Post: #1

Fellas, looking at a few different options to move longterm for 6-12 months at a time and was hoping to get a better understanding of a few places i'm thinking about. Seen as the good people on here have traveled a fair bit more than me hopefully i can get more of an idea before taking the plunge. Places i'd be looking at would be -

Colombia (Medellin), Peru (Lima), Chile (Santiago), Costa Rica (San Jose?), Vietnam (Da Nang), Taiwan, Ukraine & Hungary

Just interested in knowing if i could live in each comfortably having only $2k USD a month, living in a nice apartment in a nice part of town and would cover food, eating out a couple of times a week, internet, gym and some language lessons.

If any of the experts can help out it'd be greatly appreciated

Post: #2

Use this tool, it's not perfect but will give you a good idea of relative cost of living by city.

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living

Post: #3

Do a forum search. Plenty of threads.

Post: #4

Thanks ascotpudding but i've had a look at expatistan and like most of those sort of sites it's hard to gauge what the lifestyle they are living, if it's a safe area of town, etc doing it that way.

Looked through a lot of forum threads samsamsam but most don't give an exact figure for a month, just some random costs here and there and a lot are out of date.

I don't even need a big rundown of costs, i was just interested in the people that have lived in these places if they could say yes or no in regards to them or if they don't recommend picking those places but all good, thanks for the replies.

Post: #5

Check out nomadlist.com too.

Honestly, why not just look at AirBnb for the cities you're interested in? That should give you a good estimate for housing, which will be your biggest cost by far.

Post: #6

Yea i've checked that one out too and done as you said looked through AirBnb, i've got a fair idea. Thanks for the suggestion i was more interested in some inside info from the people who have done it but all good, i will keep hunting through the threads and take a bit of a gamble.

Post: #7

Use Numbeo

Post: #8

(07-21-2017 08:45 PM)benji Wrote:  Thanks ascotpudding but i've had a look at expatistan and like most of those sort of sites it's hard to gauge what the lifestyle they are living, if it's a safe area of town, etc doing it that way.

Looked through a lot of forum threads samsamsam but most don't give an exact figure for a month, just some random costs here and there and a lot are out of date.

I don't even need a big rundown of costs, i was just interested in the people that have lived in these places if they could say yes or no in regards to them or if they don't recommend picking those places but all good, thanks for the replies.

Post the links of the threads you have gone through.

While out of date may be a couple of years, there is still useful information to help you narrow it down. So let's say a place you have listed above costs 1500 a month to live comfortably, it is highly unlikely it is now 3000 to have the same lifestyle there 2 years later. Being flexible is important. Rarely do people have perfect information.

Oftentimes, you will have to travel there to know for yourself if you could live there for 6-12 months.

If you have been a long time lurker, first time poster sort of a guy. Then you know, I'm willing to help people but you have to do the work first. There are threads that have useful pieces of information that can give you an idea.

Also, if you did the work, you would see guys that have been living in your area of interest. You could always write them a PM.

Sometimes, you'll need to just read a thread like the Ukraine one and you will find pieces of useful info. Will it be presented exactly the way you want it? Or in as much detail as you want? Probably not. Not in one clean post. But that is part of the adventure.

Good luck!

Post: #9

(07-22-2017 10:42 AM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(07-21-2017 08:45 PM)benji Wrote:  Thanks ascotpudding but i've had a look at expatistan and like most of those sort of sites it's hard to gauge what the lifestyle they are living, if it's a safe area of town, etc doing it that way.

Looked through a lot of forum threads samsamsam but most don't give an exact figure for a month, just some random costs here and there and a lot are out of date.

I don't even need a big rundown of costs, i was just interested in the people that have lived in these places if they could say yes or no in regards to them or if they don't recommend picking those places but all good, thanks for the replies.

Post the links of the threads you have gone through.

While out of date may be a couple of years, there is still useful information to help you narrow it down. So let's say a place you have listed above costs 1500 a month to live comfortably, it is highly unlikely it is now 3000 to have the same lifestyle there 2 years later. Being flexible is important. Rarely do people have perfect information.

Oftentimes, you will have to travel there to know for yourself if you could live there for 6-12 months.

If you have been a long time lurker, first time poster sort of a guy. Then you know, I'm willing to help people but you have to do the work first. There are threads that have useful pieces of information that can give you an idea.

Also, if you did the work, you would see guys that have been living in your area of interest. You could always write them a PM.

Sometimes, you'll need to just read a thread like the Ukraine one and you will find pieces of useful info. Will it be presented exactly the way you want it? Or in as much detail as you want? Probably not. Not in one clean post. But that is part of the adventure.

Good luck!

All good Samsamsam, i've gone through the individual threads for the countries and a couple of the cost of living threads but it's fine. I was looking for the easy answer and to put some anxiety at ease with moving to one of those locations, if a forum member would jump out and say, hey don't go there it's too expensive or out of those go there but it's fine i think i'll just go with my gut, everyone has there own version of how they need to live to be happy and like you said just get as much info as possible through those cost of living sites/AirBnb and take the punt and move there for 6-12 months.

Cheers

Post: #10

You can live a decent lifestyle in Hungary with 2k, in Ukraine you'd be very comfortable.

But as G Manifesto would have said, if you're asking where you can live for 2k you might be asking the wrong question.

Surprisingly, few people are talking about that.

Post: #11

(07-21-2017 09:12 AM)benji Wrote:  Colombia (Medellin), Peru (Lima), Chile (Santiago), Costa Rica (San Jose?), Vietnam (Da Nang), Taiwan, Ukraine & Hungary

Just interested in knowing if i could live in each comfortably having only $2k USD a month

I travel a lot and just my general thoughts are that you'd live a good lifestyle in all places you listed for under $2k USD except for maybe Costa Rica, Santiago and Taiwan... those three places in particular are a bit more pricey than the rest on the list. There are a multitude of variables though so asking this question is a bit vague like "how long is a piece a string?". Seeing as you'll be 6 months minimum in each place you should be able to get an almost local level of cost of things such a rental. As others have have suggested, use numbeo.com it's a great resource.

Post: #12

Numbeo is quite accurate if I look at Poland or France, only the rents seems like 10-20% lower than reality.

You can live quite comfortably anywhere in Eastern Europe. If you don't go out much then you'll probably spend much less than that. The problem is that if you don't have European citizenship you won't be able to stay long term and short term accommodation is much more expensive.

Post: #13

Yes.

Post: #14

In EE maybe the top ten percent of people are earning 1500 or more in a month.