justin_butlion's travels on Nomad List

Near people All people202020192018

—

Cancel

15 Jan

1yr

31 Jan '21

31 Jan '21
15 Jan

Da Nang

25°C

Vietnam

2019

17 Nov '19

2mo

15 Jan

15 Jan
17 Nov '19

Chiang Mai

30°C

Thailand

23 Sep '19

2mo

16 Nov '19

16 Nov '19
23 Sep '19

Budapest

23°C

Hungary

30 Jun '19

3mo

22 Sep '19

22 Sep '19
30 Jun '19

Port Elizabeth

20°C

South Africa

12 Jun '19

18d

30 Jun '19

30 Jun '19
12 Jun '19

Tel Aviv

29°C

Israel

28 May '19

14d

11 Jun '19

11 Jun '19
28 May '19

Las Vegas, NV

25°C

United States

26 Apr '19

1mo

28 May '19

28 May '19
26 Apr '19

Santa Teresa

31°C

Costa Rica

23 Apr '19

26 Apr '19

26 Apr '19
23 Apr '19

San José

27°C

Costa Rica

25 Jan '19

3mo

23 Apr '19

23 Apr '19
25 Jan '19

Medellín

25°C

Colombia

19 Jan '19

25 Jan '19

25 Jan '19
19 Jan '19

Lisbon

14°C

Portugal

13 Jan '19

19 Jan '19

19 Jan '19
13 Jan '19

Valencia

16°C

Spain

2018

14 Dec '18

1mo

13 Jan '19

13 Jan '19
14 Dec '18

Barcelona

16°C

Spain

30 Oct '18

2mo

14 Dec '18

14 Dec '18
30 Oct '18

Athens

25°C

Greece

3 Sep '18

2mo

30 Oct '18

30 Oct '18
3 Sep '18

Chiang Mai

31°C

Thailand

29 Aug '18

3 Sep '18

3 Sep '18
29 Aug '18

Siem Reap

31°C

Cambodia

3 Jul '18

2mo

29 Aug '18

29 Aug '18
3 Jul '18

Chiang Mai

31°C

Thailand

19 Apr '18

3mo

3 Jul '18

3 Jul '18
19 Apr '18

Port Elizabeth

21°C

South Africa

18 Apr '18

19 Apr '18

19 Apr '18
18 Apr '18

Reading

12°C

United Kingdom

15 Apr '18

18 Apr '18

18 Apr '18
15 Apr '18

Edinburgh

11°C

United Kingdom

7 Apr '18

15 Apr '18

15 Apr '18
7 Apr '18

Reading

12°C

United Kingdom

26 Mar '18

12d

7 Apr '18

7 Apr '18
26 Mar '18

Athens

18°C

Greece

Expand all 21 trips

🗯 Forum replies

👍

👎

Getting started: where to?

by @vforvalerio87 | 2yr 1 year ago | 3 comments

Hi everybody!

I just joined this community because I’m currently in a place in life where I can live the digital nomad lifestyle and I feel like I would really be missing out if I didn’t catch this opportunity. I work fully remotely, no fixed hours, I currently live in northern Italy and I basically have no partner or kids.

So, the question is… where to? I would love to hear the advice of more experienced digital nomads!
Laptop and internet is enough for me to work but I need decent internet for conferencing and I really have to put in the hours: some days are more relaxed, others I’ll have to work all day and night.
I enjoy more temperate climates, so no torrid heat or unbearable humidity, if possible.
I like decent food but I’m very adaptable in terms of tastes: anything is fine as long as quality is good and sanitary conditions are acceptable.
I absolutely do not enjoy the club life and would just rather go hiking during the weekends and pubs (or breweries) during the evenings. I’m a social person though and I don’t particularly enjoy places where people are too introverted (been in Seattle for four months… the freeze is real); I really look forward to making friends or acquaintances wherever I end up.
I enjoy decent transportation so places where there’s a viable metro system or Uber actually works would be nice.
I prefer places with a bit more of history and culture (this is one of the reasons why I absolutely loved Portugal, for example).
I’d like to spend under $3k average per month for rent, food and going out.

For now I was thinking either:

Staying close to home for a first experience, so something like Vienna or Berlin
South East Asia; I’ve been to Hong Kong a few times before, now I was thinking either Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi, or possibly Thailand
South America, especially Colombia. I also have some people I know in Bogota and in Medellin, which I think would be a plus

When? Ideally I would leave anywhere from mid to late March and stay away for 2 or 3 months.

Sorry for the long read, I hope to get some input. Thank you for your time, if we ever meet in person I owe you a beer (or whatever you’d prefer).

👍

👎

✨ Recommended destinations

This is an algorithmic recommendation based on @justin_butlion's trips history to find places they haven't been to yet that other people with similar travels as them also went and liked.

Canggu, Bali

Indonesia

Bali is amazing, but Canggu isn't really that great -- actually there are SO MANY better places, like Uluwatu, Gili Islands or even Ubud that I can't understand the hype. As almost everyone said below, beaches are crappy, roads are terrible, sidewalks are non-existent and having a motorbike is a must. On the other side, food is great and cafes are pretty reasonable with all those incredible bowls. Anyway I wouldn't recommend it for more than a week.

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 37° 99° 29° 85°🥵AQI 27

$1,373 / mo

19Mbps

Bangkok

Thailand

Don't believe the prices on here for an apartment. 686 usd/month refers to an apartment in a high class condo, right in the city centre and seconds away from the BTS(train station). Just remember this, people working at supermarkets make 2 usd/per hour. If you want to live like a local, then you can save a lot of money. If you don't mind a 5-10 minute walk from the BTS, then you can easily get a one bedroom apartment for 300 USD per month, in a high class condo, plus with free golf cart ser

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

☀️ Feels 29° 84° 28° 83°AQI 72

$1,464 / mo

25Mbps

Prague

Czechia

My husband and I spent about 6 weeks testing Prague in Nov-Dec 2018 as we were considering it as a semi-permanent base of operations for the next year or two. Honestly it was great and we plan on leaving Malta where we have been for the past year. Pluses - transportation is very good and quite cheap, tons of restaurants, lots to do. People are more reserved, perhaps even a bit suspicious, so I would not say it was an OVERLY welcoming vibe, however there are a lot of expats from the US, CA, UK

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun great

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌤 Feels 2° 36° 4° 38°AQI 42

$2,357 / mo

30Mbps

Singapore

They say you get what you pay for. After having traveled the previous 4 months in India, Cambodia, VietNam, Myanmar and Thailand, Singapore was so easy! The subway system is a marvel, streets signs were easy to read, everyone speaks English (that just makes it easy for me as an English speaker) it is safe, clean, and parks are gorgeous. I was there as COVID 19 was breaking out fairly fast and that put a damper on my time but I was so happy to be there anyway and plan to go back. For digital

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🙂 Okay

📡 Internet 🚀 Super fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 37° 99° 29° 84°🥵AQI 58

$2,918 / mo

87Mbps

Berlin

Germany

Berlin is overall a great city to be. Food is cheap and everywhere, easy to go out and have fun/meet for business. Rent has crept up but still far better value than where I came from. Internet: 36 EUR/month get me 450/40 mbps (cable -> DOCSIS 3.0) Public transport is 2.70 EUR/ticket. No woman I know has said they felt unsafe. Some really odd, xenophobic sounding comments on here. Biggest downsides IMO: service quality at restaurants - not that people are rude, but they don't seem to particular

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🧐 Pricey

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun great

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌥 Feels 2° 36° 4° 39°AQI 104😷

$3,150 / mo

29Mbps

Ubud, Bali

Indonesia

Honestly, this is an awesome place to be if you're actually trying to get work done. It's a bit of an older vibe than Canggu, and there's certainly a big chunk of yogi's kicking around — but I liked it much better than Canggu and found it less pretentious. Plus, you can drive down there in 45mins whenever you want some beach or party vibes. As others mentioned, there's some great coworking spaces, cheap warungs, some really nice spots to stay cheaply if you go just outside of the mad tourist

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 34° 93° 28° 83°🥵AQI 53

$1,356 / mo

12Mbps

London

United Kingdom

London is the best city in the world - you just can't do it on a budget. It's got an amazing tech scene but ALSO world class media, fashion, finance, art industries and many others. If you don't want to live in a tech / expat mono-culture then it's for you. It is a genuine melting pot with a huge range of nationalities and cultures living together (the US has a large number of nationalities but there seems to be hard segregations between them geographically, economically, culturally - so they

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🧐 Too expensive

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun great

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 4° 39° 6° 42°AQI 38

$4,193 / mo

20Mbps

Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia

First time I was in KL was in 2015 as a backpacking student. I stayed for 2 weeks at an airbnb in Bangsar South and I loved it. Met up with Uni friends, made new friends and I really like the relaxed atmosphere, despite being in a huge city. Fast forward, 3 years later, I went by myself to KL for a 3 days stay on a visa run from Chiang Mai. I stayed in a hotel near Bukit Bintang. I actually really didn't like it - I think because I was by myself, in a fairly wild part of the city and got so us

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 33° 91° 28° 83°🥵AQI 44

$1,282 / mo

17Mbps

🚩 Flags collected (13 of 276)

🌍 Top countries

Vietnam

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

11mo

Thailand

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

6mo

South Africa

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

5mo

Colombia

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

3mo

Greece

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

2mo

Hungary

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

2mo

Spain

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

1mo

Costa Rica

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🤬 Unusably slow

😀 Fun very bad

👮 Safety very bad

Tap to open

1mo

🛬 Most visits

Chiang Mai

Thailand

Chiang Mai used to be N.1 for the digital nomad life. It is still great and you can find really cheap apartments (300-400$) and restaurants (2-3$ for a main). Wouldn't recommend staying there during the burning season. The best area is Nimman, but it's also the most expensive. You can stay in the old city that's very nice but that gets noisy during the weekend for the night markets. Last but not least, very safe city. All in all would go back in a heartbeat.

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌥 Feels 30° 86° 27° 81°AQI 87😷

$1,109 / mo

24Mbps

Reading

United Kingdom

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🧐 Pricey

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌦 Feels 3° 37° 6° 42°AQI 21

$3,822 / mo

22Mbps

Athens

Greece

Like all cities that have lots of tourists, it's best to explore a little and get off the well beaten track. There are literally thousands of small cafes and bars that have free, fast WiFi, cheap coffee and good kebabs. If you stay in the absolute cheapest part of town, you will get a different vibe. There are a lot of AirBnB springing up and in the off-season these are very reasonably priced. I can't understand how you could be bored in Athens. So many places to see, so many museums and histo

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🙂 Okay

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun great

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 18° 64° 17° 63°AQI 57

$2,910 / mo

12Mbps

Port Elizabeth

South Africa

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🙂 Good

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety bad

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 20° 68° 20° 68°AQI 38

$2,239 / mo

8Mbps

Edinburgh

United Kingdom

Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities and I've spent quite a bit of time here. It's charming, friendly, beautiful, and walkable, and has a range of cafes and coffeeshops with fast wifi. The downsides: it's pretty expensive (housing especially), and there doesn't seem to be much of a nomad scene. The general tech scene seems to be smallish but growing (CodeBase seems cool), but not many nomads seem to come here.

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🧐 Pricey

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 3° 37° 6° 44°AQI 28

$3,760 / mo

24Mbps

Siem Reap

Cambodia

Siem Riep has a nice suburb feeling. At first sight it seems there's not much to do besides Angkor Wat and Pub Street, but you can go swimming, do bicycle tours, floating village day trip... I don't have best social skill, but in Siem Reap it was so easy to make new friends. Locals and tourists! I've worked at Garage Society Coworking Space. Pretty nice place. I don't understand the cons of slow internet. I've bought an LTE 4G Sim card for 10 USD with 10 GB. There's also free and mostly fast

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🙂 Good

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

☀️ Feels 30° 86° 28° 82°AQI 56

$1,040 / mo

8Mbps

Barcelona

Spain

During winter is quite safe plus much cheaper. Some nightclubs are free and yet there is still a lot of people. Great por lgbtq+ community.

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🧐 Pricey

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun great

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌥 Feels 11° 52° 12° 53°AQI 33

$3,044 / mo

39Mbps

Valencia

Spain

I spent 8 days in Valencia with my boyfriend for new years. We really enjoyed it honestly. We found the city quite walkable, even though it's relatively big, very bike-friendly, felt super safe riding around. Didn't find the public transport to be bad at all, but then again we come from a capital with much shittier public transport. Food is affordable, there's tons of cafes and restaurants everywhere (they were constantly full though). My biggest issue was that barely anyone speaks any English,

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🙂 Okay

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌥 Feels 11° 52° 13° 55°AQI 17

$2,635 / mo

38Mbps

🛌 Most time spent

Da Nang

Vietnam

After having lived here for two months, I've got to say that this must be one of the worst places in Asia. The only reason I am still here is because I'm stuck due to the covid-19 situation. There is nothing to do here, except going for a walk at the beach. No events, no social life, no activities. Mind you, this has nothing to do with the current situation, it was the same before things got shut down because of the virus. The locals don't really like foreigners and you can feel that often, eve

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😝 Cheap

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌥 Feels 24° 75° 24° 75°AQI 40

11mo

$967 / mo

16Mbps

Chiang Mai

Thailand

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌥 Feels 30° 86° 27° 81°AQI 87😷

6mo

$1,109 / mo

24Mbps

Port Elizabeth

South Africa

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🙂 Good

😀 Fun okay

👮 Safety bad

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 20° 68° 20° 68°AQI 38

5mo

$2,239 / mo

8Mbps

Medellín

Colombia

We loved Medellin! Poblado is a magical enclave, unlike most of Medellin. Amazing restaurants, lots of nature, friendly people, gorgeous women, fast internet, tons of places to work.

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety bad

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 22° 72° 22° 72°AQI 53

3mo

$1,103 / mo

14Mbps

Athens

Greece

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 🙂 Okay

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun great

👮 Safety good

Tap to open

🌧 Feels 18° 64° 17° 63°AQI 57

2mo

$2,910 / mo

12Mbps

Budapest

Hungary

I stayed here for a month in July last year. There's lots of cool aspects to the city but I hated it when I was there. The city has a problem with British stag parties, so if you look like you're a British male and speak English expect to be treated with disdain (it's fair enough) The Hungarians can just generally be unfriendly, especially bartenders. It's a weird experience waiting to be served while 3 people ignore you. Or buying the same drink and getting charged whatever they want (700-1500

⭐️ Overall Score

💵 Cost 😙 Affordable

📡 Internet 🏎 Fast

😀 Fun good

👮 Safety okay

Tap to open

🌤 Feels 7° 45° 8° 47°AQI 70

2mo

$1,541 / mo

44Mbps