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Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

Switzerland. High living standard and good wage, multiple languages to speak (German, French, Italian, and English), neutral in the world (so I don't have to bother with wars children disguised as adults are organising), great public transport. Beautiful landscape, I'm very fond of mountains, YMMV (yes, I've been in SV/SF, also very nice).

Alas, my parents weren't Swiss, but they were from a reasonably liberal (in the sense of 'liberty') country which has a quite a bunch of the elements Switzerland has so I could've roll'ed it far less fortunate.

Only downside for Switzerland is the weather, but its a double edged sword. Sure, its generally cold. If you just work out regularly its not that bad. The air however is crystal clear which is an advantage for me given I'm a former smoker and have COPD and asthma in my close family.

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> Only downside for Switzerland is ...

... its eye-popping cost of living.

In a supermarket, t-bone steaks are $60-80/kg, free range chicken is $20-25/kg, organic chicken is from $30/kg, etc. The quality of food is outstanding though.

The same goes for eating out - $40 for a simple lunch in a non-fancy place without wine/beer is fairly normal. A good bowl of ramen (which you still need to find first) is from $20, more close to $25-30 with all the trimmings. There is McDonald's, from about $20 per meal.

The weather is very much secondary to this. Just 2c.

I'm curious, can't you just cross the border over to Germany, and enjoy smaller prices?

You can but that's only practical if you live in Basel.

Salaries are high, but cost of living is also really high. If you are from the US, expect to eat out less and have a smaller house/apartment, but have nicer (and longer) holidays.

Which is not so bad always. I know of many Americans who went to higher col places but saved more than before. High prices push you to be more disciplined with spending: pack your lunch, use less energy, take public transportation, buy less useless junk out of boredom, etc. Also, when you're surrounded by accessible natural beauty and loads of travel destinations close by there's less of a need to spend frivolously.

Obviously if you're already very frugal and disciplined it's another story. But IMO high living standards are more important to me than cheap prices, otherwise I'd go to SE Asia or something like that.

I would assume the balance is less ideal than US. Then again people from US compare to EU while in EU you get pension, insurance, and generally a social system to protect the weak (which might be you one day).

Quite frankly I wouldn't mind not having much money to live on. My living standard doesn't evolve around e.g. eating out. I want my own apartment (for two), a cheap car, a good laptop, a reasonable good smartphone, and some interior stuff (the usual plus some expensive kitchen equipment as outlier). That's pretty much it. You don't need a high income for all of that. The only expensive one is the car and that's something you save up for (long term investment).

Health is the most important to me; from which everything sprouts. I've been in Switzerland a couple of times. The air in Switzerland is night and day compared to where I live (NL), and I don't even live in a big city.

If enough IT people move to Switzerland (I know some known figures who have) something nice can brew there. For example, Google has a lab there.

Even if you can't get an IT job there's non IT jobs available, including low wage / low education. Perhaps Norway is a better country in that regard. Postal service delivery, for example, earns a lot compared to NL. The weather is Scandinavian, but due to the Mexican Gulf temperature near coast is higher than Sweden and Finland (this also keeps fishing trade alive in winter). Relatively clean air, and they're also neutral (tho less than Switzerland).

Obviously it'd be a backup plan. I don't think you can get a visa for that anyway. Another option could be remote work.

Immigration isn't that great in switzerland. It takes even longer than the USA to get citizenship.

A high income is also good for saving, so you can bootstrap your own ventures in life instead of being beholden to a govt' retirement program or a specific employer.

> Immigration isn't that great in switzerland. It takes even longer than the USA to get citizenship.

I assumed we were talking about a hypothetical situation because for one reason or another in our current situation we can't fulfil that dream.

Is it that difficult to get a H1B visa in Switzerland?

> A high income is also good for saving [...]

Yes, but some rather costly business like chemo therapy is in the default insurance in NL. So you will always have it. Besides, if you got too much money, you end up paying more tax. So people end up saving, but also spending, and if they don't they gotta pay more tax. All of which is good for the economy.

One other thing I like about Switzerland is the direct democracy approach. Although I think it also works so well because its a small country, we got a non binding referendum, and its barely ever used because it requires a petition. Last time it was used was Dutch Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement referendum, 2016 [1]. Note, I voted 'for', but that doesn't mean I want the government or EU to ignore the vote. Which is what pretty much happened recently in action (not in words although those words, too, weren't binding).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Ukraine%E2%80%93European...

>Is it that difficult to get a H1B visa in Switzerland?

If you don't have an EU passport, yes. There are regional quotas, so if you want to live somewhere with lots of tech (read: non-EU people) getting in under the quotas is really hard.

For the weather it's not that bad in general, and if you pick the best canton in Switzerland (Valais) {{Citation needed :-) }}, you will have more than 60% of sunlight [1]. The place is also really beautiful [2] and have been in the «52 Places to Go in 2015» [3]. Only drawback, it's a quite rural area, so not the better place to find jobs in IT in Switzerland.

[1] http://www.meteosuisse.admin.ch/product/output/climate-data/...

[2] https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=valais

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/11/travel/52-plac...

I travel to Switzerland quite often for work plus I have relatives living in Switzerland since ages and I used to live close to the Italian-Switzerland border. I would never move there as the country is so boring. Really, every time I travel to Zurich I get bored and annoyed like hell.

I'm basically never bored alone, I prefer to be alone, and I can spend nearly 24/7 alone (although part of that time communicating via the Internet). The social interactions at work and with family is more than enough for me. I don't need to go 'go out', 'date', 'visit clubs', or 'see the world'. I've been there, done that. I want to settle at a place. Obviously YMMV.

With the coming of VR I expect we're going to see more commonly people who barely if ever go on vacation but go on vacation via VR. You can see the Eiffel Tower on pictures right now. What if you could experience it with VR? Although even that I CBA with.

If you want to live in a city with a good night life there's tons of options available, I got quite some good experiences here and there (Berlin, for example, I found far more amazing and friendlier than Amsterdam while I'm in Amsterdam in 30 min) it just depends on your personal interests tho.

"With the coming of VR I expect we're going to see more commonly people who barely if ever go on vacation but go on vacation via VR."

As an introvert who also enjoys VR, I doubt many people will do VR instead of physical vacation trips. The pros of real life trips (people, food, weather, sports) outway the those offered by current or near future VR (go 'anywhere', teleport instantly, etc.). Hopefully the future will prove me wrong.

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