trash on roads, on empty sites, on footpaths, and everywhere making it very dirty.
2) Roads and Traffic.
First of all, let me tell that Road Infrastructure is not at all good. Also, People don't seem to value life of others. People many times don't follow traffic rules. Thanks to Lack of infrastructure, Crossing the road is also so difficult here and there are chances People will run over you(people seem to be hurry).
3) Water
Water Quality is Bad. It's also causing baldness in many people.
4) Corruption
Many people with power seems to be corrupt. You get to deal with them if you live here.
Contd...
People are mostly conservative here. Although Dating Scene exists, it's very very less(nil to most people). You will be disappointed.
6) Commutation
Huge amount of Vehicles, many not following rules, many hurrying to overtake, to get inserted into the road, lot of honking, and time-eating traffic congestion. It's not at all a good experience and will suck energy outta you.
7) Power cuts
Power cut is very rare but it exists.
8) Food Food is good, you get variety of them.
9) Internet Cellular Data is very cheap but also relatively slow. Fiber network seems to be available.
10) Education Education Quality is not much good for price they ask.
Feel free to ask anything about life in Bangalore.
For example I had job offers from Amsterdam and London and they have much better <a lot if things> but I didn’t want to live there. So they aren’t my ideal cities.
Tap water , not drinkable as is. Most houses I've seen have a water filter. We personally used to use one of these[0]
[0] https://www.pureitwater.com/IN/
I said India, didn't I? :)
Anyway, no. I don't think drinkable tap water is a developing or underdeveloped world phenomena. But I may be wrong.
> What about the air quality?
Again, it depends on which country you are comparing it with. Among Indian cities - pretty good. And I don't mean comparing with Delhi - that'd be an unfair comparison.
Just love it here.
Big beautiful sky line
Fair amount of greenspace including parks, rivers, forests, and beaches
Even more greenspace easily accessible with a bike or car or by train
Bus trips to Vermont for snowboarding all winter (not as great as West coast, but still decent)
Antenna gets me TV for free!
Tons and tons and tons of cultures and restaurants and plays and movies and clubs and music
Close to family (for me!)
Lots of great people watching
Getting more and more bike friendly by the day
24 hour subways, restaurants, supermarkets
## Cons
Expensive
Crowded
Loud
It ain’t for everyone, but I love it here, no reason to leave.
The light is very different there, the water is gray instead of blue-green, the bricks are brown instead of red, and in general it's a bit grim and colorless. Even the sky is desaturated.
Stuff like light maybe subtle, but over time it wears on you and affects your mood.