Ask HN: Moving to a city in Europe. Where should I go?

3. Living in Central London is very expensive. But to counter that, there are excellent transport links. Generally (as you'd expect), rent decreases the further you get away. So it's a trade-off with how much you want to spend. I know people who are happy to commute 75 minutes each way to have a decent place at a reasonable price. What helps that is, you can go 90+ minutes and you will likely just need to get on one train, and then a quick tube swap when you're there.

Flat sharing is fairly common, but not as common as it is in the US. Though you'll find one easily enough. This[1] isn't perhaps entirely up to date, and won't have some cheaper, private landlords, but has a lot to browse and gives a good indicator of prices. Anywhere within the M25 (the blue road that circles London) is going to be a maximum of about 30 minutes public transport into the centre.

The variation in areas is huge, so I'd suggest looking at prices, and researching them individually. Personally, I've visited many times but haven't lived there myself, so can't recommend a particular area. Be wary of the very inner areas (that aren't extremely expensive), they're probably not what you're looking for.

[1] http://www.rightmove.co.uk/draw-a-search.html

Also consider what's more important to you: six months in a country that has a great startup culture, or six months in a dirt-cheap country where cost of living is so low, you can spend more time working on your startup without worrying about the bills.

I will sing Poland's praises until the end of time, but it has all modern conveniences and is incredibly cheap to live in, even in the capital city Warsaw. (If you fancy somewhere a bit prettier, Kraków is even cheaper).

If you just need a bit of time to find you feet and get set up, I'd consider spending a few months here - the summers are glorious! - and then move to somewhere a bit more startup-y.

I work in London so I'll chip in.

As others have said, rent is extremely expensive in the City however transport links are outstanding. I live just outside of London and pay significantly less rent than most of my colleagues who live in the City and yet it still only takes me 45 minutes to get to work, door to door.

The start-up scene in London is arguably the strongest in Europe and there are tons of meet-ups and events to help you network. The jobs scene is equally vibrant. Rails is in huge demand with both start-ups and established companies so you'll have no issue finding work.

Hi, BCN guy, intern @ Telefonica R&D.

To go around BCN you should have at least a basic Spanish/Catalan level.

From what I've heard, most technical meetups are usually done in English.

Startups: Tuenti, Yuilop, Socialpoint, Teambox, 3scale, Itnig... Many others here https://angel.co/barcelona

If you want to focus exclusively on startup jobs, I think that http://www.jobfluent.com is probably the best site to look at.

Referring to incubators, there are some but I don't know if English is spoken there. I can tell you that at Telefonica everybody can speak English because there is people from around the globe working in there (at least in R&D) so I assume the same for Wayra. By the way, other accelerators/incubators/coworking spaces: Seedrocket, Barcelona Activa, La Salle Technova, Palo Alto BCN, MOB Barcelona...

Last recommendation: To know what is going on within the city, follow @startupbcn and subscribe to the BCN Startup Digest mailing list. This should be a good start for newcomers.

Overall: I think that the BCN startup community isn't as big as in London or Berlin, but this is changing fast. The other problem I see is that still lots of entrepreneurship events are held in Catalan/Spanish, and I think it discourages foreigners to get into the ecosystem. I hope this will change soon...

Anyway, I always say that I would choose BCN because it is the other SV (Sunny Valley) ;)

Thanks for the links buddy! I will check out the startups you mentioned and the job board looks interesting as well. Vamos a ver :)

I've lived and worked in the startup scene in London for a few years, and I've lived in Berlin for three months too.

Language-wise: You can get by with English fine in Berlin (not true in the rest of Germany though), English is pretty common in the startup world. Even generally English is pretty widely understood by younger (i.e <35) Berliners although fewer of them speak it fluently.

London has by far the biggest ecosystem, Berlin has a decent one although much more early stage. Barcelona is tiny, see this infographic:

http://seedtable.com/blog/images/startuphubs2012.png

Rent is much more expensive in London than in Berlin, but on the other hand salaries are also higher in London. As a ruby consultant or working for a growing funded startup you won't struggle financially. Sharing a nice flat with 1-2 other people you can expect to pay £600-£1000/month, it should be comfortably affordable even on a junior ruby dev salary (~30k/year).

With London you'd have a much wider range of startups to choose from, but with Berlin you'd have a much more laid-back culture and lifestyle. Based on your criteria I wouldn't choose Barcelona based on the lack of ecosystem and very limited number of companies who deal with serious scaling.

I live in Barcelona since, 2001. I love this city, I'd rather die than moving from it.

work: you can work in Barcelona in english if you want. Comparing it with the rest of the country, Barcelona it's way more bilingual than the rest. You can live well with spanish anyways. But in the tech industry english is really awesome. Side by side with Madrid, Barcelona it's another big technological hub. I would really love to connect with anyone from HN to start projects (I have a couple in queue).

lifestyle: Barcelona is relaxed. It's organized compared with Madrid. You have the beach near any point without making an hour in bicycle. Food is not expensive, prices are affordable.

rent: since 2001, Barcelona was the 5th most expensive city to live in, but now, with the crisis, things changed a lot: I have a nice, new flat for 625€/mo. Fully equiped, not so centric located, but at 10min in train, 15 min in metro from the center of the city and 7 mins from the beach, so its a big deal.

Meerita, could you contact me (email address is in my profile)? I'd love to talk more about a possible collaboration.

I live in Dublin and think it has a reasonable enough startup scene with PubStandards meetups and the possibility of free desk space: http://dogpatchlabs.com/about/

An acquaintance has experience of both Dublin & Vienna and thinks that the latter has the best startup environment in Europe.

Alot of people here are saying you can get cheap rent in London if you're willing to travel in from the suburbs. Yes this is true. But it is also true that transport can be very expensive. You can easily spend £20-£30 for a return train ticket which would cost you £400 to £600 per month in travel costs. So be careful about choosing where you live. At that rate it may be better to live at walking distance to office.

My advice is to live South of the Thames (generally cheaper) and then commute in at about £10-£15 per day. Still £200 to £300 per month. It's quick too.

LOndon is awful for cycling also. I hear Berlin is very cycle friendly. So you could save alot in Berlin on rent and transport.

Hmm. That's very true. I wanna keep low on costs initially, so London might not be a good option for me right now.

I live in London and cycle to work every day. I work in Victoria, live south of the Thames and it takes me about 25 minutes each way, which is great.

Cycling is not for the faint hearted but I would not say it was awful. London is not set-up for cyclist like a lot of other European countries (Netherlands, Denmark etc). I personally love it and would do it over taking a packed tube any day.

I live in Berlin. A good friend of mine lived in London for a while and I visited him a couple of times.

Rent in London is a lot more expensive than in Berlin, and food etc is more expensive as well. Salaries are higher in London, though. Flat sharing is common in Berlin, but my friend had no big trouble finding flat sharing in London.

Speaking English is no problem in Berlin... many internationals live and work here.

Don't know anything about Barcelona, but I suspect the weather there is a lot better than in either London or Berlin :)

I suggest you spent a week in each city, attend some meetups etc and decide based on which culture you like better.

Very good idea about spending a week in each city. Considering that, thanks! :)

I moved to Berlin with my cofounder three months ago and could not be happier. Berlin is more about the early-stage startup but there are a few at the bigger/exit stage as well.

This city is hungry for Rails developers so you should not have too much of a problem finding work, whether freelance or for a team.

Berlin is cheap to live in, costs are about half of what they are in London from what I understand. The city is very much alive in a lot of ways, and the start-up community is tight knit but accepting and diverse.

I speak English with only rudimentary German and have yet to run into any serious problems in the startup scene, or even basics like renting a flat.

If you are visiting within the next couple of months let me know, I might be able to introduce you to some teams who are hiring and give you an overview in general.

Awesome. I will contact you for sure! Can you send me an email or provide your email address? :) (mine is in my profile)

Sent you a mail

I've lived and worked in Berlin and London. Originally from North America.

I'd recommend going to London if you want to be more career driven and if you want a higher quality of life, go to Berlin. London has a lot of people which can help you grow your career but also more competitive. Berlin is more chill.

BCNonRails (http://barcelonaonrails.com/) monthly meetings are in English and I can tell that there are plenty of non-spanish-speakers people living in the city which do just fine!

Excellent link! Will definitely help. Good to know that the meetings are in English, thanks :)

Barcelona is really fun, you can enjoy the mediterranean culture !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRZlSSIrwY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhKpOz4SROE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je2GLJ6ogmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azpxHbUyuOw

Never heard anyone say "I am a MSc. CS" before!