TICOBULL – Where is the cheapest place to live and work remotely, best internet speed, temperature, air quality?
Many of us dream of the nomadic life, take off at a moment’s notice, make money wherever our feet are planted, in an urban metropolis or a sandy beach.
But how do you go about figuring out about all the different places, their idiosyncracies, the cost of living, without too much effort and lots of hours scouring forums and social media websites? The Nomad List.
The Nomad List is a crowdsourced (obtain (information or input into a particular task or project) by enlisting the services of a number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet. list of cities around the world with invaluable information like the cost rent, a typical meal, air quality, safety, internet speed, weather and much more.
“With more people worldwide flocking to the cities, these cities are becoming more expensive. And if you combine that with more jobs going online and being able to be done remotely, it seems logical for people to find the place to live where they can have the best lives for the lowest cost,” says Pieter Levels, who is behind the creation of Nomad.
Besides all the great information, the list is also displayed with “tops” on down. Currently, Chiang Mai (Thailand) tops the Nomad List, where a basic meal will cost you only US$2 and a place to rent is around US$307.
So, how does Costa Rica compare to other parts of the Latin America and the world.
Listed on Nomad is Puerto Viejo (no entry for San José or any other city in Costa Rica), where an Expat lifestyle (long-term cost of living e.g. rent, cooking yourself) cost is US$1.504 monthly (almost ¢804.000 colones at today’s exchange rate); a basic meal US$8 and rent for a 1 bedroom apt is US$565 monthly. The Nomad cost (short-term cost of living e.g. hotels, eating outdoor) is US$2.410 monthly.
In Panama City, the Expat life US$2.110. Rent, 1 bedroom apt in center Panama is US$1.500 monthly and a meal costs US$5. Interesting that the Expat life is higher than the Nomad of US1.732. In most other places, it costs more to be an Nomad than a Expat.
I now move down to Colombia for more comparisons.
In Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city and a favorite by many in Costa Rica to move from, the Expat living cost is only US$622, while the Nomad cost is US$914. A basic meal in Medellin costs US$3, and a 1 bedroom in the center of the city is US$300 monthly.
In Cali, another favorite destination for Costa Rica expats, the Expat cost of living is only $434, while Nomads will spend US$613. A meal in Cali costs US$3 and a 1 bedroom on average US$220.
Moving north, to the US of A, an Expat way of life in Miami is US$1.685, while you will need US$3.151 to be a Nomad. In New York City, US$4.036 and US$6.916, respectively. A basic meal that costs US$7 in Miami, costs US$15 in New York City.
Further north, for those willing to live in the cold, the Expat cost of living in Toronto (Canada) is US$1.774, and Nomad US$2.471. Rent for a 1 bedroom is US$1.022 and a meal will cost CA$10.
Across the big pond, a place like Avellino (near Naples) Italy, one of the most perfect places to live if you can deal with Italians and “Napolitanos”, a special breed of Italians, the Expat life costs US$854, while Nomads will have to spend US$1.390. Rent in Avellino (1 brm apt) is US$432 and a real Italian meal costs US$5.
For more places click here (or on map) and point your mouse to a location.
Source: Ticobull.com
Sites like these provide useful information–just not usually the information they purport to provide. The main information you can glean from them is what kind of expat a place attracts, not how much an expat lifestyle costs there.
Consider that the expat lifestyle in Puerto Viejo is reported to be more expensive than the expat lifestyle in Berlin. Really? It costs more the live in a largely impoverished area of Costa Rica than in a major city in Western Europe?
Reading between the lines, we can infer that the kind of expats Puerto Viejo attracts is different from the kind that Berlin attracts. Most likely Puerto Viejo attracts older and wealthier expats who want to “live like kings” (or queens) in a poor country, while Berlin attracts a younger and less affluent set who are trying to fit into their adopted country.
Similarly, check out the expat cost of living in US cities like Detroit and Columbus. These costs are much higher than it would cost to live in these cities, and surely higher than the average native retiree in them spends. Odds are that the expats reporting from these cities are disproportionately multinational transplants who have comparatively lavish lifestyle expectations.
There are other contenders, but Colombia seems to lead the list of the good Latin American expat destinations. Though I doubt this is because the cost of living in Colombia’s major cities is really only 60% or so as high as the cost of living in Costa Rica’s tiny Puerto Viejo. I suspect that Colombia is reported as cheaper because a different kind of expat moves there, and that is what makes Colombia attractive.
Very good points! One of the reasons that some European and other destinations have now become cheaper than Costa Rica is the rising value of the dollar compared to other currencies. If Costa Rica were to stop artificially propping up their currency against the dollar (as they should) I think we would see a drastic difference.
I doubt that the recent decline of the euro explains much of Berlin’s reported cheaper expat costs than Puerto Viejo’s, since the differences are far larger, all things considered, than currency exchange rates could explain, and I suspect that most of the posts regarding Berlin were made when the euro was still high.
However, I agree with you that the colon is being artifically inflated–it simply has to be given all the indicators–but I have no idea who is doing this or why. Initially I suspected the Central Bank, but its last intervention was four months ago and its stated policy since then is not to inervene. Now I understand that only the other banks are authorized to exchange currencies, so these others banks must be holding the colon high, but I fail to understand why they would do this. Yes, they have loan portfolios in colones, and from this standpoint have an interest in an overvalued colon, but they also have loan portfolios in dollars, and from this standpoint would want a stronger dollar. I don’t doubt that the banks are manipulating the exchange rate, but I’m at a loss to understand their motives.
Meanwhile, I sometimes wonder if the exchange rate actually is at market levels, even though it doesn’t appear to be, since so much of the export data comes from multinationals that are cooking their books on intra-firm trade. We actually don’t know what the real exports are, although we know that the numbers reported are way off.
My own back-of-the-envelope calculations tell me that the colon “should” now be trading at 600 to the dollar without inflation, minimum, and 650-700 wouldn’t surprise me. No way though does the roughly 530 today make sense.
Anyway, I’d love it if you or anyone else has an explanation. I’m pretty sure that the exchange rate is way off now, but I don’t know why it is.