Nomad List| 🏆 Nomad Score™ | 167 reviews |
| 💵 Cost | |
| 📡 Internet | |
| 😝 Fun | |
| ⛅️ Temperature (now) | |
| 💦 Humidity (now) | |
| 💨 Air quality (now) | |
| 👌 Safety | |
| 👍 Quality of life | |
| 🚶 Walkability | |
| ✌️ Peace | |
| 🚦 Traffic safety | |
| 🏥 Hospitals | |
| 😄 Happiness | |
| 🍸 Nightlife | |
| 📶 Free WiFi in city | |
| 🖥 Places to work from | |
| ❄️ A/C or heating | |
| 😁 Friendly to foreigners | |
| 🙊 English speaking | |
| 🗯 Freedom of speech | |
| 😘 Racial tolerance | |
| 👩 Female friendly | |
| 🌈 LGBT friendly | |
| 🎅 Startup Score |
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| 🌍 Region | Asia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 🚩 Country | China | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ⏱ Average trip duration | 7 days | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 📡 Internet speed (avg) | 2 Mbps | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ⛅️ Weather | 🌥 31°C 88°F + 💦 Dry air (27%) + 💨 7km/h = Feels like 30°C 86°F | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 💨 Air quality (now) | 😷 104 µg/m3 equal to 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬 / day | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 💨 Air quality (annual avg) | 👎 146 µg/m3 equal to 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬 🚬 / day | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 🔌 Power | 230V50Hz | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 🚕 Best taxi app | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 📱 Best wireless carrier | China Mobile | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 💸 10 CNY in USD | USD 1.41 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 🏧 Suggested ATM take out: CNY 1,000 | USD 141 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 💸 Tipping | No | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 💳 Cashless society | 💵 No, cash only (esp. for foreigners because WeChat is very hard to set up) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ☕️ Best coffee place | Ass | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 🚰 Safe tap water | 🚫 No, contaminated | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ♻️ Return rate | 0% of nomads return | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 👨👩👧👦 Population | 1,800,000 people | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 👫 Gender ratio | 👨 54% 👱♀️ 46% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ⛪️ Religious government | Non-religious | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 🏠 Apartment listings | Ganji | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ✈️ Best short-haul air carrier | Hainan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ✈️ Best int'l air carrier | China Southern Airlines | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
😷 Air quality in Urumqi is very bad (104 µg/m³) today: avoid exercising outdoors, close windows and try to stay inside, more info | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| no-beachwarm nowwarmhotdirty airbad air qualityslow internetcheap cost of livinglow crimelow humiditymany men | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 💵 Nomad Cost™ | $1,254 / month |
| 💵 Cost of living for expat | $905 / month |
| 💵 Cost of living for family | $2,029 / month |
| 💵 Cost of living for local | $580 / month |
| 🏠 1br studio rent in center | $296 / month |
| 🏢 Coworking | $71 / month |
| 🏨 Hotel | $545 / month |
| 🏨 Hotel | $26 / night |
| 🏠 Airbnb (17 listings) | $1,408 / month |
| 🏠 Airbnb | $46 / night |
| 🍝 Dinner | $3 |
| 🍹 Coca-Cola (0.3L) | $0 |
| 🍺 Beer (0.5L) | $5 |
| ☕️ Coffee | $3 |
Based on Urumqi's cost of living, here's selected remote jobs that would cover your costs:
+ Very small hipster scene but nice... techno place, hipster cocktail, hipster café, tattoo scene... its not that indie though, like organised hipster. still too small, you always go to same places + Really good service, fast, they come and pour you water while drinking cokctail and stuff, cray + Young people who can speak english are friendly, come speak to you easily and are all like "wtf are u doing here" + Not a busy city, you feel you can take your time here, go to ice rink, walk in park + Nature and mountain not too far, its common to take car 30 min to go iceskating in mountain +/- Everyone with a car is a taxi driver, so u rarely use Uber/YandexTaxi, just go on the road, show your hand and people stop, you tell destination and it costs 1$. Problem you need to speak russian, im not good enough yet +/- People are mixed friendly. They are very nice and give you stuff and all when you are introduced, but people who dont speak english and dont know you, they are not helpful and a bit rude +/- city safety idk, I feel safe but every local tells me it's not a safe city - No one speak english ffs - city is bullshit communist wide street for car, shitty to walk, everything is far, cars everywhere, city center is not a city center, 4-lane in city center wtf fix this - Police is corrupt and not your friend. My only encounter with them was ok tho - People behavior is oldschool, men harrassing girls, men buying big car or iphone has status symbol, men trying to fight, girls expecting guys to be alpha male - Always fog in city and pollution
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 28° 82° 29° 84°AQI 44✈️1.1597859373021$1,382 / mo6Mbpsdespite the polluted air and unsafe traffic, interesting natural sites are in close proximity (5-10km and further): Mana river (low complexity for rafting), not far from the city there is a meander, on which you can raft, returning to the same place), the nature reserve Stolby (with rocks on which to climb, including the without insurance), and other places. The city is "wild, brutal", sporty (russian center of rugby, freestyle wrestling, bandy, one of the centers of biathlon)
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 29° 84° 27° 81°😷AQI 53✈️1.8744958755197$1,963 / mo13MbpsBest place for solo travellers. The people here are awesome. Almost no crime against foreigners according to statistics. Give this paradise on earth a try :)
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌫 Feels 29° 84° 28° 83°AQI 49✈️2.069790634897$831 / mo7MbpsDefinitely an underrated place for nomads - Huge city with a small town feel. Lots of different neighborhoods to appeal to different types of people: some commercial, some hipstery, some historical, some modern. Food and rent is cheap (and the food is damn good). People are very friendly as compared to other big Asian cities. You can also get easy work as a tutor and make good extra cash. I survived for five months tutoring and doing other English related work for max 12 hrs a week (leaving me lots of time to work on other projects). You could also easily get a full time teaching gig but that defeats the whole nomad idea i guess. My favorite area is Gulou, or the Drum Tower. Old, local style with ancient buildings and some great cafes.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌤 Feels 31° 88° 29° 84°😷AQI 85✈️3.2142246191441$2,191 / mo2MbpsI lived and worked (at a law firm) in Chengdu for about 3 months. I absolutely loved the city! It's so different from east coast China, especially given the Tibetan influences in many areas. I had a company arrange my apartment and registrations, but was a seamless process. I am a white, American male who speaks a decent bit of Mandarin, and I found the locals to be incredibly hospitable. China is general is extremely affordable for a Westerner, and Chengdu offers the luxuries of any large, Western city/metro area.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 27° 81° 25° 77°😷AQI 54✈️2.7427111309769$1,162 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleDefinitely an underrated place for nomads - Huge city with a small town feel. Lots of different neighborhoods to appeal to different types of people: some commercial, some hipstery, some historical, some modern. Food and rent is cheap (and the food is damn good). People are very friendly as compared to other big Asian cities. You can also get easy work as a tutor and make good extra cash. I survived for five months tutoring and doing other English related work for max 12 hrs a week (leaving me lots of time to work on other projects). You could also easily get a full time teaching gig but that defeats the whole nomad idea i guess. My favorite area is Gulou, or the Drum Tower. Old, local style with ancient buildings and some great cafes.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌤 Feels 31° 88° 29° 84°😷AQI 85✈️3.2142246191441$2,191 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleBe wary of LIES, lies everywhere. Lies like when a local restaurant tells you it uses clean filtered water. Assume that you will drink polluted water once in a while. It does not only include bacteria but also heavy metal. Drinking bottled water ? The most popular company, Nongfu, was caught using wrong norms years ago. Too many people were boycotting so they changed the traditional red bottle... and removed the English name. Lies like when they told you the internet speed using local servers. Local internet is actually not that bad, but since you would never use Baidu, Bing or any other unblocked search engine, then your VPN will throttle much of your speed and freedom. Add to that the fact that 2-3 times a year, a political meeting happens and they totally CUT all VPN access. Lies when you try to know the air pollution and the weather agency chose not to update the air quality index to play with the averages. It's still unhealthy but it got A LOT better these last few years. Lies like when you just try to know how many people live in Shanghai. Between 25-35 million people (depending on if you include migrant worker and nearby Suzhou soon to be connected by the same subway) means you get access to lots of stuff. Delivery is one (electronics, food). Subway is ridiculously cheap and modern. Taxis (just replace Uber by Didi) is also awesome and quite cheap. Lies like when you read my review and count as many bad points as good, but you still get Chinese people asking you why you hate China so much...
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 30° 86° 28° 82°AQI 38✈️4.3562881005662$1,953 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleSpend a few hours and learn the Korean alphabet (not that hard) and Google some names of Korean dishes + it's spelling in Korean. It will help a lot as most restaurants only have Korean menu's and often without pictures. As mentioned previously on the reviews, it's a little hard to eat alone, but Gimbab Chonguk (김밥천국) is everywhere and 24/7 - no one will bat an eye. Also look for places that "specialises" in dumplings, They are usually "alone-eating" friendly. And so are ramen places as well as Korean "chinese" restaurants - Jajangmyeon (자장면) is very good and super addictive. Bibimbab restaurant places are fine too. Actually, it's not that hard to eat alone in Korea. The "group" meals are generally quite obvious and will be things like BBQ. You'll figure it out. Do Get used to kimchi and spicy food otherwise you'll end up eating the same thing all the time. Be adventurous. Challenge yourself and eat an octopus alive (산낙지). If you're really brave try 보신탕 before authorities close them all - I haven't but a lot of Weagukins (foreigners) secret do. Cafe's generally have really good wifi, as you would expect from one of the most connected countries in the world. Expect to pay $4-6 for a latte and maybe even more at Starbucks. Best cafe's are usually around Hipster areas and Universities. Indie owned cafe's are awesome. Nightlife is great, probably amongst the best in Asia. Can get very expensive especially at night clubs in Gangnam where it would could be like $10 for a beer - in that case you can still get drunk for $2 with soju just outside at 7Eleven. Winters are stupidly cold and summers can be brutally hot & humid. Go between April and June or September to October. They have cherry blossoms in spring which is beautiful and so are the autumn leaves. Lived here for many years. It's a cool place and vastly underrated. Seoul is continuously becoming more expensive and cost of living will soon be comparable with places like Tokyo.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌤 Feels 29° 84° 28° 82°AQI 28✈️4.4783392606047$2,354 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleIt's possible to live in Hong Kong on the cheap. You've got to live far out in the New Territories, or on an outlying island. I spent a summer living happily on Lamma Island for ~$500USD/month in rent for one bedroom in a shared flat. Rent is really the only tricky part--everything else is relatively cheap.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 33° 91° 31° 88°😷AQI 64✈️4.5536405364606$3,038 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleReally friendly and social people, laid back, easy to get around, food is good, 4g is great. Heavy clouds for the 4 days I was here in December, which was depressing as hell.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌧 Feels 26° 79° 24° 75°😷AQI 67✈️4.9383930332322$1,934 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleThe Diet Coke of Asia. Zero crime, English spoken everywhere. Reliable public transport. Some nice spots for off-the-beaten-path walking and hiking. But also clinical, authoritarian, money-minded and very costly. Companies and shopkeepers will always do what's good for them (or makes their own life easier); not what's good for the customer. People avoid eye contact and are generally overworked and miserable. After a while, crossing over to Malaysia's neighboring Johor will, warts and all, feel like a breath of fresh air ("Yes! Space! I can move! I can breathe!").
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 43° 109° 32° 89°😷AQI 65✈️6.6602870078687$2,887 / mo🌇 Also went here6 peopleHipster capital of the world
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 25° 77° 22° 72°AQI 34✈️12.851667642339$3,451 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleBest city in the world! You can certainly live the Nomad life in NYC for a lot less than 5k a month! I've been doing it since December 2018 for around $2500/mo. AirBnB is the way to go!
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 28° 82° 27° 81°AQI 7✈️13.913562629187$5,732 / mo🌇 Also went here6 peopleLived there for 5 month on a contract project in one IT company, With my monthly income of $3,400 it was disgustingly hard to have a normal lifestyle. The city is also very dirty, specifically the Mission. Would not recommend moving there as an expat.
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety 🌥 Feels 26° 79° 24° 74°AQI 30✈️13.932328264454$5,722 / mo🌇 Also went here5 peopleNothing does a better job of explaining LA’s beautiful diversity and different neighborhoods than the documentary about the late Jonathan Gold, our city’s greatest amabassador and the only food critic to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. It is called, “City of Gold” and if you want to know LA, just watch this film. Trailer link: https://youtu.be/DmKTRDfz1zM
🎒 Nomad 💵 Cost 📡 Internet 😀 Fun 👮 Safety ☀️ Feels 30° 86° 29° 84°😷AQI 61✈️14.621643176135$4,654 / mo🌇 Also went here5 people✅ Affordable to live
✅ Very safe
✅ Warm in the spring
✅ Spacious and not crowded
✅ Easy to do business
✅ High quality of education
✅ Safe for women
❌ Very slow internet
❌ Pretty slow internet
❌ Not much to do
❌ Gets very cold in the winter
❌ Too hot in the summer
❌ Very dry air now
❌ Bad air quality year round
❌ Not many nomads go here
❌ Difficult to make friends
❌ Roads can be dangerous
❌ Freedom of speech is weak
❌ Not very democratic
❌ People don't speak English well
❌ Hostile towards LGBT
❌ People smoking tobacco a lot
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