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Thanks for the post, I now feel like I want to do similar thing sometime in my life. Is there any other interesting, safe, cheap place where you could live comf

Thanks for the post, I now feel like I want to do similar thing sometime in my life. Is there any other interesting, safe, cheap place where you could live comfortably using at most $1000/month?

berntb 13y ago
This has been discussed often, some web sites keep cost statistics. For example, Google: living costs london cluj (I was outsourced to Cluj, Transylvania in Romania. I recommend it. 250 Euro/month for a nice, central 50 m2 apartment. People are nice, it is safe. Different. Beautiful women. Mountains, but no sea. University city. The food is very good, but could be more international -- a few sushi places and one(!) Indian. If you want more info, add a comment and your email in your profile.) If I had a choice personally, I'd go for Japan. For culture/food.
- bsullivan01 13y ago
  If I had a choice personally, I'd go for Japan. For culture/food. Isn't that too expensive? I have no first hand knowledge, just what I read sometimes about it
  - ido 13y ago
    Japan has gotten a lot less expensive in the past 10 years.
- asveikau 13y ago
  I thought that maybe the Romanians pronounced the letter J similar to its original use in Latin; that consonant made when the letter i brushes up against another vowel, as in iudex, like an English Y. But no, I look it up and they pronounce it as [ʒ], almost like we do in English. Therefore, I will make my corny joke: you don't want your software written in a place that sounds so similar to "kludge". :-)
  - berntb 13y ago
    Sadly, that term seems to have fallen out of use -- I have had to explain it to lots of young computer people in Cluj. :-)
TillE 13y ago
That's certainly more than enough money to live pretty well in Berlin, though a tourist visa will only give you 90 days in the Schengen Area.
- ido 13y ago
  $1000 is 737 eur/m, you can certainly live like a student in Berlin that way (e.g. with roommates) but I wouldn't say "live well" considering the recent rent hikes. We're moving there now and just renting a small 2-room (1 bedroom) apartment can easily cost 600-700 eur/m (gesamtmiete). You can do well with 1000 eur/m per person tho.
oakaz 13y ago
Turkey. It's cheap, the variety and kinds of food is incredible and there is no racism at all since all western and asian cultures are mixed there. And the universities are completely free in Turkey, which leads the middle class grow faster and provide the companies dozen amount of engineers every year
- chinmoy 13y ago
  Free for only turkish citizens or for everyone?
- wataguy 13y ago
  What's the visa situation in Turkey these days? I know you used to be able to stay 60 days, pop over to Greece for a day, come back, and repeat as needed. Is that still the case?
dxbydt 13y ago
Props to the OP for being open to exploring a whole different continent. But frankly, there are plenty of university towns right here in the USA that'll fit the OP's 1000 USD budget very well. As a TA in a CS grad program, I made $800 per month. With that money, I lived in a comfortable studio & had everything the OP describes & when I graduated in 2 years, in addition to my Masters degree, I had managed to save $5000, which I used for downpayment on a car. Most students live like this & some of the frugal TAs manage to save much more than 5K.
- crucialfelix 13y ago
  $1000/mo in thailand is living WELL. truly paradise, gorgeous weather, go to nice clubs, best beaches in the world. no comparison with just passing time in a university town in the US. you could merely survive for much less in thailand
  - dxbydt 13y ago
    Am just pointing out that bootstrapping a startup in a university town on 1k USD is definitely doable. You don't have to go all the way to Thailand and flout visa rules(yeah most of those rules are not exactly enforced but they are still on the books)
    - notahacker 13y ago
      It's a fair point, but you'd never go to Thailand mainly to save money anyway: it's one of the most expensive countries in the region and certainly no easier to live in (beyond the tourist/expat ghettos)
    - crucialfelix 13y ago
      True, I could even do it here in Berlin for €750. But it's going to be dark and cold soon. And the vitamin d and serotonin will slowly drain from my body. And my productivity and happiness will slowly plummet. Accordingly, I will go to Bangalore, then further south.
- nielmalhotra 13y ago

Thanks for the post, I now feel like I want to do similar thing sometime in my life. Is there any other interesting, safe, cheap place where you could live comfortably using at most $1000/month?

berntb 13y ago

This has been discussed often, some web sites keep cost statistics. For example, Google: living costs london cluj (I was outsourced to Cluj, Transylvania in Romania. I recommend it. 250 Euro/month for a nice, central 50 m2 apartment. People are nice, it is safe. Different. Beautiful women. Mountains, but no sea. University city. The food is very good, but could be more international -- a few sushi places and one(!) Indian. If you want more info, add a comment and your email in your profile.) If I had a choice personally, I'd go for Japan. For culture/food.

bsullivan01 13y ago
If I had a choice personally, I'd go for Japan. For culture/food. Isn't that too expensive? I have no first hand knowledge, just what I read sometimes about it
- ido 13y ago
  Japan has gotten a lot less expensive in the past 10 years.
asveikau 13y ago
I thought that maybe the Romanians pronounced the letter J similar to its original use in Latin; that consonant made when the letter i brushes up against another vowel, as in iudex, like an English Y. But no, I look it up and they pronounce it as [ʒ], almost like we do in English. Therefore, I will make my corny joke: you don't want your software written in a place that sounds so similar to "kludge". :-)
- berntb 13y ago
  Sadly, that term seems to have fallen out of use -- I have had to explain it to lots of young computer people in Cluj. :-)

TillE 13y ago

That's certainly more than enough money to live pretty well in Berlin, though a tourist visa will only give you 90 days in the Schengen Area.

ido 13y ago
$1000 is 737 eur/m, you can certainly live like a student in Berlin that way (e.g. with roommates) but I wouldn't say "live well" considering the recent rent hikes. We're moving there now and just renting a small 2-room (1 bedroom) apartment can easily cost 600-700 eur/m (gesamtmiete). You can do well with 1000 eur/m per person tho.

oakaz 13y ago

Turkey. It's cheap, the variety and kinds of food is incredible and there is no racism at all since all western and asian cultures are mixed there. And the universities are completely free in Turkey, which leads the middle class grow faster and provide the companies dozen amount of engineers every year

chinmoy 13y ago
Free for only turkish citizens or for everyone?
wataguy 13y ago
What's the visa situation in Turkey these days? I know you used to be able to stay 60 days, pop over to Greece for a day, come back, and repeat as needed. Is that still the case?

dxbydt 13y ago

Props to the OP for being open to exploring a whole different continent. But frankly, there are plenty of university towns right here in the USA that'll fit the OP's 1000 USD budget very well. As a TA in a CS grad program, I made $800 per month. With that money, I lived in a comfortable studio & had everything the OP describes & when I graduated in 2 years, in addition to my Masters degree, I had managed to save $5000, which I used for downpayment on a car. Most students live like this & some of the frugal TAs manage to save much more than 5K.

crucialfelix 13y ago
$1000/mo in thailand is living WELL. truly paradise, gorgeous weather, go to nice clubs, best beaches in the world. no comparison with just passing time in a university town in the US. you could merely survive for much less in thailand
- dxbydt 13y ago
  Am just pointing out that bootstrapping a startup in a university town on 1k USD is definitely doable. You don't have to go all the way to Thailand and flout visa rules(yeah most of those rules are not exactly enforced but they are still on the books)
  - notahacker 13y ago
    It's a fair point, but you'd never go to Thailand mainly to save money anyway: it's one of the most expensive countries in the region and certainly no easier to live in (beyond the tourist/expat ghettos)
  - crucialfelix 13y ago
    True, I could even do it here in Berlin for €750. But it's going to be dark and cold soon. And the vitamin d and serotonin will slowly drain from my body. And my productivity and happiness will slowly plummet. Accordingly, I will go to Bangalore, then further south.
nielmalhotra 13y ago