Remote SE here - I live in the Sierra Nevadas in Truckee, CA. I chose to live here because its close to skiing/hiking, easy to get to SF for work once a month, and easy for people from the bay to visit. Plus Reno airport within 40 mins and I got a 3400sqft house for the same price I paid for a 1br in SF.
We looked for places with no income tax. Interesting people and things our family was into. Relatively warm climate and near an airport with relatively connected international flights.
We’ve loved Nashville and Sarasota, FL for these reasons.
Ended up in Sarasota once we had kids to be near family.
As a Massachusetts resident, our neighboring state, New Hampshire has no income tax. I was working at a place many years ago, that moved to along a major N/S highway that made commuting from out of state more feasible.
Those at work who looked into moving there have noted, the commute is much worse, income tax is negated a lot by high property taxes. When the company started downsizing it was noted that those in NH had significantly worse unemployment benefits. Some feel its worth it, but a lot don't. I think we had one person move.
I’m in FL too, but not the same city/county. Curious what you mean by additional property tax? Is that something in all of FL or just that county? (Maybe you were referencing Nashville)?
Interesting that you put it like that, no income tax, rather than optimal services for the tax paid. Do you consider that as a richer person you should directly contribute financially to the improvement of the society that you live in at all; or is it that you see property tax as a fairer way to do that? (Or something else?)
I'm not the GP, but I don't think that paying more taxes is the best way to improve society. I'm not rich, but as someone making above median wages and living in a low-COL area with no state income taxes, I put my money where my mouth is by contributing an amount roughly equal to my annual federal income tax to local charities that provide a variety of services to people in need.
Thanks for responding, if I may probe further -- is it that you think the state can't provide the services those charities do, or that your particular local incarnation of it won't (ever?)?
Where I am, a poor UK city, the Christian Churches provide a lot of services to the poor (homeless shelters, food banks, pensioners meals, friendship clubs, pregnancy counselling, family counselling, pastoral care) often with referral by front line council workers. Most of those services are free at the point of need (only family counselling is charged for IIRC) but couldn't operate on those budgets as council services -- largely because they rely on donations of buildings from the Churches, and donation of time from volunteers. The council has to rent, and has to pay at least minimum wage.
So, in a way these essential community services work outside the state machine doing something that in a socialist setting government is expected to do.
I can see this works inasmuch as those services exist, when they seemingly wouldn't otherwise, but the payment for those services isn't as fairly distributed as if it were acquired by taxation IMO. Also, in theory on a state level you save optimise service provision to save administration and logistics costs; whilst local piecemeal approaches can be relatively expensive ... but then in practice government seems to add layers of bureaucracy and expensive management ...
It's a complicated topic and tough to do it justice in a brief post, but a couple brief thoughts anyway. I believe that I as an individual have a moral obligation to provide aid to the poor. I do not believe that government has that responsibility. Ultimately the government is funded via taxation backed by the threat of force. As such, taxing some citizens to provide aid to others is a form of legislating morality. I think the legislation of morality is warranted primarily in the negative, that is, to prohibit things such as murder, theft, assault, etc.
Secondly, I believe that aid to the poor is most effective and of greater benefit to both the giver and the recipient when it is done in a relational context (which is not to say that aid is given directly from the giver to the recipient, just that it's localized enough that the givers and recipients are in the same community). The giver can see the tangible effects of his generosity and the recipient can see the care shown by the giver. By its nature, government aid is impersonal and therefore less beneficial. The "givers" in that case, who are "giving" often only under compulsion, often feel exploited and resentful. Many recipients develop a sense of entitlement since there's no direct connection between the aid they receive and their fellow citizens who provided that aid.
I do agree with you that taking government out of the aid business would result in less uniform funding for aid, but I think that's a lesser problem than forcing it on everyone. I'm on the board of a local charity and I see the private donors who fund it, 95% of whom are are middle or upper-middle class, and I'm pretty amazed by their generosity. I wish awareness of those kinds of things were greater.
Florida is an awesome location. You can basically catch a direct flight to anywhere in the USA and some European destinations. Weather, no State income tax, low pollution, access to some of best medical in the USA, etc. It's in my plans to move there one day.
At the moment I live in what I consider another top contender, DFW has access to anywhere in the world via direct flights. No state income tax, excellent access to medical, lower cost of living than the North East, etc. There is also a lot of available work. Interestingly enough Bloomberg ran an article that it is the #1 place for people relocating from the LA, NY and Chicago.
it really is. The only downside is the lack of serious technology employers. So unless you land a remote gig, or are happy as a road warrior, it's tough to find work
My wife is Portuguese, but has no ties to our current location, nor do I. We moved here, because we found a great house, in a great location that we could buy for reasonable money.
Portugal is an affordable country (if not in Lisbon or Porto), with great people, great food and great weather. Education is great, and the startup ecosystem is ambitious and growing rapidly.
Let me know if anyone would like to meet up, if you're here; or any tips on moving here.
Most people speak English, but are uncomfortable / inexperienced in doing so. Everyone in tech speaks English just fine.
For day-to-day, it does make your life much easier. Surprisingly, banks are a pain to deal with, without speaking Portuguese. I learned because my parents in law didn't speak English very well.
Portuguese is a rich language, and Portuguese people are typically familiar with the countries famous writers and poets. That makes it a valuable language to learn.
Portuguese here, I moved out of the country and I have worked in the UK for over a decade and more recently relocated again to the Netherlands.
Both myself and my wife have really enjoyed the opportunities we had along the way, both in terms of lifestyle, research projects and financially.
But we are now at a point where we both feel the urge to "come back home".
I would love to hear your feedback from an outsider looking into the tech scene in Portugal.
My frustration in previous searches and interviews is that everyone likes to talk 'innovation' but the majority of interesting projects are still pretty much university incubations and/or very dependent on EC research funding streams. Has this changed in these past years? Do you see companies actually securing VC funding rounds or growing into more mature businesses?
Also perhaps an inferiority complex bias but I feel that, for larger service companies, Portugal is still scene as what they would call a 'near-shore' outsourcing tech pool, where you can get a bit more quality output but still at a fairly cheap price point. Has this changed? i.e. Do you see that Software teams can command competitive salaries when compared to other European locations? Or is it that it's acceptable only if you leverage this with a very low COL (outside prime real estate areas like Porto/Lisbon centres)?
I live in Argentina. Been working remote for the past 10 years (I work for a UK company).
Until March I was living in Patagonia (where my family is) but recently relocated to Buenos Aires because of my wife's line of work (She's a flamenco dancer - bailaora - professionally, and where we were her career was at a dead end).
I started working for this company 10 years ago in Barcelona, so I have a spanish bank account. the first 5 years or so I used my CC to withdraw money from the ATMs (I know, expensive) but then bitcoin happened. Nowadays I buy bitcoins in the corresponding market (UK in this case as last year I went there to open a bank account after I got sick of the issues with the spanish one) and then sell them here using a couple of different brokers (Satoshitango, Buenbit). Obviously some money is lost in the movements, but regular banks rip you off money just as much if not more (Not to mention you have to triangulate the money - transfert it normally to a bank account they own in New York - and that it takes a lot more time - weeks, sometimes). For me, bitcoin has been a godsend.
Given how volatile Bitcoin is, I'd suggest you give TransferWise a try. There are few companies I am more enthusiastic about. They saved me a ton of fees in the 4+ years I've been a customer and have never caused me any hassle.
Berlin is actually not very open-minded, after 8 years of living across the world its probably least I would say. The reason for that is, because if you don't fit into a "hipster, dj, art" culture, you will be constantly reminded. Try getting to a bar as a foreigner and wearing a shirt sometime...
When I realised that I no longer needed to live in California in order to run my business (MusicBrainz), I decided to move to Barcelona.
As a friend of mine said: Barcelona isn't a 10 out of 10 on anything. But it is an 8 or 9 out of 10 on everything. Good weather, amazing food, great people, great public transport, great airport, high speed rail and best of all: No republicans.
Relocated 30 years ago (from a Sorthern English city) because of work and then fell in love with the new area (a Southern English coastal city). Now I have a stupid 70 mile drive to work that I tolerate because I'm where I want to be when I'm not working. I've since moved a bit within the local area to get closer to the countryside but am basically within a few miles of where I moved to 30 years ago.
Where our roots reside and the high quality of life in our area. Once we began a family, this became all the more important and added in the desire for stability for our children. It was these choices, combined with living well outside an hour of Boulder and Denver, that pushed me to focus on a remote-centric career.
I think a lot about moving closer to technology hubs and there is definitely a desire to generally work day-to-day with excellent engineers in close quarters. However, each time I do rocking chair thinking, I come back to the same conclusion; our lives are more rich with family and friends and the lifestyle we are able to gain via the lesser cost of living. Though, I admit it has a large potential cost on career. I'd love to be slinging Haskell day-to-day, in SF, etc for the rest of my life on a professional level.
I work remotely in a flyover state near family which is important with kids. The low cost of living doesn't hurt either. I lived in NYC and the Bay Area before kids, so I know they are like, but I prefer where I am now for my current stage of life.
[North America]
I actually hope to jaunt into a remote position, in 2019, and this specific question has tussled quite a bit in mind. I'd love to hear what other people are considering.
Seeing that I'm in NYC, I think there are a few cultural, political and culinary reasons to choose a city to transition few. Here are a few of my requirements:
-Strong local job economy if in the event I lose my current position (my job is not sought after enough for me to gain remote positions immediately)
-Cheap(er) real estate (this isn't hard considering I'm from NYC)
-Left/Democrat-leaning locale (the state doesn't have to be blue but where I live should have an unshamed democratic community)
-Some clustered seasonality (that removes FL, AZ, AL, and the northern state for their harsh winter)
My top cities I had in mind:
-Raleigh or Charlotte (I have some trepidations about what the Republican leadership did recently)
- Explosive growth which the city is not accustomed to/for
- Traffic will be a nightmare if the rate continues (almost 0 public transport)
- Good tech scene (Research Triangle) and quite cheap real-estate
- Might be suburban hell/boring
I’m currently living in Raleigh-Durham but thinking about moving to a larger tech hub. Options are DC, NYC, and Seattle.
Regarding your list of concerns, I share with you: explosive growth, zero public transport, and suburban hell.
The job market is good but not great. None of the big tech companies have a presence here, except Google for nothing more than historic reasons. I highly doubt that this will change anytime soon, simply because of the poor infrastructure and transit.
This leaves you with companies like Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, etc. They are not “bad” companies and there is a lot of interesting work to do, but they are also not Amazon or Google.
I'm still just starting my career, so I want to at least try out working at a big tech company. Also, my wife and I travel pretty frequently to Tunisia, and flights from RDU are long and expensive. As a comparison, a flight from Seattle to Tunis costs ~$400 less than from Raleigh while taking the same amount of time!
I live in Jerusalem, but originally from America. I have travelled and lived all over. Jerusalem is special. In other cities people are trying to be cool, in Jerusalem people just are. The city feels international and small town at the same time. I choose to live here because it's the best place I found.
I’ve been all over Europe and I really don’t know where this would be true. If you can speak the local language well enough to have a conversation, 99% of people will talk to you in it. If they can’t understand you, well, you need to study more.
Not OP, but gonna pipe in as a Jerusalemite: in Israel, being a foreigner is almost a default state. Consider that a very significant portion of the population only came in the last 30 or so years, and a vast majority of peoples’ ancestors only came in the last century. It’s a relatively new country. From a more practical standpoint, there are large English speaking communities all over & most Israelis are very fluent English speakers.
Jerusalem is a very international city. Lots of students, artists and tourists from all over the world. Locals are used to and friendly friendly to foreigners
No not really. I stay out of the dangerous neighborhoods and its alright. It feels very safe.
Except for a few years ago when there was a wave of terrorist stabbings. Streets were empty. Everyone was looking back every few moments to see if they were being followed. Eye contact was made between every passing stranger in order to determine if they were about to stab you. It was scary but it did not last for too long. It was also a fascinating experience. Imagine walking down the street and EVERYONE makes eye contact with you!
In many cities I have lived in people are trying to be something they are not. They wear designer clothing, talk about the latest trends, dress like a hippy- they do this to fit into some group. In Jerusalem it is not like that.
People just do their thing and don't even think about it. I think it allows for more genuine relationships, more genuine interactions.
Another great thing about Jerusalem is that it's a smallish city. You see your friends on the street, you recognize faces at parties. You go to the local cafe and you know a few people there... But at the same time it's not so small that you know everyone. There are always new people to meet.
If you dont mind me asking, is this on a work visa or something like aliyah? Background is that I’d be interested in living in Tel Aviv at least for some time, don’t have a point of reference yet for how realistic it would be to get a working visa approved, given the Israeli workforce is already in supply of pretty good IT talent.
I made Aliyah, but work visas are also possible(I think) Actually there is a huge shortage of tech talent. It's so bad the government is trying hard to encourage arabs and ultra-orthodox jews into tech.
Spot on! Jerusalem is great: perfect weather, incredible people, easy access to nature, lots of culture all around. Only downside is it’s getting a little expensive - in Israel, second only to Tel Aviv and the surrounding area.
Same problem. Our biggest issue while dating. My wife said she wanted to stay permanently in the South to be near family but agreed to move for a few years if a really good job became available.
Well, we got married, and shortly afterward one of the well known tech companies made a really good offer. My wife threw an absolute fit and said she had taken a gamble while dating and didn't believe I would ever actually get a job offer at one of those companies. I nearly filed for divorce because of how horrible she was treating me, but instead I accepted the job and told her I was moving to the Bay Area regardless. Soon after, she agreed to honor her promise and came too, but every single day here she complains about how much she hates California.
When my few years are "up" I'm really dreading going back to a non-tech region. The company I'm at doesn't generally allow fully remote work, so I am somewhat seriously floating the idea of commuting to their office in the Northeast by plane each day from Atlanta. Sounds expensive but the plane tickets would be balanced out by the much lower cost of living. I don't know if the idea is actually feasible; I'd have to test it for a week.
Don’t have kids if you haven’t already. I’ve seen this exact scenario tear apart many relationships. Where you live often reflects underlying values, so long-term sustained disagreement in this area is very hard to survive from what I’ve seen. Not trying to doom you, but look at the language you’re using: she complains every day, you’re dreading moving back, etc.
Not to imply that where you live has to be both partners’ first choice, but if you can’t be on the same page that it’s a good compromise, one of you is just going to be miserable.
I like sun, forests, and fresh food (love farmers markets), and my wife can't live without Asian groceries (she's Asian) and international travel. We want to be close to family, and neither of us wants to live in an urban area.
My family lives in the PNW, and my in-laws live in SoCal. Right now we're in Utah (ticks most of those boxes), but I'm looking around for other options, and right now I'm considering central Oregon or central Washington.
So yeah, I think it matters a ton where we live. Sure, we could be reasonably happy anywhere, but we'd really prefer to not have to compromise.
I like sun, forests, and fresh food (love farmers markets)
considering central Oregon or central Washington
Consider the Tricities -- Pasco, Kennewick, Richland, WA. It's not central. It's Eastern.
But my sons quit eating frozen veggies while we lived there and never went back. They got spoiled by fresh stuff. It is considered "the fruit basket" of the US, which I never heard anywhere but there. It's like some well kept secret. I learned to eat fresh pineapple there. Having grown up on the canned stuff, it was news to me that fresh pineapple is awesome. I had a pretty low opinion of it.
It's also kind of a retirement destination because it's relatively sunny and temperate for that part of the world.
I was in the same boat as you, but there are big enough differences that I thought I'd get over but now recognize they're more important to me than I realized.
I lived in Alexandria (outside of DC), then Evanston (outside Chicago) and now Rogers, AR, and each move revealed things to me that I didn't realize I enjoyed.
In DC I had a big enough friend circle that any given weekend I could find someone to hang out with. In Evanston I could walk to everywhere I wanted, and in Rogers, I've got actual gigabit Internet and pay half the rent I was paying before, for twice the home.
Each new place has a different set of advantages and disadvantages. DC was crazy expensive, Evanston had my whole life revolving around Northwestern (my fiancee was a student) and I'm not making tons of friends out here in Rogers yet.
What I did realize is that I could get used to anything, and remembering that my happiness is probably going to level out no matter what my situation is helps me cope with any of the bad stuff I don't like.
I find it hard to imagine that any one place is perfect, so if it's just a matter of making tradeoffs, I don't think the choice of where to live is one that you can "solve". Just pick a few things you want, and move somewhere that has them.
Easy. I joined the military. Where i live is thier decision/responsability now. (In reality we select a posting preference. I picked and got a posting within 100 miles of my home town.)
I live in Provo, Utah. I moved here to interact more with conservatives and those with strong religious beliefs–I felt that was lacking in my perspective.
I'm not a freelancer but it's not that hard to find a dev job in most major cities. I was living in SF and moved to NY. Reasons include:
- Getting out of the state I had spent my whole life in until that point. California is a great state, but I don't think I would have been happy with myself if I had never lived outside it for a significant amount of time.
- Moving to a city that doesn't hate tech (as much). Here, there are plenty of other industries assisting with gentrification, so we don't get singled out.
- Public transit is passable here.
- I originally came for a Recurse Center batch. They just moved to Brooklyn, and I live a 5 min walk from the location.
I miss my friends back home and being near all the nature that CA has, but overall it's a pretty good life here.
I got a remote job and moved from NYC to Boulder, CO. My reasoning was it's also a wealthy place with high real estate prices and good restaurants, but is in a more natural setting. Clean air, hiking, camping, skiing, etc... also close to a really good international airport (DEN).
Treat living in new places like dating. You're learning and growing the whole way, and for many people the ultimate goal is to find a good long term fit.
Right now I live in Indianapolis. My ex girlfriend and I wanted to try somewhere new, so we looked at a bunch of different options and listed the pros and cons. Ultimately our decision to live here was based on the high population yet low population density, the growing tech scene, the cleanliness of the city, and the low crime rate.
Those are all great qualities, but I've learned a lot along the way about more things that are important. First of all, I really can't stand the cold. My house had the heater on even during some summer days (running endlessly now in the winter). Also, everything is too spread out in Indy. There's not much outdoorsy stuff nearby. Being landlocked sucks and I love the ocean. Finally, I love Asian culture which barely exists here.
So again, now that I've learned all this, I'm applying this knowledge to my next place. It turns out that Oahu, Hawaii seems to fit the ticket. It has all the positive qualities I mentioned above. The super high prices out there are less than ideal of course, but living in San Francisco already taught me that it's not a deal breaker (plus I'll finally save some energy with the heater turned off)
So, hopefully I'll make cool friends and find that Oahu is a great fit. It seems like somewhere I could live for years, and possibly settle down in.
I guess it's all relative. It has a high crime rate when compared to someplace like Boise, Idaho, sure. But for a city that has well over a million people, I can walk around in the middle of the night downtown feeling quite safe, which is definitely not the case in, for example, San Fransisco (Market St. is PACKED with dealers and tweakers). Of course there are some places that are sketchy in Indy, but that's true anywhere and it's easy to avoid.
It's rare enough to hear about a shooting or robbery here, but there's a lot of cities where it's a regular occurrence.
That's fair, my experience is just anecdotal. According to the locals it has improved significantly in just the last couple of years. However, that may possibly be just due to gentrification. The crime rate is probably averaged across the huge surface area of the city, whereas my range is fairly confined to the inner portion.
==The website SafeWise recently found Indianapolis to be the 10th most dangerous city in the United States based on 2016 FBI crime statistics and population data.==
Not sure where you are getting your information, but it isn't so cut-and-dry. 2017 had a record number of homicides in Indianapolis and 2018 hasn't been better. That said, most other types of crime are down.
From October [1]
==The FBI reported that crime dropped 10 percent from 2016 to 2017 in Indianapolis and robbery was off by more than 12 percent.
IMPD statistics show robberies are down another 17 percent so far this year and burglaries are off 20 percent from last year.
But killings and aggravated assaults, often with guns, are up.==
It's a really good point! Super high population densities seems to make people much more grumpy, increase sickness, and increase pollution. But admittedly I wasn't prepared for exactly how spread out everything actually is here, and I sold my car before coming here.
Hopefully Oahu will have a good balance where I can be a bike ride or short drive away (considering buying a cheap truck) from downtown Honolulu while still living in a super green, peaceful area. But the great thing is that I can always just make slight adjustments to my distance to the city the longer I live there.
SF. Immigrated to the US ~20 years ago. >90% of people I know in the US are in the Bay Area. Walkable. Goldilocks weather. Bright (can’t take the winter darkness of the far north). Good access to activities I like (hiking, Tahoe, Napa, etc).
Have been unable to find that mix anywhere else + fear of the unknown/devil you know.
Married w children + house, so friction of moving pretty high. Wife really wants to stay.
There are a host of downsides of course, and sometimes I think we’re crazy for staying.
Homelessness - there are a lot of literally crazy people in SF (not just startup people ;), which didn’t bother me that much as a single guy, but does bother me as a husband/father.
Schools when the kids get there: public school lottery, private is $30-35k/y + donations + extras, budget $45-50k/kid/year, after horrendous taxes (worst in the country for high earners?).
Traffic can be pretty bad, parking sucks and public transit is there but not that great. Seems to be at least one crazy person on the bus whenever I take it. Muni (= bus+subway+light rail) breaks down quite a bit.
Mostly it’s the cost (everything is ridiculously expensive, not just real estate) and the homelessness.
You need to be ok with people being quite leftie and your vote generally not mattering if you’re not.
It's actually pretty easy to understand. Affordability is not and never was the priority in San Francisco. What are the priorities are things like environmental issues, keeping the police in check (making it politically impossible to enforce any norms of civilized behavior, e.g. don't use drugs outdoors in plain sight), catering to every imaginable niche in society (the city has five legally-sanctioned languages and every ballot is printed in all five), having the best food, and providing some form of health insurance to even the lowest people on the income ladder.
A lot of this policy is admirable in its intent but has the (mostly) unintended side-effect of making everything horrendously expensive. How could it be anything else...new construction in San Francisco requires years of permit approvals, solar panels on the roof, there's pretty much a ban on any non-union labor in construction, etc.
All the employers know this, so they pay salaries that make it worthwhile for people to show up. So you end up with hordes of people making $200-300K paying $100K/year in taxes and $40-50K for a babysitter for your kids because your parents or other family live halfway across the country and nobody can afford to live here on $20-30K when single rooms in a 4br place cost north of $1K/month after tax. Oh, and the schools, roads, and other infrastructure are pretty bad, too, and there's trash everywhere.
The real suckers seem to be the companies willing to pay the wages to keep this whole huge ponzi scheme going. The whole thing is a massive transfer from shareholders to local land owners, and government employees.
I'm not being cynical, this is just how it works, after living here for seven years. The city has 800K people and an operating budget of $8 billion. That's $10K/head and it's still potholes and unfunded pensions.
Except: “How could it be anything else...” - my wife is french and one thing that constantly surprises her is how little we get from our government for the taxes we pay. It is possible to make government more efficient, and not resort to the private sector (which has other problems).
Grew up in NJ. Most of my family came to the US through NYC and it seemed a lot more exciting to me than NJ.
That was around 7 years ago and now I'm thinking about moving to Miami or LA. My only requirements are warmth, some tech jobs, and a little more space.
I live in a tiny town in North central Washington state right by North Cascades National Park. We have about 200 full time residents. Originally built our house as a weekend place (about 4-5 hours from Seattle) but started working remotely in 2011 and was getting sick of Seattle going the way of San Francisco so we decided to move full time. I have to go to SF a lot for work and the travel can be tough with mountain passes, weather and flight delays out of the tiny airport I use but it's 100% worth it to be within a 5 minute drive of hundreds of pitches of climbing and right in the middle of the largest maintained network of nordic ski trails in North America.
No kids yet but haven't ruled it out. It's actually a great place to raise them. The local public schools are one town over and are very well supported by the diverse population in our valley. The high school actually has a shooting range for ski biathlon.
https://methow.org/
edit: added link
This sounds like my dream. :) Have you had to change jobs while being remote?
I'm torn between having my kid (4 now) grow up in Seattle w/ access to great schools and dozens of different educational & extracurricular activities, or to grow up someplace less hectic, where he can run out the front door in the morning and play outside all day.
Depending on how much free time you have, you could always homeschool him! The educational/extracurricular activities part is hard though -- I was homeschooled and got a lot of my 'socialization' through team sports, which can be harder in a rural area.
I couldn't handle the cold there! If winter sports are your jam though, it's a good place to be. I recommend hitting up the Arrowleaf, if you haven't. one of my homies runs it
I'm thinking of moving to that same general area. Right now I'm in Utah because that's where my first real job was, but my family lives near Seattle, Idaho, and Montana and I want more sun than Seattle and more green than everything in between.
I've thought about moving close to Leavenworth/Cle Elum or down south on the border of Oregon near Hood River/The Dalles.
We're still in the planning stages, and I'm rounding up some more clients just in case my main client stops working out (and I'm working on some startup ideas as well).
I just wanted to say that I'm super jealous that you're living in the area that I want to end up.
I live near where my wife and I grew up, exclusively because we find it important to have our kids spend time with their surviving grandparents. That's the only important thing in our lives that is location-specific.
When we first moved, my SO and I after Uni, we made no consideration of closeness to family. That was a mistake IMO - we're 4 hours from the nearest close family.
Now our parents are older we would love to be closer. Would have helped immensely with caring for the kids to have grandparents local too.
265 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadI'd like to live elsewhere, but SeaTac is well connected and I like the weather.
We’ve loved Nashville and Sarasota, FL for these reasons.
Ended up in Sarasota once we had kids to be near family.
Those at work who looked into moving there have noted, the commute is much worse, income tax is negated a lot by high property taxes. When the company started downsizing it was noted that those in NH had significantly worse unemployment benefits. Some feel its worth it, but a lot don't. I think we had one person move.
Property tax and sales tax isn't bad here or in Nashville. In Sarasota property tax is < 1% per year on assessed value and sales tax is 7%.
Ideologically, I think taxes should be based on consumption, not on earning power.
Where I am, a poor UK city, the Christian Churches provide a lot of services to the poor (homeless shelters, food banks, pensioners meals, friendship clubs, pregnancy counselling, family counselling, pastoral care) often with referral by front line council workers. Most of those services are free at the point of need (only family counselling is charged for IIRC) but couldn't operate on those budgets as council services -- largely because they rely on donations of buildings from the Churches, and donation of time from volunteers. The council has to rent, and has to pay at least minimum wage.
So, in a way these essential community services work outside the state machine doing something that in a socialist setting government is expected to do.
I can see this works inasmuch as those services exist, when they seemingly wouldn't otherwise, but the payment for those services isn't as fairly distributed as if it were acquired by taxation IMO. Also, in theory on a state level you save optimise service provision to save administration and logistics costs; whilst local piecemeal approaches can be relatively expensive ... but then in practice government seems to add layers of bureaucracy and expensive management ...
Any further thoughts?
Secondly, I believe that aid to the poor is most effective and of greater benefit to both the giver and the recipient when it is done in a relational context (which is not to say that aid is given directly from the giver to the recipient, just that it's localized enough that the givers and recipients are in the same community). The giver can see the tangible effects of his generosity and the recipient can see the care shown by the giver. By its nature, government aid is impersonal and therefore less beneficial. The "givers" in that case, who are "giving" often only under compulsion, often feel exploited and resentful. Many recipients develop a sense of entitlement since there's no direct connection between the aid they receive and their fellow citizens who provided that aid.
I do agree with you that taking government out of the aid business would result in less uniform funding for aid, but I think that's a lesser problem than forcing it on everyone. I'm on the board of a local charity and I see the private donors who fund it, 95% of whom are are middle or upper-middle class, and I'm pretty amazed by their generosity. I wish awareness of those kinds of things were greater.
At the moment I live in what I consider another top contender, DFW has access to anywhere in the world via direct flights. No state income tax, excellent access to medical, lower cost of living than the North East, etc. There is also a lot of available work. Interestingly enough Bloomberg ran an article that it is the #1 place for people relocating from the LA, NY and Chicago.
My wife is Portuguese, but has no ties to our current location, nor do I. We moved here, because we found a great house, in a great location that we could buy for reasonable money.
Portugal is an affordable country (if not in Lisbon or Porto), with great people, great food and great weather. Education is great, and the startup ecosystem is ambitious and growing rapidly.
Let me know if anyone would like to meet up, if you're here; or any tips on moving here.
For day-to-day, it does make your life much easier. Surprisingly, banks are a pain to deal with, without speaking Portuguese. I learned because my parents in law didn't speak English very well.
Portuguese is a rich language, and Portuguese people are typically familiar with the countries famous writers and poets. That makes it a valuable language to learn.
Both myself and my wife have really enjoyed the opportunities we had along the way, both in terms of lifestyle, research projects and financially.
But we are now at a point where we both feel the urge to "come back home".
I would love to hear your feedback from an outsider looking into the tech scene in Portugal.
My frustration in previous searches and interviews is that everyone likes to talk 'innovation' but the majority of interesting projects are still pretty much university incubations and/or very dependent on EC research funding streams. Has this changed in these past years? Do you see companies actually securing VC funding rounds or growing into more mature businesses?
Also perhaps an inferiority complex bias but I feel that, for larger service companies, Portugal is still scene as what they would call a 'near-shore' outsourcing tech pool, where you can get a bit more quality output but still at a fairly cheap price point. Has this changed? i.e. Do you see that Software teams can command competitive salaries when compared to other European locations? Or is it that it's acceptable only if you leverage this with a very low COL (outside prime real estate areas like Porto/Lisbon centres)?
I'd rather take the volatility of bitcoin and never have to worry about another centralized exchange/company locking my funds again.
I cash out a small portion of my BTC every month (to pay bills) and take the money from an ATM, it works like a charm.
Edit : open minded people is the reason
As a friend of mine said: Barcelona isn't a 10 out of 10 on anything. But it is an 8 or 9 out of 10 on everything. Good weather, amazing food, great people, great public transport, great airport, high speed rail and best of all: No republicans.
When I am working, I work remotely quite a lot.
I think a lot about moving closer to technology hubs and there is definitely a desire to generally work day-to-day with excellent engineers in close quarters. However, each time I do rocking chair thinking, I come back to the same conclusion; our lives are more rich with family and friends and the lifestyle we are able to gain via the lesser cost of living. Though, I admit it has a large potential cost on career. I'd love to be slinging Haskell day-to-day, in SF, etc for the rest of my life on a professional level.
Seeing that I'm in NYC, I think there are a few cultural, political and culinary reasons to choose a city to transition few. Here are a few of my requirements:
-Strong local job economy if in the event I lose my current position (my job is not sought after enough for me to gain remote positions immediately) -Cheap(er) real estate (this isn't hard considering I'm from NYC) -Left/Democrat-leaning locale (the state doesn't have to be blue but where I live should have an unshamed democratic community) -Some clustered seasonality (that removes FL, AZ, AL, and the northern state for their harsh winter)
My top cities I had in mind: -Raleigh or Charlotte (I have some trepidations about what the Republican leadership did recently) - Explosive growth which the city is not accustomed to/for - Traffic will be a nightmare if the rate continues (almost 0 public transport) - Good tech scene (Research Triangle) and quite cheap real-estate - Might be suburban hell/boring
I’m currently living in Raleigh-Durham but thinking about moving to a larger tech hub. Options are DC, NYC, and Seattle.
Regarding your list of concerns, I share with you: explosive growth, zero public transport, and suburban hell.
The job market is good but not great. None of the big tech companies have a presence here, except Google for nothing more than historic reasons. I highly doubt that this will change anytime soon, simply because of the poor infrastructure and transit.
This leaves you with companies like Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, etc. They are not “bad” companies and there is a lot of interesting work to do, but they are also not Amazon or Google.
I'm still just starting my career, so I want to at least try out working at a big tech company. Also, my wife and I travel pretty frequently to Tunisia, and flights from RDU are long and expensive. As a comparison, a flight from Seattle to Tunis costs ~$400 less than from Raleigh while taking the same amount of time!
I have many friends who moved to Europe who say the locals never let them speak their language and keep their distance.
Except for a few years ago when there was a wave of terrorist stabbings. Streets were empty. Everyone was looking back every few moments to see if they were being followed. Eye contact was made between every passing stranger in order to determine if they were about to stab you. It was scary but it did not last for too long. It was also a fascinating experience. Imagine walking down the street and EVERYONE makes eye contact with you!
Can you expand on that just a bit?
Also, curious if you are Jewish by birth or conversion?
People just do their thing and don't even think about it. I think it allows for more genuine relationships, more genuine interactions.
Another great thing about Jerusalem is that it's a smallish city. You see your friends on the street, you recognize faces at parties. You go to the local cafe and you know a few people there... But at the same time it's not so small that you know everyone. There are always new people to meet.
If a husband compromises, he is a wise man!
Well, we got married, and shortly afterward one of the well known tech companies made a really good offer. My wife threw an absolute fit and said she had taken a gamble while dating and didn't believe I would ever actually get a job offer at one of those companies. I nearly filed for divorce because of how horrible she was treating me, but instead I accepted the job and told her I was moving to the Bay Area regardless. Soon after, she agreed to honor her promise and came too, but every single day here she complains about how much she hates California.
When my few years are "up" I'm really dreading going back to a non-tech region. The company I'm at doesn't generally allow fully remote work, so I am somewhat seriously floating the idea of commuting to their office in the Northeast by plane each day from Atlanta. Sounds expensive but the plane tickets would be balanced out by the much lower cost of living. I don't know if the idea is actually feasible; I'd have to test it for a week.
Not to imply that where you live has to be both partners’ first choice, but if you can’t be on the same page that it’s a good compromise, one of you is just going to be miserable.
I think you are wasting your time. This will not end well. I'm telling this because I speak from my experience with very similar situation.
My family lives in the PNW, and my in-laws live in SoCal. Right now we're in Utah (ticks most of those boxes), but I'm looking around for other options, and right now I'm considering central Oregon or central Washington.
So yeah, I think it matters a ton where we live. Sure, we could be reasonably happy anywhere, but we'd really prefer to not have to compromise.
considering central Oregon or central Washington
Consider the Tricities -- Pasco, Kennewick, Richland, WA. It's not central. It's Eastern.
But my sons quit eating frozen veggies while we lived there and never went back. They got spoiled by fresh stuff. It is considered "the fruit basket" of the US, which I never heard anywhere but there. It's like some well kept secret. I learned to eat fresh pineapple there. Having grown up on the canned stuff, it was news to me that fresh pineapple is awesome. I had a pretty low opinion of it.
It's also kind of a retirement destination because it's relatively sunny and temperate for that part of the world.
I lived in Alexandria (outside of DC), then Evanston (outside Chicago) and now Rogers, AR, and each move revealed things to me that I didn't realize I enjoyed.
In DC I had a big enough friend circle that any given weekend I could find someone to hang out with. In Evanston I could walk to everywhere I wanted, and in Rogers, I've got actual gigabit Internet and pay half the rent I was paying before, for twice the home.
Each new place has a different set of advantages and disadvantages. DC was crazy expensive, Evanston had my whole life revolving around Northwestern (my fiancee was a student) and I'm not making tons of friends out here in Rogers yet.
What I did realize is that I could get used to anything, and remembering that my happiness is probably going to level out no matter what my situation is helps me cope with any of the bad stuff I don't like.
I find it hard to imagine that any one place is perfect, so if it's just a matter of making tradeoffs, I don't think the choice of where to live is one that you can "solve". Just pick a few things you want, and move somewhere that has them.
- Getting out of the state I had spent my whole life in until that point. California is a great state, but I don't think I would have been happy with myself if I had never lived outside it for a significant amount of time.
- Moving to a city that doesn't hate tech (as much). Here, there are plenty of other industries assisting with gentrification, so we don't get singled out.
- Public transit is passable here.
- I originally came for a Recurse Center batch. They just moved to Brooklyn, and I live a 5 min walk from the location.
I miss my friends back home and being near all the nature that CA has, but overall it's a pretty good life here.
Right now I live in Indianapolis. My ex girlfriend and I wanted to try somewhere new, so we looked at a bunch of different options and listed the pros and cons. Ultimately our decision to live here was based on the high population yet low population density, the growing tech scene, the cleanliness of the city, and the low crime rate.
Those are all great qualities, but I've learned a lot along the way about more things that are important. First of all, I really can't stand the cold. My house had the heater on even during some summer days (running endlessly now in the winter). Also, everything is too spread out in Indy. There's not much outdoorsy stuff nearby. Being landlocked sucks and I love the ocean. Finally, I love Asian culture which barely exists here.
So again, now that I've learned all this, I'm applying this knowledge to my next place. It turns out that Oahu, Hawaii seems to fit the ticket. It has all the positive qualities I mentioned above. The super high prices out there are less than ideal of course, but living in San Francisco already taught me that it's not a deal breaker (plus I'll finally save some energy with the heater turned off)
So, hopefully I'll make cool friends and find that Oahu is a great fit. It seems like somewhere I could live for years, and possibly settle down in.
It's rare enough to hear about a shooting or robbery here, but there's a lot of cities where it's a regular occurrence.
https://fox59.com/2018/08/14/100-homicides-put-indy-ahead-of...
From October [1]
==The FBI reported that crime dropped 10 percent from 2016 to 2017 in Indianapolis and robbery was off by more than 12 percent.
IMPD statistics show robberies are down another 17 percent so far this year and burglaries are off 20 percent from last year.
But killings and aggravated assaults, often with guns, are up.==
[1] https://cbs4indy.com/2018/10/01/overall-crime-down-as-murder...
As somebody who hates driving I immediately wondered how that could be a good thing!
> everything is too spread out
Ah! Yes, I can imagine.
Hopefully Oahu will have a good balance where I can be a bike ride or short drive away (considering buying a cheap truck) from downtown Honolulu while still living in a super green, peaceful area. But the great thing is that I can always just make slight adjustments to my distance to the city the longer I live there.
Have been unable to find that mix anywhere else + fear of the unknown/devil you know.
Married w children + house, so friction of moving pretty high. Wife really wants to stay.
There are a host of downsides of course, and sometimes I think we’re crazy for staying.
Schools when the kids get there: public school lottery, private is $30-35k/y + donations + extras, budget $45-50k/kid/year, after horrendous taxes (worst in the country for high earners?).
Traffic can be pretty bad, parking sucks and public transit is there but not that great. Seems to be at least one crazy person on the bus whenever I take it. Muni (= bus+subway+light rail) breaks down quite a bit.
Mostly it’s the cost (everything is ridiculously expensive, not just real estate) and the homelessness.
You need to be ok with people being quite leftie and your vote generally not mattering if you’re not.
A lot of this policy is admirable in its intent but has the (mostly) unintended side-effect of making everything horrendously expensive. How could it be anything else...new construction in San Francisco requires years of permit approvals, solar panels on the roof, there's pretty much a ban on any non-union labor in construction, etc.
All the employers know this, so they pay salaries that make it worthwhile for people to show up. So you end up with hordes of people making $200-300K paying $100K/year in taxes and $40-50K for a babysitter for your kids because your parents or other family live halfway across the country and nobody can afford to live here on $20-30K when single rooms in a 4br place cost north of $1K/month after tax. Oh, and the schools, roads, and other infrastructure are pretty bad, too, and there's trash everywhere.
The real suckers seem to be the companies willing to pay the wages to keep this whole huge ponzi scheme going. The whole thing is a massive transfer from shareholders to local land owners, and government employees.
I'm not being cynical, this is just how it works, after living here for seven years. The city has 800K people and an operating budget of $8 billion. That's $10K/head and it's still potholes and unfunded pensions.
Except: “How could it be anything else...” - my wife is french and one thing that constantly surprises her is how little we get from our government for the taxes we pay. It is possible to make government more efficient, and not resort to the private sector (which has other problems).
That was around 7 years ago and now I'm thinking about moving to Miami or LA. My only requirements are warmth, some tech jobs, and a little more space.
We loved the location we were in, but the school districts were awful.
I'm torn between having my kid (4 now) grow up in Seattle w/ access to great schools and dozens of different educational & extracurricular activities, or to grow up someplace less hectic, where he can run out the front door in the morning and play outside all day.
I've thought about moving close to Leavenworth/Cle Elum or down south on the border of Oregon near Hood River/The Dalles.
We're still in the planning stages, and I'm rounding up some more clients just in case my main client stops working out (and I'm working on some startup ideas as well).
I just wanted to say that I'm super jealous that you're living in the area that I want to end up.
Now our parents are older we would love to be closer. Would have helped immensely with caring for the kids to have grandparents local too.