HACKER Q&A
📣 boffinism

Digital nomads, where's the best place in the world to work from?


Me and a friend are setting up a co-living business catering for short-term stays by digital nomads, and one of the many questions we're trying to answer is where in the world is the best place to site it.

(We also have a ton of other questions, and it would be super useful if anyone cared to help answer them by spending 3 mins on this quick survey: https://theintro.typeform.com/to/DUSbNl5v)


  👤 istorical Accepted Answer ✓
I spent a good year trying to develop a website to answer this question and collect responses from people who'd done just this to try to aggregate their qualitative and quantitative experiences, before ultimately realizing this is something where you can sort of point out some of the obvious trade-offs but the value system and preferences of the individuals vary so much that unfortunately the only way to really determine it is for the person in question to go live there. And so I stopped working on the site and just got a one way ticket and spent a year remote working.

Before realizing that for me at that stage in my life the best place for me ironically was the country where I started, just in a bigger city with a good metro system.

If you wanna determine this you'd be best off constructing a matrix of priority systems (weather, cost of living, language, broad cultural region a la northern european, southern european/latin, east asian, latin american, etc), nature in the area, etc) and make a tool for an individual to rank their priorities in terms of categories/factors, then rank the options _within_ each of those categories/factors, and then try to score the results for them. But even then, people often don't know what they want or care about until they've experienced a variety of places.


👤 stephenr
Honestly the biggest thing no one seems to be acknowledging here is the legal issues with this type of business.

Yeah you can just fly to Chiang Mai with your laptop and work from a coffee shop and no ones likely to care. Because you’re one person.

Setting up a company in another country is hard and often expensive. It’s hard to imagine how the business you describe wouldn’t come under the scrutiny of local immigration and/or labour officials, and face legitimate legal barriers and/or expectations of bribes (obviously depending on the nature of governments where you chose).


👤 gregjor
Roam was one of the more popular co-living/co-working companies, with great locations and facilities. They apparently went under. I stayed at their Ubud location for a month once, and couldn’t get a reservation in Tokyo because they were full. https://roam.co

Besides the significant hassle setting up legally in foreign countries, co-living places are a target for immigration and labor law enforcement, since the guests are almost certainly working without work permits. Harder to stay under the radar as a digital nomad when you’re living at a place that advertises as a haven for DNs.

There’s no best place to work from. DNs tend to congregate more in some places (Chiang Mai, Ubud, Medelin) than others for various reasons, mainly price. Big cities are expensive, beach towns don’t have the infrastructure or can’t attract enough DNs.


👤 gabrielsroka
I'm not affiliated with them, but for anyone looking for nomad information: https://nomadlist.com

👤 ggillas
Bermuda has a 1 year pass for entry for $260 USD. https://www.gotobermuda.com/workfrombermuda

I'll be there next week if anyone wants to meet up!


👤 randomopining
Why don't you go find it?

Most would agree all the amenities are good to have.

But then people digress into two groups. One group of nomads want to be in the "poppin" location where there's tons of other people etc.

Other people like to be in relatively calm/secluded spots that still have amenities.


👤 dbish
If you’re catering to Americans and might want to move beyond just short term stays, Puerto Rico might be a great option for tax reasons and that you don’t need a visa. There are infrastructure and other problems there, so choosing the right location is important, and having a plan when hurricanes show up as well.

👤 namelosw
I was fancying all those digital nomads crowded places.

But after I thought about it seriously, I found there are a lot of wonderful domestic places (or nearby countries if you're living in a small country). Usually, those places speak similar languages, cultures are different but mutually understandable so I can live in those places and maximize the joy of living.

There are nice and cheap places all over the world, and there's no need to travel to the other side of the globe to find one... Unless you already have your dreamed one in mind then you already got your answer. IMHO In both ways, you don't really need other people to tell you where your perfect place is.

Seriously, remote-hostile places (expensive, terrible network, dangerous) are pretty easy to identify, and they are much fewer than remote-friendly places.


👤 warrenm
I can't answer all of this, but make sure that you investigate the legal requirements wherever you setup

It may, for example, be fantastic to be a Digital Nomad™ from the Nomad's perspective in Bolivia ... but from the business perspective be an absolute nightmare :)

Or wonderful to setup shop in the Maldives ... but your Nomads would all hate it

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Note - I know nothing about the business climates of Bolivia or the Maldives - just using then as examples :)


👤 Vepkhvi
The Republic of Georgia has a fantastic digital nomad program and is a wonderful place to work from. The value is phenomenal.

👤 ecesena
I'm about to try out Sicily. Italy in general is relatively cheap, you have good places and good food. I found surprising that many places don't have good wifi, but you can get really cheap SIM cards/hotspots (compare to US prices). Language might be a barrier too, but especially in the new generations English is getting much better - at least understandable :)

👤 listenallyall
A fun, accessible, friendly, utilitarian, co-working space is highly desirable. Co-living, on the other hand, sounds like a nightmare.

👤 quickthrower2
Of course, the best place to work from and the best place for you to set up shop might be different answers!

👤 anm89
After a few years on the road, my votes mostly align with the stereotypes. I'd say Chiang Mai and Medellin are the best quality of life and value mix in the world for me.

I love Tokyo, but the value factor certainly isn't there.


👤 vineyardmike
Not sure how’s you work out proper network but a coworking cruise sounds ideal.

Spend a few days at sea working, then dock and explore for a day or two. Then a few more days working.

Of course it’s an environmental nightmare but it seems nice.


👤 stuaxo
Step 1: become digital gonad.

Step 2: Start your blog about how easy it is to do digital gonadary, and sell subscriptions to it.

At least; when I was travelling this seemed to be what all of them were doing.


👤 gexla
If you're a digital nomad, then there probably isn't a best place or else maybe you would just plant yourself there and no longer be a digital nomad.

👤 bwb
Valencia Spain :), best city in the world!

👤 WorldPeas
I've heard the Philippines are a pretty good place to stretch a buck... if you can stomach their draconian free speech restrictions and authoritarian politics