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Comment by pieterhg | Hacker News Reader

Hi HN! I made this. Here's some info on the data before everyone goes berzerk :)

Firstly, it's crowdsourced from this spreadsheet http://nomadlist.io/edit/ so it might not be 100% accurate.

Secondly, NomadCost != cost of living. NomadCost is based on short-term staying in a hostel, hotel or apartment in the center, working in a coworking space and having a basic meal three times a day. That's the average digital nomad's lifestyle. They move around every few months, so they can't rent long-term. So NomadCost will be way more expensive than cost of living for a resident.

I'd like to monetize this by selling city specific nomad guides on how to set up in each place and letting people find jobs remotely. Hope this helps! I think this is the future of work, so I'm very happy to help push this.

P.S. this is part of my goal to launch 12 startups in 12 months (see http://levels.io/12-startups-12-months)

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I like the idea of the Nomad Guides, though I don't know what kind of value I would place on one. Perhaps, an alternative way to monetize would be if you worked out agreements in advance to sell Nomad Packages that covered all the basics for limited stays, which would minimize set up times and make arrival and departure painless.

It would be nice if the current site included a better description of the NomadCost and maybe even an overview of what you mean by the digital nomad lifestyle. It turns out that it is something I have been looking into for a year or so, but I did not realize it was a formal concept.

+1 for a Nomad Package.

I'd love it if someone met me at the airport with a pre-paid SIM card and suggestions for accommodation and public workspaces.

That is the "killer app" here, basically a package deal. Also easy to monetize as you're converting customers for the various participating parties (phone/cowork/hostel/etc). If you can make it 'on demand' so that as someone walks off the plane they can stop at the "Nomadics" kiosk and say, "1 person, 2 months, no smoking." and be handed sim/annotated map/authcode for keyapp/token for shuttle and walk out of the airport and be productive an hour later.

To make that work you would need pre-arranged contracts with a co-working space, some hostels/hotels, phone companies, and transportation services. Using an NFC app to grant access to a coworking space/hotel room would minimize things like key management/inventory. It would be primarily a logistics play but if there are enough people doing this sort of thing it could be profitable.

Maybe there should be some way for nomadlist to allow people to offer these?

I could surely come up with a plan where you get mobile internet, access to a coworking space and accommodation if you want to come to Tokushima, Japan to "sightsee" for a month and even meet you at the airport, as I know some people who have a coworking space here. I'm sure others could do that for their own cities.

Not sure what a reasonable fee would be? Would probably take a whole day to organize this for someone, although it sounds fun to meet people.

That's what I was thinking too. What would you like to pay for that? Let's say a pre-paid data SIM card, a day pass in a coworking space, a low-end hotel night near the space altogether?

For me the question isn't really "how much would I pay", but more like "how much markup would I pay for the service of someone doing all that setup work". If you make a breakdown of the cost of all the items and then show me that the package includes a markup which is still much less than my hourly rate for doing the setup work, then I'd probably buy it.

This is exactly what I've been wishing existed.

If I could even go so far as to prepay for a set amount of time (1 to 6 months) for rent, sim, internet, and co-working space and have it all taken care of when I arrive, that would be even better.

I see the value in this but can you make a section to match nomads with other nomads because I like to work and travel but do not like to go alone.

This would be a nice addition to AirBnB...

I definitely can see the value in this.

As it relates to one specific example on this list, I live in Leipzig, and in East Germany in general, it is nearly impossible to speak English on the phone in order to arrange these sorts of things, plus so many places do not accept Visa (only Maestro/EC card). So coming from the US, you are especially unprepared, and being able to pay OP in USD to have things set up that require German knowledge + lots of euros = huge benefit in not losing money via wire transfer and not needing to know the language in advance.

Looks good but really needs Celsius. Most of us don't know Fahrenheit. Also, why is hot green? Shouldn't it be red? You don't want to be somewhere that's over 25C.

why not? 25 isn't all that hot.

Anything over 25 and I want to die... :)

Good temperatures are between 18 and 22.

That's only 77 fahrenheit, for anyone else that was curious.

sdm, that's really not hot :). Where I live (southern US), highs over 37 celsius are not uncommon in July & August. You might melt!

I definitely don't want to be too much below 25!

This is a fun and quite intriguing resource, but I'm skeptical of the NomadCost function. No way is is Berlin only 12% cheaper than London for a nomad. It's probably 50% or more.

Maybe he should use data from http://www.expatistan.com/ to get more accurate results

Pretty much came here to say the same. I have tons of friends who have moved from London to Berlin as London is slowly turning into an oligarchy.

And I'd estimate Dublin to be more expensive than he has estimated.

> Secondly, NomadCost != cost of living. NomadCost is based on short-term staying in a hostel, hotel or apartment in the center, working in a coworking space and having a basic meal three times a day. That's the average digital nomad's lifestyle. They move around every few months, so they can't rent long-term. So NomadCost will be way more expensive than cost of living for a resident.

I suggest you to let the user expand the NomadCost into the three things you mention: short term staying, coworking space, three meals a day? Why? I may be planning to work nomadly in Tokyo for example, and for me it would be cheaper than what you mention because I can stay with my in-laws (and possibly could use the office of some friend). On the other hand, I would pay the same amount as a normal nomad for the meals, so if I knew how much they cost I could more accurately forecast how much it would cost me to stay in Tokyo.

I'm intuitively guessing that there's more geographic variance in rent prices than in coworking or food. Everyone will have different ameliorating factors in different cities, like friends or in-laws, and I'd argue that splitting out the NomadCost creates more mental work for a visitor than is necessary for the purposes of comparing cities to one another.

tl;dr we all have friends and fam, so chill

I think you misunderstood the request (providing the option to drill down doesn't create more mental work), but I also disagree about "we all have friends and fam"... the typical digital nomad is NOT traveling to see family in friends; they're (for example) someone from SF traveling to SE Asia.

My own family & friends are split up all over the world (and my wife's parents live on the opposite of the world from mine, and we've lived in 3 different countries at one time or another but now are sort of in-between them), but it's still really unusual.

I'm pretty sure the calculations are assuming you don't have family/friends to host you.

>splitting out the NomadCost creates more mental work for a visitor than is necessary for the purposes of comparing cities to one another.

It'd be more helpful is not like the split version has to be the default.

Great resource, thanks.

I've spent the last year staying mostly in EU capitals for a month or two, and this site will be a good source of inspiration for the future!

I'm sure the numbers will improve over time with more data. :)

One of my unaddressed desires is to spend more time in small towns and less in bigger cities, but I don't know a good way to find them.

While the idea is great, it bases everything off of averages. Average housing, average internet, average everything. It would be better to show tiers if possible.

For most remote workers, knowing the highest affordable speed is more important. For example, Red Wing, MN offers gigabit fiber to the home, but NetIndex shows 33Mbps for the average internet speed. A lot of people aren't paying a few bucks more because they don't need or know about better internet access.

Your data is missing a "physical security" dimension. I don't think Medellin would be in your top 20 if this was taken into account. It wouldn't have to be a kidnapping or mugging - just having your laptop robbed would be disastrous for a nomad.

I've been to Medellin and never felt unsafe, it's mostly unsafe out in the jungle.

Why would it be so bad if you were properly backed up?

Restoring your work-environment after a stolen laptop can be quite a time and money consuming hassle in south america. Buying electronics online and getting them shipped is hardly ever a reliable option, local electronic stores might not have the hardware you'd prefer and slow internet connections give you a hard time waiting for those gigabytes of backup to load.

Medellin is (i think; never been there) a rather modern city, so it might be a bit easier. Still, charlesmchen's concern is valid for most south-/cental-american listings.

Amazing project btw i'm in different underground, like burner & co. For the burner this could be a valuable ressource. And if i may make a suggestion for sofia and some place it could be nice to add the local hackerspace ( http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Sofia ) i know that there is one in sofia. If you hire i will be glad to work for you bussiere[AT]gladosx.tv

Out of curiosity, does "burner & co" mean the same thing it'd mean in the SF Bay Area, i.e. the Burning Man scene? Or something else?

Yes this group is really fond of travelling and there is a lot of tech guy in it :) but it can also be used for the fire street artist underground (in paris it's complicated because a lot of burner are now burner :) ).

Hmm, sorting by region and then sorting by temperature seems to put 89 degree New York above 90 degree Omaha. I also second the suggestion that the temperature info include some info about min/max and average temp for seasons.

I like the site, however can you add some way to convert temperature into centigrade without having to switch the currency? Also, you have Australian dollars, why not also throw in Canadian and New Zealand dollars?

> I'd like to monetize this by selling city specific nomad guides on how to set up in each place and letting people find jobs remotely.

Isn't NomadCost being monetized already via “preferred by nomads” feature?

I guess this list is only for citizens of the privileged countries. Some of my American friends don't even know what a visa is. A citizen of my country can't even transit in London (you will be denied boarding), unless his final destination is US or has a Schenzen B visa. Also an American breaking laws (tax, work etc, not criminal) in a foreign country will face a very different situation than say a third world country citizen.

> P.S. this is part of my goal to launch 12 startups in 12 months (see http://levels.io/12-startups-12-months)

Not to be mean, but is this one really a startup? What's the business model?

To give him the benefit of the doubt, I would guess he meant products rather than startups.

I love what Pieter's doing! There may not be a business model at the moment, but getting these products out of the door is a first step. After 12 months, he'll have a good idea of which ideas work, which don't, and what to pursue next. Good luck!

Well I mean this product as it currently stands will give him an idea about traffic to a crowdsourced comparison site and little else. What'll be the business, putting on ads or allowing cities to pay to become "featured" nomad hubs?

You can say that lessons learned from launching 12 sites will help pivot into one that works as a business, but that's one company with 12 products, not 12 companies.

>Well I mean this product as it currently stands will give him an idea about traffic to a crowdsourced comparison site and little else. What'll be the business, putting on ads or allowing cities to pay to become "featured" nomad hubs?

For one, ads are not a bad idea. Startups are not just for $5 billion buyouts -- they can also be $500/month side projets.

Second, he already said he has an idea about selling guides for how to setup business in each of those places.

monetising a website by putting ads or affiliate links on it does not qualify as a "startup" in my opinion. It bugs me how the hacker community throws the word startup around willy nilly.

Products, yes. Startups, no. The other "startups" are just products too.

Check the footer. There are affiliate links for places to stay, cowork, exercise, etc.

Cool chart, there's a similar thing in this book.

It's a digital nomad guide book, the interviews with people that are successful digimads were really good!

http://digitalnomadsguide.com

> it's crowdsourced from this spreadsheet http://nomadlist.io/edit/

Can't seem to edit this with chrome, only with IE. Read-only in chrome.

Cannot edit with any Mac browser here - not in Safari, nor Chrome, nor Firefox.

Yeah can't edit - Istanbul, Turkey should definitely be on that list

How frequently does the site update after new data is added? A few more cities have reached 100% but haven't appeared on the index page yet.

I'd be interested in additional info about statistical chance of diseases like Malaria, Dengue or other most common diseases in area

This is pretty cool... I just would love if there were a filter for country.

This is a great starting index for remote workers! Thanks for this.

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