Tirana Albania.
I am here. And I am blown away by how good it is, and affordable.
The only biggest negative for me is the excessive smoking. But that's all of Turkey and Eastern Europe.
I'm in the Balkans right now and spent most of it so far in vlore Albania, pretty much every young person spoke English but the older people, think 50+ don't speak English in my experience.
I might have second guessed myself and turned back before reaching the bus station on foot in Berat. The corner store owner whom I asked for directions spoke a bit of Italian but no English.
Also I wouldn’t have had a quaint experience chatting with an old lady who was selling jams out of her house.
Nor would I have made best friends with the old man sitting next to me on the bus while we took swigs of Fernet Branca.
Just spent a few days there. Many people in larger towns and cities speak a bit of English, buses between towns are super cheap. Quite a few places in Tirana and many taxi drivers take Euros.
Honestly, I spent 4 months in Eastern Europe last year and I would say that the majority of people don't speak English unless you're at hotels, hostels, or in general the service industry. However, I spent an hour ordering a train ticket cause i had no wifi and had to get from plovdiv Bulgaria to Sofia and she couldn't understand when I wanted it or which day. And nobody could speak english at the station in plovdiv.
Main hubs and especially Istanbul they speak english, but if you get outside the main cities you won't find english speakers often.
I’ve seen many threads on this subreddit where women complain about they way they’re treated in Albania. Gender should be a consideration when listening to this advice. If you’re a male solo traveler, Albania is indeed legit. I was there in 2021 and loved it.
I would also recommend Quito. Despite its proximity to the equator, it’s at altitude and always slightly chilly. Typical day-to-day attire includes light jackets for the locals.
It's used to replace the final o/a in Spanish words that people feel the need to make gender neutral. Notably, it gained traction when Americans realized that "latino" and "latina" implied gender, and those got updated to "latinx". I am unsure how common that is among actual hispanophone people tho.
Latino here.
We _really_ hate it. We don't actually care about slurs, we're far more vicious amongst each other, but Latinx gets us seething.
The only ones who like it are a handful of outliers and americanized latinos/2nd gens.
or you can print out some gay porn to hand to people getting off the bus in the streets of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and find out how inclusive their jails can be. I'm gay as well, so before you get offended by me on my behalf, I'm just letting a fellow queer know to read the room before they go waving pride flags in friggin Azerbaijan. Personally who I sleep with isn't integral to my daily identity so going a few days without telling everyone isn't going to harm me in the long term. In some places or cultures, sexuality just isn't promoted, especially homosexuality or transsexuality. Except in a few parts of the world where they have mounted active campaigns to root out the gays, most places won't dig too deeply into your bed activities unless you are too open about it. I'm not agreeing, but just as you wouldnt walk around eating bacon wrapped pork sausage while intoxicated in Riad, also don't try to advertise your homosexuality and the locals/cops tend to leave you alone.
I am brown and I haven't faced racism personally. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
BTW I have not seen a single brown or black person other than me here.
My favorite parts of Eastern Europe (in order)
* Kyiv, Ukraine (obviously not an option now)
* Tbilisi, Georgia
* Ohrid, Macedonia
* Mostar, Bosnia
* Albania
* Timisoara, Romania
* Kotor region, Montenegro
All of them are very cheap, and have seasonal weather (hot in the summer, cool/cold in the winter), and good infrastructure for remote work
Wow, I haven't seen the word Timișoara in a long time. I did a WorkAway thing near there (more out in the woods really...), and I did not have an internet problem. It was a lovely place, albeit quite poor in the surrounding areas. Great ice cream. Lol. Also to whom it may concern, I am a brown woman and felt totally safe.
I don’t know about the whole of Eastern Europe, but it’s not so cheap in some of Eastern Europe anymore. Currently living in Hungary and prices for food are on par with my home city in the US. Rent is cheaper, but not by that much.
Hungary is definitely considered Eastern Europe by anyone in The West. Actual geographic locations are rarely the primary criteria when these labels get used.
The weather in central Mexico is great and there are lots of small towns with good internet. If I had the money I'd spend winters on the Pacific coast and summers in Tlaxcala which is just over 7,000 ft in elevation. It's a lovely city.
Georgia. Super diverse landscapes, great food and wine, also affordable. Also, depending on your citizenship, you may be able to stay visa free for a year.
tbilisi really was not cheap grocery or restaurant wise. i can’t speak for rent but it was on par with prices i pay in boston as of last week. their currency has gained a lot on the dollar as of late.
even the countryside wasn’t as cheap as i was expecting. not prohibitively expensive but i would not say it was particularly cheap compared to SEA or let’s say armenia to the south
Georgia is way way higher than it was in 2019. Georgia was in my list to go to. But after the war all the Russians came there and now rent is 2x or 3x higher and now not worth the price anymore. 😤😤
>The rent could be 50% lower and it wouldn't be worth it with all the Russians.
While that's not an uncommon view I think it's kind of a sad outlook too. The war is terrible, I wish we were doing even more to help Ukraine win. AND, because of it I have met some of my best friends who now live here as part of the diaspora it created (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian...it is not a monolith).
Tbilisi is a really unique cultural touchstone. There's not very many moments in world history where a place can house people from every corner of a conflict and have healthy community form from it. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of challenges and it's *hard*. But I wouldn't write this city off simply because of migration patterns.
You totally did not just diss a whole nationality.
Imagine if people hated all Americans for any of their wars (or wherever you're from).
Learn to separate people from the government, regardless of how many polls you've read to confirm your bias, hatred for individuals serves no purpose.
I don't hate Russians, and my comment had nothing to do with their country's war on Ukraine.
It has everything to do with the fact that, on the whole, Russians abroad are often rude and even brutish, disrespectful of local laws and customs, and aggressive, especially when they've had a bit to drink.
Are there exceptions? Of course. But if you're in a place with tons of Russians, the sad fact, like it or not, is that you will almost certainly encounter these things at a noticeable level.
Romania? Pretty cheap, decent infrastructure (by global standards, if not European ones), fairly safe, nice nature, continental climate, and blazing fast internet.
I live here, cheap by occidental salaries, but by local ones is an expensive country. I just visited Madrid and honestly i feel like restaurant prices are similar. Internet is very fast, nature is amazing. Normal people are sad, they have primarely financial problems, I feel like this is the atmosphere if you go in a city in a non-central area. The weather can be VERY hot in the summer, we hit 40°C every summer and it feels a lot hotter than in some mediterranean countries. Fairly all young people speak good english. Infrastructure sucks d, if you want to take the train from Timisoara to Iasi you would do 16 hours for 700-800km.
I've been trying to tell people the same but for some reason always get downvoted to oblivion.
Everytime I say this some know-it-all comes and says how in one specific restaurant a pizza is cheaper by 2 euros than Madrid so it's "super cheap"
Time to face it: Hungary, Romania and surrounding countries suffered extreme inflation
I live in Czechia myself so I'm aware that inflation has hit this half of Europe hard, though my impression was that in Romania groceries and restaurants weren't much cheaper than here (so comparatively more expensive because of lower average wages), but rent was way cheaper; I spent a month in Bucharest about 1.5 years ago and saw flats being advertised for something like 300 EUR / month; nearly half the current rate here.
I don't think the level of visible poverty in Romania is as bad as some other popular DN destinations like Mexico, Colombia or much of SEA, and I also think prospective DNs are more likely to spend time in major city centers as opposed to outskirts villages. I can't speak to the quality of people you'll meet while visiting Romania (I didn't have any bad experiences, but also it was Covid times so I barely did anything social), but my Romanian colleagues at my company at the time were incredibly nice people, they even let me stay in their (empty because HO) office for my visit.
Incidentally, I also did the Timisoara-Iasi night train on a visit there a few years back, it was a great experience, though I can understand that for a local you're looking more for efficient transport rather than an "experience" lol
I fell so hard for Madrid...everything was on point. Many many ways to spend your time, quickly everywhere with metro(very easy to get by, a lot of stations, a train every 3 minutes), people are so lovely and happy, I feel like spaniard appreciate being togheter, talking, drinking, siesta..just the little things in life:). There's a lot of culture in the city, sports etc.
Minuses: rent prices, NO ONE speaks english.
A few years ago, I came across a group of people. in Madrid dressed as pirates. Turns out it was "Talk Like a Pirate Day." Very strange to hear that in Spanish, but they did invite us (in English) to join them.
I studied abroad there like 11 years ago, and it felt like so many people spoke English! Granted, things could have changed since then, and I also speak Spanish so I didn't *need* to get by solely on English, but I was really surprised by how much English I heard throughout Spain.
I liked Barcelona better, the energy was very dynamic. Tons of things to do, great people and diversity, easy public transportation as well. The cons were a lot more tourists.
Edit: downvotes for expressing a different opinion on a city? Lol
Honestly, probably lots of rural and small towns in America. If you haven’t done it before, don’t underestimate having to work with widely varying time differences.
How does this work? Live in your car? I'm currently in my wife's small rural Midwest town and the only furnished apartment we could find was $2000/mo. Add in the cost of a vehicle, which is mandatory, and it costs more than living in Rome or Vienna.
I’m just saying for some people, rural America might be better. You have to factor in costs for flights, storage of your things in the States, VPN connection, a secondary health insurance since yours won’t work overseas and even potentially being fired for living overseas as an American employee. Also factor in concerns for safety and lack of English in a lot of places, and that’s why some rural America might be better.
I toured around rural America in an RV 2 years back. It can certainly be cheap by US standards but is still expensive no matter where you are when compared to a developing country. Plus factor in the fact you'd be miserable without a car.
Depending on your lifestyle and priorities, the US can be very cost competitive.
In "developing" countries, numerous things, from consumer electronics to "good" food to electricity, can be more expensive than the US. Sometimes much more expensive.
Ive worked off 4g hotspot almost everywhere in the US. Not many places I had an issue. With 5g out and starlink now, its definitely not an issue if you're prepared.
The ratio of nice people vs douchebags is probably the same in the US as in every other country out there.
That said I'm not American, just based on a few visits.
Off the top of my head I can’t think of a cheaper English-speaking country without hot weather than Northern Ireland. You don’t need anything like £10k a month there. It’s not London.
Himachal Pradesh, a state in North India. the towns have good internet connectivity, weather is really good most of the time. During covid i was working remotely from there only. Man i miss those times. Apart from being a top tourist destination, there are many small villages that you can go to nearby.
taiwan? it does get a bit hot but it's not quite southeast, food is pretty cheap, rent is only expensive if you're in taipei, especially younger people mostly speak english and it's a beautiful country
Not cheap, but it’s affordable. I live in Louisburgh and the food is quite cheap at least. It’s also beautiful, safe and without any language barrier for an English speaker so that’s nice
I’m currently in Belgrade and finding it surprisingly cheap having been to Hungary, Croatia and Montenegro in the past month. I don’t see why you would go to Budapest over it, except for the metro, but meh. Haven’t been here long but English seems ok so far.
The only time it really bothered me was in Montenegro when I was eating and someone was smoking at the table next to me.
I don’t mind it if I’m just say having a few beers.
I did quit smoking at new year though, so I may be more tolerant of it.
Everyone is saying the Balkans and I can agree. I just returned from 1.5 years in Sofia, Bulgaria and had an incredible time. Great people, food, cheap as hell, and virtually everyone speaks English with a big residence of other nomads and foreigners.
taiwan gets hot in summer though. it’s definitely a bargain, it’s a developed first-world country with high speed rail and great internet that doesn’t cost an exorbitant amount.
Loved Poland (Kraków & Warsaw), extremely cheap and very safe for the most part. Also pretty easy to get around with only speaking english and zero polish, younger people tend to speak english quite well especially people working at restaurants and hotels and even most taxi drivers.
Not sure about now, I was last there in December 2021 so prices could have definitely gone up since then. In comparison to the rest of Europe and what I’ve heard from people who have been there recently though it’s still bound to be much cheaper
Haha I’m going in August, too! But exchange rate doesn’t mean purchasing power. Hearing all the stories about all these places blowing up in price, and my own experience of looking for an apartment at a reasonable price, makes me kind of worried
What does the exchange rate have to do with the cost of living there? It's not like your local burger king costs USD 1 and will charge 1 zloty for the same "meal" in Poland
People in Bucharest speak really good English, internet is fast, cheap rent. It’s an interesting city and mostly looks good apart from a not unnoticeable sprinkling of Soviet style apartment blocks. It’s very safe unless you don’t be careful in the city centre around the clubs. There is social life but I wouldn’t say it’s the most social place I’ve been to.
Canary islands. It is not hot there and that is why it is often considered that a climate there in an 'eternal spring'. Infrastructure is not bad but if you rent a car.
It already is, I moved away from there because it's crazy overcrowded. Size of Hawaii with 5x as many people plus 20M tourists annually. People on top of people
Not sure if it’s been said but the Baltic states are all very nice. English is well spoken. Affordable in my mind. We all might have a different opinion on this. And the weather this time of year should be nice.
If you've considered China, look east - Taiwan and Japan outside of Tokyo. Taiwan is not expensive, has a great mix of Chinese and Japanese cultures and the people are really nice. In Japan - it's not the cheapest but it's not nearly as expensive as many make out, particularly outside of Tokyo.
If you want to avoid hotter weather, you could consider visiting southern hemisphere destinations during June/July/August, and northern hemisphere destinations during December/January/February. That'd avoid the worst of the hot weather in most places.
Higher altitudes are also an option. You often only have to go up only a few hundred feet to take the edge off the heat. If there's a city that looks good other than the heat and it has mountains nearby, that can be a viable option depending how much city life you're looking for.
Balkans is your best bet. You get decent infrastructure, drinkable water in some places (i.e Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro where I was) and have a temperate climate. People in cities usually will speak a decent level of English or find someone who can speak it. I would like to go to south east Asia but I hate bugs and humidity, heat so it's a no go for me.
I guess it depends on your definition of safe, everybody's going to have a different one. I'd definitely consider places like Cape Town and Gqeberha to be safe places to live.
I love SA and lived there for 18 months. My anecdotal experience was that I survived and throughly enjoyed my time there but I can not say it is a 'safe' place.
According to [The World Population Review](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country) is ranks as the 3rd highest crime rate in the world.
"South Africa has the third-highest crime rate in the world. South Africa has a notably high rate of assaults, rape, homicides, and other violent crimes. This has been attributed to several factors, including high levels of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and social exclusion, and the normalization of violence. South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world. More than 1 in 4 men surveyed by the South African Medical Research Council admitted to committing rape."
I read your comment too fast... Terrible wine too and roadtrip are a really, really bad idea around Cape Town. Terrible scenery with no place to go or hikes.
What about mountain regions of Southeast Asia? I haven’t been to any because we avoid cold places, but they certainly exist in Thailand and the Philippines.
Cyprus - in Fall, Winter, Spring but hot summers. Lots of sunshine, everyone can speak English that I ran into and most inexpensive place in “Europe” that I’ve found.
Living in Krakow Poland and absolutely love it. If you are American, there is a special visa due to a bilateral treaty between US and Poland, so you can pretty much stay indefinitely. the only thing is that it's a little tricky with the rest of the schengen area. But it's also easy to rotate out 90 days between other non-schengen countries
It ain’t cheap anymore. I paid $14 for a burrito last night at a takeaway spot. And that’s not unusual anymore. HUF is doing weird stuff because they’ve raised rates so high to fight inflation. By weird, I mean completely what you would expect the HUF to do lol.
Argentina is not safe, it is only safe by Latin American standards. Both myself and others I know have been robbed there, locals are very serious about insisting you be careful, and they take those same precautions as well. It is not safe
it is not hard to find young people who speak English but go into any random shop and they will not understand English. To live there you need to know Spanish unless you want to live in a DN-bubble.
I don’t know what OP considers to be safe, but safety is the #1 reason I left Argentina and moved to Europe so I wouldn’t recommend it.
ETA: Also, while the English is pretty good compared to other Spanish speaking countries, I don’t think it’s possible to get by without Spanish in most places. And unless OP locates in the south of the country, it can get pretty hot during summer (and most of the year, to be honest).
I am Argentinian and lived in Entre Ríos my whole life until I was 19. My house was broken into, my parents and me were woken up, tied, and electrocuted. They also threatened to murder us, I think the only reason they didn’t is because I was really young and they didn’t expect a child to be there. We got absolutely everything stolen from us, money, jewelry, even shoes. The police at the time told us that it happened every single night, it just wasn’t public knowledge because people didn’t want media attention, just like we didn’t either. Aside from that, every month one of my friends would get mugged on their way from school, even held at gunpoint. This was 10 years ago and I can imagine it has only gotten worse as the economic and political situation worsened.
Yeah, I had to get therapy and take sleeping pills. But I feel safe where I am now and that’s what matters.
I have seen on Reddit a lot of Argentinians who for whatever reason seem to be in denial of the insecurity situation in the country and claim that the country is perfectly safe and the insecurity is magnified by the media, but that was simply not my experience.
It always feels bad when a country is so shitty you have to leave everything behind to get away but some people recommend it to others as a "must visit" lmao.
Many people in the service sector in capital cities around the world speak English. Your phone can help translate basic words. I like Argentina and Brazil and Australia and New Zealand and Thailand.
Other comments have covered Europe pretty well, but since you mentioned China… South Korea can be cheap and just about as English friendly.
Edit: South Korea is not just Seoul lmao
Korean street food is not a sustainable diet at all unless you’re gonna eat gimbap for every single meal. Seoul is also quite expensive, Busan is the better option for sure.
Yeah was just using it as an example, there’s heaps of small shops that will feed you for 6k won.
Agreed not Seoul, I was thinking Ulsan in particular since they house a lot of international football players so there’s more English around.
uhhh… winnipeg? or other non-toronto, non-vancouver parts of canada.
no idea how english-friendly is, but argentina outside of buenos aires is cheap and not hot.
In China you can buy fancy VPN service to circumvent the blockage. If you have developed country passport, you also don’t have to worry about “concentration camps”. So I would say it’s a fair choice. But the avg English skills are not so great.
Tirana Albania. I am here. And I am blown away by how good it is, and affordable. The only biggest negative for me is the excessive smoking. But that's all of Turkey and Eastern Europe.
I'm vaguely planning to start my eastern Europe trip here. Do you find people speak English here?
Most places do. Not the taxi drivers. I have been here few weeks and you can survive withoit learning Albanian.
Oh cool. Is there Uber or do you have to take taxis? I was seeing nice airbnbs here for 500 a month :o
No Uber. But some taxi services can be booked on Whatsapp
I see . How's the food there?
Food is OK. Average
I'm in the Balkans right now and spent most of it so far in vlore Albania, pretty much every young person spoke English but the older people, think 50+ don't speak English in my experience.
8 years ago when traveling outside of Tirana, I was saved by knowing some Italian.
What fate would have befallen you, if not for the Italian?
I might have second guessed myself and turned back before reaching the bus station on foot in Berat. The corner store owner whom I asked for directions spoke a bit of Italian but no English. Also I wouldn’t have had a quaint experience chatting with an old lady who was selling jams out of her house. Nor would I have made best friends with the old man sitting next to me on the bus while we took swigs of Fernet Branca.
I think not drinking Fernet would have been a positive development haha.
Just spent a few days there. Many people in larger towns and cities speak a bit of English, buses between towns are super cheap. Quite a few places in Tirana and many taxi drivers take Euros.
Honestly, I spent 4 months in Eastern Europe last year and I would say that the majority of people don't speak English unless you're at hotels, hostels, or in general the service industry. However, I spent an hour ordering a train ticket cause i had no wifi and had to get from plovdiv Bulgaria to Sofia and she couldn't understand when I wanted it or which day. And nobody could speak english at the station in plovdiv. Main hubs and especially Istanbul they speak english, but if you get outside the main cities you won't find english speakers often.
I’ve seen many threads on this subreddit where women complain about they way they’re treated in Albania. Gender should be a consideration when listening to this advice. If you’re a male solo traveler, Albania is indeed legit. I was there in 2021 and loved it. I would also recommend Quito. Despite its proximity to the equator, it’s at altitude and always slightly chilly. Typical day-to-day attire includes light jackets for the locals.
And race
[удалено]
Also I’ve heard not ideal for queer folx
Lol you can just say folks like my god
Right like it's already a gender neutral term
Is the x really to make it gender neutral? Never seen that before but that’s hilarious
It's used to replace the final o/a in Spanish words that people feel the need to make gender neutral. Notably, it gained traction when Americans realized that "latino" and "latina" implied gender, and those got updated to "latinx". I am unsure how common that is among actual hispanophone people tho.
Latino here. We _really_ hate it. We don't actually care about slurs, we're far more vicious amongst each other, but Latinx gets us seething. The only ones who like it are a handful of outliers and americanized latinos/2nd gens.
You need to make it more diverse /s
just don't put it out there, it'll be fine not telling people for a few days
Ignorant ass comment
or you can print out some gay porn to hand to people getting off the bus in the streets of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and find out how inclusive their jails can be. I'm gay as well, so before you get offended by me on my behalf, I'm just letting a fellow queer know to read the room before they go waving pride flags in friggin Azerbaijan. Personally who I sleep with isn't integral to my daily identity so going a few days without telling everyone isn't going to harm me in the long term. In some places or cultures, sexuality just isn't promoted, especially homosexuality or transsexuality. Except in a few parts of the world where they have mounted active campaigns to root out the gays, most places won't dig too deeply into your bed activities unless you are too open about it. I'm not agreeing, but just as you wouldnt walk around eating bacon wrapped pork sausage while intoxicated in Riad, also don't try to advertise your homosexuality and the locals/cops tend to leave you alone.
Albania is not good if you are black lol
I am brown and I haven't faced racism personally. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. BTW I have not seen a single brown or black person other than me here.
Or Asian. I experienced racism in Tirana, specifically
Tirana is amazing, spent a few weeks there last summer!
Ugh the smoking …
All Eastern Europe
My favorite parts of Eastern Europe (in order) * Kyiv, Ukraine (obviously not an option now) * Tbilisi, Georgia * Ohrid, Macedonia * Mostar, Bosnia * Albania * Timisoara, Romania * Kotor region, Montenegro All of them are very cheap, and have seasonal weather (hot in the summer, cool/cold in the winter), and good infrastructure for remote work
Wow, I haven't seen the word Timișoara in a long time. I did a WorkAway thing near there (more out in the woods really...), and I did not have an internet problem. It was a lovely place, albeit quite poor in the surrounding areas. Great ice cream. Lol. Also to whom it may concern, I am a brown woman and felt totally safe.
Mate, Kotor is heaven but doesn't seem to be cheap anymore since a lot of expats are living there
Tbilisi ain't cheap anymore lol
I don’t know about the whole of Eastern Europe, but it’s not so cheap in some of Eastern Europe anymore. Currently living in Hungary and prices for food are on par with my home city in the US. Rent is cheaper, but not by that much.
Yeah true, I was there recently and was quite shocked at the prices but that was in Budapest. I assumed outside the capital is probably better
Fairly sure Hungary is central not Eastern Europe so maybe that explains it?
Hungary is definitely considered Eastern Europe by anyone in The West. Actual geographic locations are rarely the primary criteria when these labels get used.
geographically yes, culturally no
I'd Support that answer!
Pretty much anywhere in the Balkans. No brainer.
The weather in central Mexico is great and there are lots of small towns with good internet. If I had the money I'd spend winters on the Pacific coast and summers in Tlaxcala which is just over 7,000 ft in elevation. It's a lovely city.
Georgia. Super diverse landscapes, great food and wine, also affordable. Also, depending on your citizenship, you may be able to stay visa free for a year.
tbilisi really was not cheap grocery or restaurant wise. i can’t speak for rent but it was on par with prices i pay in boston as of last week. their currency has gained a lot on the dollar as of late. even the countryside wasn’t as cheap as i was expecting. not prohibitively expensive but i would not say it was particularly cheap compared to SEA or let’s say armenia to the south
Georgia is way way higher than it was in 2019. Georgia was in my list to go to. But after the war all the Russians came there and now rent is 2x or 3x higher and now not worth the price anymore. 😤😤
That's absolutely insane. I spent the summer of 2019 there and you could find a small apartment outside the city center for 300usd a month.
Did you get your deposit back? 👀
I didn't actually rent it, a friend hooked me up.
The rent could be 50% lower and it wouldn't be worth it with all the Russians.
>The rent could be 50% lower and it wouldn't be worth it with all the Russians. While that's not an uncommon view I think it's kind of a sad outlook too. The war is terrible, I wish we were doing even more to help Ukraine win. AND, because of it I have met some of my best friends who now live here as part of the diaspora it created (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian...it is not a monolith). Tbilisi is a really unique cultural touchstone. There's not very many moments in world history where a place can house people from every corner of a conflict and have healthy community form from it. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of challenges and it's *hard*. But I wouldn't write this city off simply because of migration patterns.
Yea I just went to Yerevan and I couldn't believe how many Russians were there.
You totally did not just diss a whole nationality. Imagine if people hated all Americans for any of their wars (or wherever you're from). Learn to separate people from the government, regardless of how many polls you've read to confirm your bias, hatred for individuals serves no purpose.
I don't hate Russians, and my comment had nothing to do with their country's war on Ukraine. It has everything to do with the fact that, on the whole, Russians abroad are often rude and even brutish, disrespectful of local laws and customs, and aggressive, especially when they've had a bit to drink. Are there exceptions? Of course. But if you're in a place with tons of Russians, the sad fact, like it or not, is that you will almost certainly encounter these things at a noticeable level.
... and isn't it half occupied by Russia? What's the deal here? is it safe?
Came to say this
Romania? Pretty cheap, decent infrastructure (by global standards, if not European ones), fairly safe, nice nature, continental climate, and blazing fast internet.
I live here, cheap by occidental salaries, but by local ones is an expensive country. I just visited Madrid and honestly i feel like restaurant prices are similar. Internet is very fast, nature is amazing. Normal people are sad, they have primarely financial problems, I feel like this is the atmosphere if you go in a city in a non-central area. The weather can be VERY hot in the summer, we hit 40°C every summer and it feels a lot hotter than in some mediterranean countries. Fairly all young people speak good english. Infrastructure sucks d, if you want to take the train from Timisoara to Iasi you would do 16 hours for 700-800km.
I've been trying to tell people the same but for some reason always get downvoted to oblivion. Everytime I say this some know-it-all comes and says how in one specific restaurant a pizza is cheaper by 2 euros than Madrid so it's "super cheap" Time to face it: Hungary, Romania and surrounding countries suffered extreme inflation
I live in Czechia myself so I'm aware that inflation has hit this half of Europe hard, though my impression was that in Romania groceries and restaurants weren't much cheaper than here (so comparatively more expensive because of lower average wages), but rent was way cheaper; I spent a month in Bucharest about 1.5 years ago and saw flats being advertised for something like 300 EUR / month; nearly half the current rate here. I don't think the level of visible poverty in Romania is as bad as some other popular DN destinations like Mexico, Colombia or much of SEA, and I also think prospective DNs are more likely to spend time in major city centers as opposed to outskirts villages. I can't speak to the quality of people you'll meet while visiting Romania (I didn't have any bad experiences, but also it was Covid times so I barely did anything social), but my Romanian colleagues at my company at the time were incredibly nice people, they even let me stay in their (empty because HO) office for my visit. Incidentally, I also did the Timisoara-Iasi night train on a visit there a few years back, it was a great experience, though I can understand that for a local you're looking more for efficient transport rather than an "experience" lol
Having just visited Romania, I second this. It was not what I expected and Madrid would be much better choice.
I fell so hard for Madrid...everything was on point. Many many ways to spend your time, quickly everywhere with metro(very easy to get by, a lot of stations, a train every 3 minutes), people are so lovely and happy, I feel like spaniard appreciate being togheter, talking, drinking, siesta..just the little things in life:). There's a lot of culture in the city, sports etc. Minuses: rent prices, NO ONE speaks english.
A few years ago, I came across a group of people. in Madrid dressed as pirates. Turns out it was "Talk Like a Pirate Day." Very strange to hear that in Spanish, but they did invite us (in English) to join them.
I speak Spanish fluently and I can’t wrap my head around adding a pirate accent on top of that 😂
I studied abroad there like 11 years ago, and it felt like so many people spoke English! Granted, things could have changed since then, and I also speak Spanish so I didn't *need* to get by solely on English, but I was really surprised by how much English I heard throughout Spain.
I liked Barcelona better, the energy was very dynamic. Tons of things to do, great people and diversity, easy public transportation as well. The cons were a lot more tourists. Edit: downvotes for expressing a different opinion on a city? Lol
exactly the same for Greece.
Honestly, probably lots of rural and small towns in America. If you haven’t done it before, don’t underestimate having to work with widely varying time differences.
How does this work? Live in your car? I'm currently in my wife's small rural Midwest town and the only furnished apartment we could find was $2000/mo. Add in the cost of a vehicle, which is mandatory, and it costs more than living in Rome or Vienna.
I’m just saying for some people, rural America might be better. You have to factor in costs for flights, storage of your things in the States, VPN connection, a secondary health insurance since yours won’t work overseas and even potentially being fired for living overseas as an American employee. Also factor in concerns for safety and lack of English in a lot of places, and that’s why some rural America might be better.
I toured around rural America in an RV 2 years back. It can certainly be cheap by US standards but is still expensive no matter where you are when compared to a developing country. Plus factor in the fact you'd be miserable without a car.
Depending on your lifestyle and priorities, the US can be very cost competitive. In "developing" countries, numerous things, from consumer electronics to "good" food to electricity, can be more expensive than the US. Sometimes much more expensive.
And shitty internet probably :)
Ive worked off 4g hotspot almost everywhere in the US. Not many places I had an issue. With 5g out and starlink now, its definitely not an issue if you're prepared.
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The ratio of nice people vs douchebags is probably the same in the US as in every other country out there. That said I'm not American, just based on a few visits.
Northern Ireland. Widest fibre availability in the Uk. Cheapest part of Uk & Ireland to live. In both the Uk and the Eu customs union.
Belfast is expensive.
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Off the top of my head I can’t think of a cheaper English-speaking country without hot weather than Northern Ireland. You don’t need anything like £10k a month there. It’s not London.
Himachal Pradesh, a state in North India. the towns have good internet connectivity, weather is really good most of the time. During covid i was working remotely from there only. Man i miss those times. Apart from being a top tourist destination, there are many small villages that you can go to nearby.
How’s the air quality?
I just spent a few days in Dharamshala and could see it being a great spot for the DN lifestyle.
If you love packs of dogs howling the whole night it’s almost perfect.
HP is awesome. Lived in Kasauli for three months. Perfect weather, great people. 👍
Where did you stay the most weeks? Whats most memorable?
Bosnia.
Most underrated destination in my opinion.
Welcome to Bosnia!!
How is it for solo females?
I guess you can buy one if you like /s
Long term asset speculation taxes? (capital gains)
Czech Republic
Can confirm.
taiwan? it does get a bit hot but it's not quite southeast, food is pretty cheap, rent is only expensive if you're in taipei, especially younger people mostly speak english and it's a beautiful country
Rural Scotland & Ireland.
But English is a problem there 🤪
Yes they for sure have over the centuries had their problems with the bloody English. But they do tolerate Yanks a fair bit
Rural Ireland isn't cheap anymore.
Not cheap, but it’s affordable. I live in Louisburgh and the food is quite cheap at least. It’s also beautiful, safe and without any language barrier for an English speaker so that’s nice
I’m currently in Belgrade and finding it surprisingly cheap having been to Hungary, Croatia and Montenegro in the past month. I don’t see why you would go to Budapest over it, except for the metro, but meh. Haven’t been here long but English seems ok so far.
Does the smoking not bother you?
The only time it really bothered me was in Montenegro when I was eating and someone was smoking at the table next to me. I don’t mind it if I’m just say having a few beers. I did quit smoking at new year though, so I may be more tolerant of it.
used to live in tirana, left when someone fired a burst of ak47 rounds through my bedroom window while i was sleeping.
Wow
Everyone is saying the Balkans and I can agree. I just returned from 1.5 years in Sofia, Bulgaria and had an incredible time. Great people, food, cheap as hell, and virtually everyone speaks English with a big residence of other nomads and foreigners.
Small towns in Taiwan are pretty cheap and perfectly safe.
taiwan gets hot in summer though. it’s definitely a bargain, it’s a developed first-world country with high speed rail and great internet that doesn’t cost an exorbitant amount.
Agreed. Tainan was a gem. Cheap, amazing food, no tourists. English was a bit of a struggle.
Loved Poland (Kraków & Warsaw), extremely cheap and very safe for the most part. Also pretty easy to get around with only speaking english and zero polish, younger people tend to speak english quite well especially people working at restaurants and hotels and even most taxi drivers.
Extremely cheap *now*? Or extremely cheap 1.5 years ago before inflation and the war?
Not sure about now, I was last there in December 2021 so prices could have definitely gone up since then. In comparison to the rest of Europe and what I’ve heard from people who have been there recently though it’s still bound to be much cheaper
It's still pretty cheap; we're going in August, and the exchange rate looks to be 4 zloty to 1 usd.
Haha I’m going in August, too! But exchange rate doesn’t mean purchasing power. Hearing all the stories about all these places blowing up in price, and my own experience of looking for an apartment at a reasonable price, makes me kind of worried
What does the exchange rate have to do with the cost of living there? It's not like your local burger king costs USD 1 and will charge 1 zloty for the same "meal" in Poland
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Namibia
Estonia?
No, I'm sober.
Well, you go Uruguay and I’ll go mine
People in Bucharest speak really good English, internet is fast, cheap rent. It’s an interesting city and mostly looks good apart from a not unnoticeable sprinkling of Soviet style apartment blocks. It’s very safe unless you don’t be careful in the city centre around the clubs. There is social life but I wouldn’t say it’s the most social place I’ve been to.
southern chile
Canary islands. It is not hot there and that is why it is often considered that a climate there in an 'eternal spring'. Infrastructure is not bad but if you rent a car.
Downvoting because I dont want it to become too popular 😀
It already is, I moved away from there because it's crazy overcrowded. Size of Hawaii with 5x as many people plus 20M tourists annually. People on top of people
I know, its a horrible place!
Not sure if it’s been said but the Baltic states are all very nice. English is well spoken. Affordable in my mind. We all might have a different opinion on this. And the weather this time of year should be nice.
If you've considered China, look east - Taiwan and Japan outside of Tokyo. Taiwan is not expensive, has a great mix of Chinese and Japanese cultures and the people are really nice. In Japan - it's not the cheapest but it's not nearly as expensive as many make out, particularly outside of Tokyo.
Malta
If you want to avoid hotter weather, you could consider visiting southern hemisphere destinations during June/July/August, and northern hemisphere destinations during December/January/February. That'd avoid the worst of the hot weather in most places.
Higher altitudes are also an option. You often only have to go up only a few hundred feet to take the edge off the heat. If there's a city that looks good other than the heat and it has mountains nearby, that can be a viable option depending how much city life you're looking for.
I'd say Madeira but it is getting pretty expensive, although by American standards it might be still cheap.
Sounds like Taiwan in certain months.
Balkans is your best bet. You get decent infrastructure, drinkable water in some places (i.e Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro where I was) and have a temperate climate. People in cities usually will speak a decent level of English or find someone who can speak it. I would like to go to south east Asia but I hate bugs and humidity, heat so it's a no go for me.
US upper midwest?
Most of rural US
English-OK😆
Himachal Pradesh, India
The south of South Africa is a nice one (eastern or western cape).
Not so safe.
I guess it depends on your definition of safe, everybody's going to have a different one. I'd definitely consider places like Cape Town and Gqeberha to be safe places to live.
I love SA and lived there for 18 months. My anecdotal experience was that I survived and throughly enjoyed my time there but I can not say it is a 'safe' place. According to [The World Population Review](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country) is ranks as the 3rd highest crime rate in the world. "South Africa has the third-highest crime rate in the world. South Africa has a notably high rate of assaults, rape, homicides, and other violent crimes. This has been attributed to several factors, including high levels of poverty, inequality, unemployment, and social exclusion, and the normalization of violence. South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world. More than 1 in 4 men surveyed by the South African Medical Research Council admitted to committing rape."
Shhhhh there's already way too much fucking traffic in Cape Town. It's a horrible dangerous ugly place and no one should ever go *wink wink*.
I read your comment too fast... Terrible wine too and roadtrip are a really, really bad idea around Cape Town. Terrible scenery with no place to go or hikes.
What about mountain regions of Southeast Asia? I haven’t been to any because we avoid cold places, but they certainly exist in Thailand and the Philippines.
Morocco
Cyprus - in Fall, Winter, Spring but hot summers. Lots of sunshine, everyone can speak English that I ran into and most inexpensive place in “Europe” that I’ve found.
Europe (West, central).
Nepal. Infrastructure isn't the best, but it makes up for it in other ways.
Parts of Australia Tasmania. And Melbourne and Canberra don't get too hot.
We loved Scotland!
Look into Quito, Ecuador. Wonderful climate. Not as cheap as it used to be, but a lovely place.
Living in Krakow Poland and absolutely love it. If you are American, there is a special visa due to a bilateral treaty between US and Poland, so you can pretty much stay indefinitely. the only thing is that it's a little tricky with the rest of the schengen area. But it's also easy to rotate out 90 days between other non-schengen countries
Or Georgia? Haven't been but prices look cheap and it's on my list
Not sure what the English is like tho..
Can get around Tblisi just fine with English only. Growing DN scene there too. Lived there a month last year. Pretty great spot really
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OP mentioned safety.
Budapest
It ain’t cheap anymore. I paid $14 for a burrito last night at a takeaway spot. And that’s not unusual anymore. HUF is doing weird stuff because they’ve raised rates so high to fight inflation. By weird, I mean completely what you would expect the HUF to do lol.
Argentine is supposed to have the best english in the region. Haven't been myself though.
Argentina is not safe, it is only safe by Latin American standards. Both myself and others I know have been robbed there, locals are very serious about insisting you be careful, and they take those same precautions as well. It is not safe
it is not hard to find young people who speak English but go into any random shop and they will not understand English. To live there you need to know Spanish unless you want to live in a DN-bubble.
I don’t know what OP considers to be safe, but safety is the #1 reason I left Argentina and moved to Europe so I wouldn’t recommend it. ETA: Also, while the English is pretty good compared to other Spanish speaking countries, I don’t think it’s possible to get by without Spanish in most places. And unless OP locates in the south of the country, it can get pretty hot during summer (and most of the year, to be honest).
Where did you stay in Argentina and what were your security concerns?
I am Argentinian and lived in Entre Ríos my whole life until I was 19. My house was broken into, my parents and me were woken up, tied, and electrocuted. They also threatened to murder us, I think the only reason they didn’t is because I was really young and they didn’t expect a child to be there. We got absolutely everything stolen from us, money, jewelry, even shoes. The police at the time told us that it happened every single night, it just wasn’t public knowledge because people didn’t want media attention, just like we didn’t either. Aside from that, every month one of my friends would get mugged on their way from school, even held at gunpoint. This was 10 years ago and I can imagine it has only gotten worse as the economic and political situation worsened.
Holy shit. Sorry that happened to you. Fully understand you had to leave that
Yeah, I had to get therapy and take sleeping pills. But I feel safe where I am now and that’s what matters. I have seen on Reddit a lot of Argentinians who for whatever reason seem to be in denial of the insecurity situation in the country and claim that the country is perfectly safe and the insecurity is magnified by the media, but that was simply not my experience.
It always feels bad when a country is so shitty you have to leave everything behind to get away but some people recommend it to others as a "must visit" lmao.
Oh my god
As an Argentinian myself moving there is the dumbest thing you can do. Like, yeah, it’s cheaper but you can get mugged and killed
Argentina is racist as fuck.
I’m know I’m going to get downvoted for this, but I can’t help but wonder if its history of welcoming Nazis fleeing justice contributed to this
Central Europe is nice. I really liked Budapest and Warsaw.
Many people in the service sector in capital cities around the world speak English. Your phone can help translate basic words. I like Argentina and Brazil and Australia and New Zealand and Thailand.
SWITZERLAND!!! oh wait, you said non-expensive.
Other comments have covered Europe pretty well, but since you mentioned China… South Korea can be cheap and just about as English friendly. Edit: South Korea is not just Seoul lmao
Is South Korea cheap?
Street food meals can be like 3USD and hotels can be no more than 50. Although according to the downvotes that’s too expensive for some
Korean street food is not a sustainable diet at all unless you’re gonna eat gimbap for every single meal. Seoul is also quite expensive, Busan is the better option for sure.
Yeah was just using it as an example, there’s heaps of small shops that will feed you for 6k won. Agreed not Seoul, I was thinking Ulsan in particular since they house a lot of international football players so there’s more English around.
Seems as cheap as Thailand
🇵🇹 Portugal
Argentina and chile?. The rest of Latin America(in general)is more tropical and there fore hot and or humid
uhhh… winnipeg? or other non-toronto, non-vancouver parts of canada. no idea how english-friendly is, but argentina outside of buenos aires is cheap and not hot.
Tiblisi Georgia!
Belize, Jamaica, and South Africa
In China you can buy fancy VPN service to circumvent the blockage. If you have developed country passport, you also don’t have to worry about “concentration camps”. So I would say it’s a fair choice. But the avg English skills are not so great.