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Comment by beachstartup | Hacker News Reader

it seems like a lot of these problems can avoided by simply staying in one spot longer, i.e. 6 months to a year. i'd say anything less than 3 months and you're basically just a tourist.

i've lived in my current spot for 6 years and i still find new things less than 1 km from my house routinely.

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I agree. In most places it's difficult to rent places at reasonable prices for less than a year. Sure, you can rent crappy places, but nothing good. You get a lot more mileage committing a year at a time than jumping around every month. Knowing you have 12 months ahead encourages behaving like you actually live there and also allows real friendships to develop.

It amazes me how some people jump around, going to 5 cities on their 2 week holiday. They go everywhere and they they experience nowhere.

The big challenge is immigration. 60 to 90 day visit limits are common, and how many times you can do quick ins and outs varies.

Yes, some of these issues can be avoided by going the long term, but the majority of them still persist: weather, not knowing the local language, troubles getting local things done, condescending attitude, food poisoning etc.

In fact, going long term helps with the internet speed and work place issues only. And even that isn't necessarily the case when staying in some Thailand islands, for instance.

But yeah, you get somewhat used to it. Personally, my 6 month stay in Chiang mai was quite pleasant.

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