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Portugal or I think any other southern Europe country is perfect for the 100k plus Dev nomad. Living like a king while running their own small business or worki

Portugal or I think any other southern Europe country is perfect for the 100k plus Dev nomad. Living like a king while running their own small business or working on remote projects. I did that for a couple of years. Absolutely enjoyed it. Food, people, weather, party. I do miss it sometimes. But man, some things are really f@€ed up there. Bureaucracy, badly organized government, healthcare and education. Sometimes dominant complain culture. Absolute shit quality of housing and public roads. Much larger difference in poor and rich. You ll get to notice these things after 1, 2 years while getting settled in. Then you realize to move.That's what I did.

vmception 6y ago
Yeah, I find it hilarious that my biggest culture shock with Europe is how unionized industries can strike and actually cause a noticeable inconvenience. I'm always like "WHAT!? How is this possible? Why didn't the bus/train/airline just declare bankruptcy, ending the jobs of 20,000 people at once, and do an IPO without unionized workers a year later!?" and then I have to laugh it off because thats just so American of me. our unions just have people walking in a circle for up to a few months, in one city against a multinational corporation, and barely anything occurs except some inspiration for your new moon drum circle.
- aforwardslash 6y ago
  Because when you cut hundreds or thousands of jobs, it will have a devastating impact in the community, not only for those directly affected, but also for those that will compete with them for available jobs. I find it hilarious that an american doesn't find it obvious, given the abundance of american examples on this.
  - vmception 6y ago
    America is a much larger more cohesive market, which means specific communities have no affect on the national company which has expanded to other countries as well. The individual nations in Europe are the size of individual American states, and can only be compared when talking about the European Single Market as a whole, which is new and filled with the vestiges of national companies that are just getting around to expanding into their neighboring countries. The American experience has been removed from communities for a very long time that corporate apathy is the expected experience.
- roadbeats 6y ago
  Could you share an example case of that IPO scenerio you mention?
  - vmception 6y ago
    A union overplayed their hand with Hostess over wage stuff not knowing Hostess’ financial prospects and the company declared bankruptcy in the middle of the worker strike. The company assets and factories were sold off and the buyers kept the brand name and IPO’d and it trades under TWNK. No union workers lol.
- onion2k 6y ago
  I'm always like "WHAT!? How is this possible? Why didn't the bus/train/airline just declare bankruptcy, ending the jobs of 20,000 people at once, and do an IPO without unionized workers a year later!?" If the bus company did what you suggest a lot of European people would boycott the new one.
  - llampx 6y ago
    You can boycott it as long as you don't need to get to the next town over. When you do, and every other company has done the same shit in the past, you become inured to it.
- andi999 6y ago
  At least this would not be possible. If you declare bancruptcy the company will be put under a outside CEO who tries to save the company. Is it different in the US?
  - vmception 6y ago
    Depends on the circumstance
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
raverbashing 6y ago
Bureaucracy sucks, the usual way is to hire someone who knows how to deal with it (Accountants/Lawyers for company registration etc). And once you're done, you're usually done. "Ah but in the US is not so complicated" yes but some other things make up for it (and some other things are more complicated in the US - but we usually see the downsides first) > Sometimes dominant complain culture. Absolute shit quality of housing and public roads Yes, agree. Insulation is getting better, though of course it's Portugal, it's not getting as cold as a more northern city.
- bboygravity 6y ago
  > though of course it's Portugal, it's not getting as cold as a more northern city. The winter temperature inside an average Portuguese house is definitely way cooler than that in any house in any country North of Portugal. The inside of living spaces in Northern Europe houses hardly ever go under 19 degrees C (usually a few degrees warmer I would guess). Even if it's like -30 C outside. In Portugal it can easily be 5 - 15 C for weeks/months on end inside a house. There's really no comparison in comfort to be honest. I say this as someone who has lived in both Northern Europe and Portugal for multiple years.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Oh I understand. In a similar way, the hotter places have air-conditioning (granted, not so popular but not uncommon) so the northerner cities suffer in heat waves. And yes you definitely feel it comfort wise
andresp 6y ago
Compared to which country? I agree with the bureaucracy and government inefficiency, but public roads and shit housing quality? Much larger difference between our and rich? Compared to what? Certainly not the US... And for healthcare, the public health system has many problems but if you have the money/insurance you can use the private one, as you would in the US. Biggest cons of Portugal are: poor economy (when compared to the leading Western countries; this results in low salaries, lack of strong international companies, external dependency, lack of autonomy, fragility to crisis) and a big state (causes high taxes, big companies dependency on the state, corruption, brain drain...). Still probably one of the best countries to retire to in the world.
- lagadu 6y ago
  Shit housing quality is absolutely true in my experience. For context, I'm Portuguese but I lived abroad for quite a few years and returned while doing the digital nomad thing, mostly because I have plenty of friends here and because I make what locally is considered a ridiculous amount of money. Anyway yeah. In order to get a house to a standard that I consider acceptable (and acceptable != good) I pretty much had to househunt at the very highest end of the market which didn't have much offer (this being in Porto). Granted, it's still stupid cheap compared to what I paid elsewhere but most houses in the country are flat-out appaling in quality and missing basic features or insulation. edit: and public roads too, I often describe half of the city as being effectively goat tracks. I like nice cars, which means low profile tires, hardly a year goes by where I don't damage a wheel or blow a shock absorber, the amount of roads not made of tar is stupid.
  - andresp 6y ago
    I am also Portuguese, have lived in 3 other European countries (all of them economically richer) and am still living abroad. If I compare the housing quality of all these countries I disagree Portugal is worse. I can easily find much worse flats listed abroad than in Portugal. I remember seeing unimaginable things like 20 sq m studio with no bathroom (just a plastic separating the rooms) in central London for the rental price of a 1 bed in Porto. Portuguese housing market, like potentially every other market, is smaller than the richer countries, but that doesn't mean house quality is "shit". I looked at idealista a few weeks ago and there are luxury houses being sold for 1M+ in the north (probably even more in the South), mostly obviously targeted to rich foreigners.
anonymousDan 6y ago
Health care? In Spain at least healthcare is awesome. Similarly the roads are excellent. Bureaucracy on the other hand...
- vasco 6y ago
  Different countries.
rorykoehler 6y ago
Can you elaborate on healthcare. What don't you like about it?
- bboygravity 6y ago
  See the bit after the second quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26272690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26272690
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    This happened during covid though. Is it always like that?
brauhaus 6y ago
I can vouch on the "complain culture"! I even have a neat anecdote: A Portuguese lady was complaining that the supermarket cashier line took too long (this was pre-covid). So I told her that there were self-checkouts the isle over. Her answer was: "I don't like self-checkout either; I like to do things the way I'm used to". Or don't conflate my complaints with a desire for solutions.

vmception 6y ago

Yeah, I find it hilarious that my biggest culture shock with Europe is how unionized industries can strike and actually cause a noticeable inconvenience. I'm always like "WHAT!? How is this possible? Why didn't the bus/train/airline just declare bankruptcy, ending the jobs of 20,000 people at once, and do an IPO without unionized workers a year later!?" and then I have to laugh it off because thats just so American of me. our unions just have people walking in a circle for up to a few months, in one city against a multinational corporation, and barely anything occurs except some inspiration for your new moon drum circle.

aforwardslash 6y ago
Because when you cut hundreds or thousands of jobs, it will have a devastating impact in the community, not only for those directly affected, but also for those that will compete with them for available jobs. I find it hilarious that an american doesn't find it obvious, given the abundance of american examples on this.
- vmception 6y ago
  America is a much larger more cohesive market, which means specific communities have no affect on the national company which has expanded to other countries as well. The individual nations in Europe are the size of individual American states, and can only be compared when talking about the European Single Market as a whole, which is new and filled with the vestiges of national companies that are just getting around to expanding into their neighboring countries. The American experience has been removed from communities for a very long time that corporate apathy is the expected experience.
roadbeats 6y ago
Could you share an example case of that IPO scenerio you mention?
- vmception 6y ago
  A union overplayed their hand with Hostess over wage stuff not knowing Hostess’ financial prospects and the company declared bankruptcy in the middle of the worker strike. The company assets and factories were sold off and the buyers kept the brand name and IPO’d and it trades under TWNK. No union workers lol.
onion2k 6y ago
I'm always like "WHAT!? How is this possible? Why didn't the bus/train/airline just declare bankruptcy, ending the jobs of 20,000 people at once, and do an IPO without unionized workers a year later!?" If the bus company did what you suggest a lot of European people would boycott the new one.
- llampx 6y ago
  You can boycott it as long as you don't need to get to the next town over. When you do, and every other company has done the same shit in the past, you become inured to it.
andi999 6y ago
At least this would not be possible. If you declare bancruptcy the company will be put under a outside CEO who tries to save the company. Is it different in the US?
- vmception 6y ago
  Depends on the circumstance
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

raverbashing 6y ago

Bureaucracy sucks, the usual way is to hire someone who knows how to deal with it (Accountants/Lawyers for company registration etc). And once you're done, you're usually done. "Ah but in the US is not so complicated" yes but some other things make up for it (and some other things are more complicated in the US - but we usually see the downsides first) > Sometimes dominant complain culture. Absolute shit quality of housing and public roads Yes, agree. Insulation is getting better, though of course it's Portugal, it's not getting as cold as a more northern city.

bboygravity 6y ago
> though of course it's Portugal, it's not getting as cold as a more northern city. The winter temperature inside an average Portuguese house is definitely way cooler than that in any house in any country North of Portugal. The inside of living spaces in Northern Europe houses hardly ever go under 19 degrees C (usually a few degrees warmer I would guess). Even if it's like -30 C outside. In Portugal it can easily be 5 - 15 C for weeks/months on end inside a house. There's really no comparison in comfort to be honest. I say this as someone who has lived in both Northern Europe and Portugal for multiple years.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Oh I understand. In a similar way, the hotter places have air-conditioning (granted, not so popular but not uncommon) so the northerner cities suffer in heat waves. And yes you definitely feel it comfort wise

andresp 6y ago

Compared to which country? I agree with the bureaucracy and government inefficiency, but public roads and shit housing quality? Much larger difference between our and rich? Compared to what? Certainly not the US... And for healthcare, the public health system has many problems but if you have the money/insurance you can use the private one, as you would in the US. Biggest cons of Portugal are: poor economy (when compared to the leading Western countries; this results in low salaries, lack of strong international companies, external dependency, lack of autonomy, fragility to crisis) and a big state (causes high taxes, big companies dependency on the state, corruption, brain drain...). Still probably one of the best countries to retire to in the world.

lagadu 6y ago
Shit housing quality is absolutely true in my experience. For context, I'm Portuguese but I lived abroad for quite a few years and returned while doing the digital nomad thing, mostly because I have plenty of friends here and because I make what locally is considered a ridiculous amount of money. Anyway yeah. In order to get a house to a standard that I consider acceptable (and acceptable != good) I pretty much had to househunt at the very highest end of the market which didn't have much offer (this being in Porto). Granted, it's still stupid cheap compared to what I paid elsewhere but most houses in the country are flat-out appaling in quality and missing basic features or insulation. edit: and public roads too, I often describe half of the city as being effectively goat tracks. I like nice cars, which means low profile tires, hardly a year goes by where I don't damage a wheel or blow a shock absorber, the amount of roads not made of tar is stupid.
- andresp 6y ago
  I am also Portuguese, have lived in 3 other European countries (all of them economically richer) and am still living abroad. If I compare the housing quality of all these countries I disagree Portugal is worse. I can easily find much worse flats listed abroad than in Portugal. I remember seeing unimaginable things like 20 sq m studio with no bathroom (just a plastic separating the rooms) in central London for the rental price of a 1 bed in Porto. Portuguese housing market, like potentially every other market, is smaller than the richer countries, but that doesn't mean house quality is "shit". I looked at idealista a few weeks ago and there are luxury houses being sold for 1M+ in the north (probably even more in the South), mostly obviously targeted to rich foreigners.

anonymousDan 6y ago

Health care? In Spain at least healthcare is awesome. Similarly the roads are excellent. Bureaucracy on the other hand...

vasco 6y ago
Different countries.

rorykoehler 6y ago

Can you elaborate on healthcare. What don't you like about it?

bboygravity 6y ago
See the bit after the second quote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26272690 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26272690
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  This happened during covid though. Is it always like that?

brauhaus 6y ago

I can vouch on the "complain culture"! I even have a neat anecdote: A Portuguese lady was complaining that the supermarket cashier line took too long (this was pre-covid). So I told her that there were self-checkouts the isle over. Her answer was: "I don't like self-checkout either; I like to do things the way I'm used to". Or don't conflate my complaints with a desire for solutions.