Author Topic: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)  (Read 51774 times)

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #50 on: September 07, 2016, 12:06:23 PM »
The blog post, if you'd like to learn how the searches work, where the site came from, and the whole behind-the-scenes story.

http://frugalvagabond.com/2016/09/07/earth-awaits/

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #51 on: September 07, 2016, 04:29:43 PM »
Oh, and on the off chance anyone wants to help me keep this thing going, here's some help I could use:

1) Submit the site to ProductHunt. I've never used the site, so I don't have posting access-- but if you have and do, it would be amazing.

2) Upvote at HackerNews. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12445835

3) Share on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and anywhere else. This would really help me as the long-term traffic numbers will make or break the site.

4) Use the site! Have fun! You can share specific cities using the social media links at the top of every page!  Here's an example, of Barcelona (Shared with an ample budget and a family of three):

https://www.theearthawaits.com/?city_id=33&apartment_desired=apartment1bedcitycenter&household=3&lifestyle_desired=ample

I'd welcome any and all feedback, here or via the contact form (or via email, contact @ the earth awaits dot com).

Thanks!

Lunasol

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #52 on: September 07, 2016, 04:38:04 PM »
I checked it! I think it looks pretty neat, although still needs a little debugging imo (no offense!)

I'll share when I get home, hope you get lots of traffic :)

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #53 on: September 07, 2016, 04:55:14 PM »
I checked it! I think it looks pretty neat, although still needs a little debugging imo (no offense!)

I'll share when I get home, hope you get lots of traffic :)

Drop me a line with any bugs you run into, I'm happy to work them! I'm not aware of any showstoppers at the moment-- there are a number of small or cosmetic things for sure, but it's what you don't know that usually gets you :)

frugalcoconut

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #54 on: September 07, 2016, 07:12:17 PM »
Ok wow.  I'm still going through the new site but it is totally awesome.  Major kudos for all the work you put into it.  Since I'm just now seeing this thread on MMM ... I wanted to add a couple of suggestions myself.

Would it be possible to add information about the likelihood of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or monsoon or earthquake or tsunami or flooding, etc.?  Maybe based on historical frequency (last 100 years) ... or at least whether an area is known to be "at risk" for such events?  EDIT:  And maybe, in addition to temperatures, info about general weather patterns such as light/heavy snow or if there is a really long rainy season or if it tends to be really dry/humid ... and what to expect along those lines?

Also I realize that I could uncheck the continents to look at them one-by-one, but I would love the ability to multi-sort by Continent > Country > City (just like you can do in Excel).  :)

Oh and it would be amazing if I could customize my budget items in the Filters section of the advanced search rather than manual input on each individual country ... so that way my changes will apply across-the-board and it's easy to compare apples-to-apples and I won't have to re-enter the same thing separately on each.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2016, 07:45:19 PM by frugalcoconut »

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #55 on: September 07, 2016, 08:17:08 PM »
Ok wow.  I'm still going through the new site but it is totally awesome.  Major kudos for all the work you put into it.  Since I'm just now seeing this thread on MMM ... I wanted to add a couple of suggestions myself.

Thanks, suggestions welcome!  Though I'm a software developer, it's actually my first-ever web app, so sometimes I'm constrained by my experience with this medium... but I'm doing my best!

Would it be possible to add information about the likelihood of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or monsoon or earthquake or tsunami or flooding, etc.?  Maybe based on historical frequency (last 100 years) ... or at least whether an area is known to be "at risk" for such events?  EDIT:  And maybe, in addition to temperatures, info about general weather patterns such as light/heavy snow or if there is a really long rainy season or if it tends to be really dry/humid ... and what to expect along those lines?

Definitely.  The weather tab is definitely one of the most ripe for expansion. I *almost* excluded it entirely, but left it in on a whim.  More is coming here as things settle out.

Also I realize that I could uncheck the continents to look at them one-by-one, but I would love the ability to multi-sort by Continent > Country > City (just like you can do in Excel).  :)

You're definitely a power searcher!  I have the dual goals of powerful and easy to use, which are sometimes in conflict.  Let me think about this one some more/see how things develop over time.

Oh and it would be amazing if I could customize my budget items in the Filters section of the advanced search rather than manual input on each individual country ... so that way my changes will apply across-the-board and it's easy to compare apples-to-apples and I won't have to re-enter the same thing separately on each.

This is coming, though in what form is a little TBD.  Step one will be allowing the creation of accounts and saving of favorites, then the customization and storing of budgets.  I really want the site to sustain itself, so I need to see how or whether it manages to make any money over the next few months... whether that's from sponsorship or clicking of affiliate links.  If it's doing well through those avenues, it'll all be free.  If it's still costing me as much as it is (the data license and servers are the expensive part) then I might see about some super-nominal annual fee ($30? $40?) for access to those features, and perhaps a superset of cities (3-4x as many, maybe).

That's all TBD, just where my mind is heading right now.  Thanks so much for the feedback!

aspiringnomad

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #56 on: September 07, 2016, 08:36:41 PM »
This site is amazing and incredibly useful to me. Thanks so much!

brooklynmoney

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #57 on: September 07, 2016, 09:09:36 PM »
Has anybody on here ever had experience living in a major Latin American city?  Most people seem to avoid them where possible, but I've really enjoyed the few days I spent on trips in Mexico City and Lima.  I'm curious to see what people say that have actually lived in a major Latin American city, though.  I am seriously thinking about trying it out post-FIRE, but I have to admit I'm a little nervous.

Yes I lived in Santiago Chile for a total of about a year. Rented an apartment and went to language school full time while living with my boyfriend who was Chilean and spending time socializing with his friends and family. Santiago is a very safe (save for petty crime) orderly and modern city. It's easy to live in if ou have money. It's not cheap but about half as expensive as MYC where I normally live. That said, Chilean Spanish is almost incomprehensible and it's a small island like culture that's hard to break into. But it has good public transportation and banking. It's too Catholic for my taste. Divorce was only made legal in the somewhat recent past. I also found it boring. I adore Burnos Aires and would prefer to live in Argentina.

MostlyBearded

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #58 on: September 08, 2016, 05:29:28 AM »
I'm a fan of Numbeo so I think the calculation tool is quite cool, especially as it's customisable. Would you consider adding other currencies options to save converting to and from GBP?

Paul der Krake

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #59 on: September 08, 2016, 06:04:07 AM »
Wow. This is your first web app? that's damn impressive.

I really like how easy you've made it to easy and pleasant to discover places we would never think of in a million years.

nassoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #60 on: September 08, 2016, 07:30:21 AM »
Looks great!   I'd be interested in two more things:

Can you drink wine in the park?
How good is the public transportation network?

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #61 on: September 08, 2016, 07:31:55 AM »
I'm a fan of Numbeo so I think the calculation tool is quite cool, especially as it's customisable. Would you consider adding other currencies options to save converting to and from GBP?

Thanks!  Definitely.  This is one of the highest priorities for the next version, so keep stopping by. Best case a few weeks, worst case a month or two.

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #62 on: September 08, 2016, 07:34:28 AM »
Wow. This is your first web app? that's damn impressive.

I really like how easy you've made it to easy and pleasant to discover places we would never think of in a million years.

Thanks! That's one of the major goals-- just to get people thinking about options they never knew they had.

rockstache

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #63 on: September 08, 2016, 11:50:17 AM »
Just stopping in to say I love the new site. I got the email, checked it out and posted it to a couple of FB groups and it has had some great response in the comments there. I hope you get lots of traffic!

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #64 on: September 08, 2016, 12:13:51 PM »
Just stopping in to say I love the new site. I got the email, checked it out and posted it to a couple of FB groups and it has had some great response in the comments there. I hope you get lots of traffic!

Thank you! I am so, so grateful for the sharing. The launch wasn't quite the big splash I had dreamed of, but Rome wasn't built in a day!

I added two new search options (both under Advanced Search) today.  Minimum Quality of Life and a text Exclude filter.  You can exclude a comma-separated list of countries like this:

India,Greece,Spain

Keep the feedback and suggestions coming, and if you don't want to post here, the contact form on the site is a good way to find me.

honeybbq

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #65 on: September 08, 2016, 01:09:24 PM »
Very nice!!!

Adram

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #66 on: September 09, 2016, 06:35:47 AM »
Found this yesterday from your blog and loved it, then found my way here... Great job, and yeah the only issue I had was its focused on Americans. Adding other currencies and visa reqs would be nice, but it's pretty amazing right now already! Very very useful.

MonkeyJenga

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #67 on: September 09, 2016, 08:02:44 AM »
It's ready.  It'll probably never be "done," but it's ready.

Introducing The Earth Awaits. If you've ever followed my Retire Abroad series, The Earth Awaits in the next level. It'll take *your* inputs, needs, and family into account, generating up-to-the-minute, current budgets for over 500 cities around the world.  Every search you do builds budgets dynamically, for you. I think it's the best worldwide exploration and relocation/slow travel tool on the internet.  Some sites will give you a general idea of a budget for a place build by someone else, but only at The Earth Awaits can you build your own, edit it, download it, and explore hundreds of amazing places in rich, vibrant color.

Check it out.  Blog post to follow, but since so much of the help I got here formed the basis of the site, I wanted to give you guys a tiny head start.

https://www.theearthawaits.com/

Briefly checked this out, it looks useful! Will look in more detail later.

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #68 on: September 09, 2016, 08:53:44 AM »
Found this yesterday from your blog and loved it, then found my way here... Great job, and yeah the only issue I had was its focused on Americans. Adding other currencies and visa reqs would be nice, but it's pretty amazing right now already! Very very useful.

Thanks, Adram! I hope to have currency conversion in a few weeks. That and tags/tag searching are my next two tasks.

Threshkin

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #69 on: September 09, 2016, 09:36:03 AM »
It's ready.  It'll probably never be "done," but it's ready.

Introducing The Earth Awaits. If you've ever followed my Retire Abroad series, The Earth Awaits in the next level. It'll take *your* inputs, needs, and family into account, generating up-to-the-minute, current budgets for over 500 cities around the world.  Every search you do builds budgets dynamically, for you. I think it's the best worldwide exploration and relocation/slow travel tool on the internet.  Some sites will give you a general idea of a budget for a place build by someone else, but only at The Earth Awaits can you build your own, edit it, download it, and explore hundreds of amazing places in rich, vibrant color.

Check it out.  Blog post to follow, but since so much of the help I got here formed the basis of the site, I wanted to give you guys a tiny head start.

https://www.theearthawaits.com/

Nice web site.  It has a polished, inviting look and a clean UI.  I have just started looking at it but the first question that comes to mind is how you intend to make it "sticky".

Fun fact.  I plugged in a few basic parameters that fit our FIRE plan and Fort Collins CO came up.  I already live there!  :D

Edit: I am not sure where you are getting your statistics but your rental prices are way low for my town.  Roughly 40-50% low.  Vacancy rates are hovering around 1% and rental prices are going up accordingly.  On the other hand your grocery prices seemed moderately high.  They looked more like Whole Foods prices.
« Last Edit: September 09, 2016, 09:45:00 AM by Threshkin »

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #70 on: September 09, 2016, 10:00:21 AM »
Nice web site.  It has a polished, inviting look and a clean UI.  I have just started looking at it but the first question that comes to mind is how you intend to make it "sticky".

Hey, Threshkin, thanks for the feedback! What do you mean by "sticky?"

Fun fact.  I plugged in a few basic parameters that fit our FIRE plan and Fort Collins CO came up.  I already live there!  :D

Edit: I am not sure where you are getting your statistics but your rental prices are way low for my town.  Roughly 40-50% low.  Vacancy rates are hovering around 1% and rental prices are going up accordingly.  On the other hand your grocery prices seemed moderately high.  They looked more like Whole Foods prices.

Thanks for this feedback also.  The data is licensed from Numbeo, which is sort of the only game in town that has broad and deep enough data for worldwide locations. There are low, high, and average values for each data point for each city, and I use the average value for my site.  You can go and submit updated numbers for Fort Collins here:

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=Fort+Collins%2C+CO

This item of feedback is one that I anticipated being one of the loudest, which is why I opted to make the budgets both editable and downloadable.  You can modify budgets up by editing quantities, or the lifestyle modifier for each section to suit your needs/beliefs/research. It's tough to get every city 100% accurate for 100% of people, but my aim was to give everyone a decent jumping-off point.

Thanks again.

ETA: Not a refutation, just an observation-- I notice that Craigslist 1BR rentals in Fort Collins aren't too far off from the $1,066/mo that the site currently shows. Probably there is some variability in what different folks consider "city center," and in desired/expected apartment quality. https://fortcollins.craigslist.org/search/apa?query=1br
« Last Edit: September 09, 2016, 10:14:24 AM by iamlindoro »

Threshkin

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #71 on: September 09, 2016, 10:20:47 AM »
Nice web site.  It has a polished, inviting look and a clean UI.  I have just started looking at it but the first question that comes to mind is how you intend to make it "sticky".

Hey, Threshkin, thanks for the feedback! What do you mean by "sticky?"

By sticky I mean how long someone spends on your site.  This is an important metric for advertisers.  For example Facebook is very sticky, people tend to spend a long time there. 

Another important usage statistic is return visits.  You do not want to be a "one and done" site.

Fun fact.  I plugged in a few basic parameters that fit our FIRE plan and Fort Collins CO came up.  I already live there!  :D

Edit: I am not sure where you are getting your statistics but your rental prices are way low for my town.  Roughly 40-50% low.  Vacancy rates are hovering around 1% and rental prices are going up accordingly.  On the other hand your grocery prices seemed moderately high.  They looked more like Whole Foods prices.

Thanks for this feedback also.  The data is licensed from Numbeo, which is sort of the only game in town that has broad and deep enough data for worldwide locations. There are low, high, and average values for each data point for each city, and I use the average value for my site.  You can go and submit updated numbers for Fort Collins here:

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country=United+States&city=Fort+Collins%2C+CO

This item of feedback is one that I anticipated being one of the loudest, which is why I opted to make the budgets both editable and downloadable.  You can modify budgets up by editing quantities, or the lifestyle modifier for each section to suit your needs/beliefs/research. It's tough to get every city 100% accurate for 100% of people, but my aim was to give everyone a decent jumping-off point.

Thanks again.

Thanks for the info on Numbeo.  I suspected you were using a data aggregator.  Do you get information on when the data was last updated from them?  It might help to list that if you do.  Particularly for volatile big ticket items like rent.

It is good that the budget numbers are editable.  That was not obvious on the site.

Overall it is a very interesting reference site.  It provides a good (quick) starting point for additional research. 

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #72 on: September 09, 2016, 10:33:52 AM »
Nice web site.  It has a polished, inviting look and a clean UI.  I have just started looking at it but the first question that comes to mind is how you intend to make it "sticky".

Hey, Threshkin, thanks for the feedback! What do you mean by "sticky?"

By sticky I mean how long someone spends on your site.  This is an important metric for advertisers.  For example Facebook is very sticky, people tend to spend a long time there. 

Another important usage statistic is return visits.  You do not want to be a "one and done" site.

Thanks again for the feedback.  I am indeed tracking these metrics, and have employed analytics events somewhat liberally throughout the site to track usage patterns, sharing, searches, popularity of content, and a number of other things that should hopefully be relevant when advertisers come calling.

Truthfully, I am not sure what I could do to make the site more appealing to return visits than to make the content and experience as compelling as possible.  At the moment the average user spends about eight minutes on the site, and performs three searches per session.  They drill down into 2-3 cities per session on average.

Though software development is not new to me, running a site of this nature, and attempting to make it profitable (or at least not cost me thousands as it has so far) is.  I'm a work in progress :)

darkelfx

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #73 on: September 09, 2016, 11:52:54 AM »
Hey,

I'm curious to ask how accurate you feel these numbers are. I was looking through a lot of the places and was surprised to find many big cities on there, such as Athens and Bangkok. Both of these cities had about a $1500-1600/month budget on an opulent lifestyle. When I do retire, I don't plan on living an opulent lifestyle, but more of something modest and these numbers were not what I expected. I understand it's just an estimate, and you could easily go above that through frivolous spending, but it still feels very low. I played around with the numbers in excel and still ended up with value around $2300-2500/month, which is still low to me. I was expecting around a $3000-$3200/month for the bigger cities. Am I just ignorant to how cheap cities abroad can be? Haha, I hope I am because a lot of these places look like prime retirement spots.

Side note: The site is still awesome and it's extremely user-friendly as well as being easy on the eyes. It's an eyesore going through Numbeo at times so thank you for creating this!


iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #74 on: September 09, 2016, 12:07:00 PM »
Hey,

I'm curious to ask how accurate you feel these numbers are. I was looking through a lot of the places and was surprised to find many big cities on there, such as Athens and Bangkok. Both of these cities had about a $1500-1600/month budget on an opulent lifestyle. When I do retire, I don't plan on living an opulent lifestyle, but more of something modest and these numbers were not what I expected. I understand it's just an estimate, and you could easily go above that through frivolous spending, but it still feels very low. I played around with the numbers in excel and still ended up with value around $2300-2500/month, which is still low to me. I was expecting around a $3000-$3200/month for the bigger cities. Am I just ignorant to how cheap cities abroad can be? Haha, I hope I am because a lot of these places look like prime retirement spots.

Side note: The site is still awesome and it's extremely user-friendly as well as being easy on the eyes. It's an eyesore going through Numbeo at times so thank you for creating this!

Thanks!  Also, good question.  Let's take Bangkok as an example because I've spent a good amount of time there.  For one or two people sharing a single, nice, one-bedroom apartment, $1,500-1,600/mo as baseline spending is absolutely doable, and you'd be living a sweet lifestyle (IMO).  The textual names for the multipliers are something assigned to them by me, but in the case of opulent, it's 75% over the average local spending on each item.

By the by, the site currently gives $1814 for Bangkok + 1 Person + Opulent + 1 Bedroom City Center.  That's about right, and the apartment numbers are about right ($594 for a 1 Bedroom apartment + 75% modifier = $1,039 would give you a very nice apartment in Bangkok).

That's all a long way of saying that I believe that the numbers and methodology are, by and large, doable and plausible. There are going to be exceptions because the data is crowdsourced and what's acceptable (or even opulent) to one person may not be at all to the next. 

Here's a quick example of a nice apartment in the Sukhumvit area in Bangkok that would set you back about $700:

http://www.mrroomfinder.com/detail.php?id=1695

There are a LOT of places out there in the world that you can live a kickass lifestyle for a fraction of what you think-- this exact line of thinking is what inspired me to build the site in the first place!

jacquespluto

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #75 on: September 09, 2016, 03:54:40 PM »
Very cool website.  I definitely think about where we could live right now with about $1k/mo passive income.  We have a kid and due to that I will need to search for a 3 bedroom "ample" lifestyle to account for the extra costs.

One thing I didn't notice (and apologize if this has already been covered) is healthcare.  I understand that healthcare is cheaper in most of these places than it is in the U.S., but most reasonable people in this community would definitely budget for this even if they are "self insured".  I get that it isn't a traditional monthly expense, however, I think that it should be included as the 3rd biggest part of the expat budget behind housing and food.  Stuff does happen and even though healthcare might be zero one month, it could also be $500 the next month, so having a yearly budget split into monthly amounts is very important to include.

I do see where you can add International/Expat insurance under other, however my suggestion would be to include this as part of the default calculation along with housing and food.

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #76 on: September 09, 2016, 04:48:49 PM »
Very cool website.  I definitely think about where we could live right now with about $1k/mo passive income.  We have a kid and due to that I will need to search for a 3 bedroom "ample" lifestyle to account for the extra costs.

One thing I didn't notice (and apologize if this has already been covered) is healthcare.  I understand that healthcare is cheaper in most of these places than it is in the U.S., but most reasonable people in this community would definitely budget for this even if they are "self insured".  I get that it isn't a traditional monthly expense, however, I think that it should be included as the 3rd biggest part of the expat budget behind housing and food.  Stuff does happen and even though healthcare might be zero one month, it could also be $500 the next month, so having a yearly budget split into monthly amounts is very important to include.

I do see where you can add International/Expat insurance under other, however my suggestion would be to include this as part of the default calculation along with housing and food.

Hi Jacquespluto,

I don't disagree that health care is a critically important expense.  As you mentioned, that's why I provide the International/Expat insurance option (and why it's the only item whose price can be edited on the site). To understand why a more automated insurance calculation isn't there already, you'd need to consider the scope of the data (573 cities in 119 countries) and manpower available (just me, aside from any small tasks I can farm out on a very cheap basis such as tracking down public domain images for the cities). Each of those 119 countries, and sometimes even regions within them, have different and complicated health systems.  Sometimes the private system is the only one an expat would dare to use (Morocco), while other times the public system is world class (France). Without a good way to refine those systems to an equation or table, I have to rely on the user to do their own research in that regard, and the closest thing I've got to a "universal" solution is to provide a link to a couple links to get quotes for international health insurance.

As the site goes forward, if I can get it to make a little money, there are a lot of places where I'd like to invest money to perform research on more subjective topics, health care among them. As it stands, the monetization strategy/potential of the site is a little murky.  As things clear up, I would love it if the site made enough money to allow me to be more featureful in this regard.

Thanks for the feedback and for checking it out!

arebelspy

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #77 on: September 11, 2016, 10:02:28 AM »
https://www.theearthawaits.com/

Bumping this thread, cause this is pretty amazing, and I can't believe no one has commented yet.  Hopefully more people will see it now.  :)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #78 on: September 12, 2016, 06:20:24 PM »
I was super excited to see this posted on reddit today. You should be getting tons of hits and insightful comments!

I subscribed to the mailchimp thingy. Please make me drool once a month with a featured destination or something.

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #79 on: September 12, 2016, 06:27:57 PM »
I was super excited to see this posted on reddit today. You should be getting tons of hits and insightful comments!

I subscribed to the mailchimp thingy. Please make me drool once a month with a featured destination or something.

Thank you very much! Good feedback, some insightful, some less so, some needlessly harsh, but that's Reddit for you :)

Great idea on the featured destination! I hadn't even thought of that!

arebelspy

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #80 on: September 13, 2016, 03:29:20 AM »
I was super excited to see this posted on reddit today.

Link?
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.


arebelspy

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #82 on: September 13, 2016, 04:01:40 AM »
Nice. Some good feedback and reception there.  Hope it continues to spread.  :)
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #83 on: September 13, 2016, 07:19:36 AM »
Nice. Some good feedback and reception there.  Hope it continues to spread.  :)

Definitely better than the reception at /r/digitalnomad, that's for sure!

https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalnomad/comments/52gn5o/cool_new_website_that_suggests_places_to_live/

Truthfully, I am not completely the best at taking non-constructive criticism, so I have been trying to constantly remind myself to just take the useful feedback and disregard the useless stuff.  So far, so good :)

tyleriam

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #84 on: September 13, 2016, 11:26:09 AM »
I will offer you an alternative view of criticism...if you aren't getting it you aren't doing anything. 

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #85 on: September 13, 2016, 11:29:04 AM »
I will offer you an alternative view of criticism...if you aren't getting it you aren't doing anything.

Totally true! I have managed to stay pretty positive and open to the feedback so far, so I'm happy. I'm getting lots of things to chew on, think about, and have started to develop an action plan for the next few months to make it even better. 

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #86 on: September 13, 2016, 12:15:08 PM »
As always you amaze me! Awesome site! I want to spend more time on it but a couple of things come to mind. When selecting the categories such as pollution, crime, lifestyle, the categories are maximum values, right? Like a maximum pollution level of "low", includes the "very low" ones as well? This could be clarified somehow.

And is there a way to account for something like political unrest or number of terrorist attacks? Certain places might have low crime rates but other factors which may make them feel less safe.

FrugalFan

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #87 on: September 13, 2016, 12:16:34 PM »
Also the ability to sort the results would be good (especially by cost of living).

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #88 on: September 13, 2016, 12:20:35 PM »
As always you amaze me! Awesome site! I want to spend more time on it but a couple of things come to mind. When selecting the categories such as pollution, crime, lifestyle, the categories are maximum values, right? Like a maximum pollution level of "low", includes the "very low" ones as well? This could be clarified somehow.

Yes, they're inclusive of the lower values. I'll think about how to clarify ("Maximum pollution" and "Maximum Crime" feel awkward, and a full sentence will look terrible on mobile, so I will probably need a tooltip).

And is there a way to account for something like political unrest or number of terrorist attacks? Certain places might have low crime rates but other factors which may make them feel less safe.

There's surely a way to show it, the bigger question is where to get the data in a reliable fashion.  I'm not opposed to adding it if there's an open and parseable source that is objective and the data is actually meaningful.

Paul der Krake

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #89 on: September 13, 2016, 12:43:49 PM »
A couple usability laundry list of things I noticed while playing with it today:

- there is at least one city with pollution of 101/100 (Accra in Ghana).
- it's a little weird that the crime rate and pollution follow a "lower is better" approach. I typically view scores as higher is better.
- the url remains the same, so there's no easy way to send links with pre-filled searches.
- put big arrows over the banner image when viewing a destination to view images. Even better, let me use my arrow keys to navigate the slideshow instead of individually select the pictures below.
- maybe have a embedded map to quickly see where the cities are located. You're targeting Americans after all!
- there's no need for the internet access data to take up two whole rows in the quick fact section. Condense it somehow. Likewise, all the LGBT-related stuff could probably be reduced to a smaller infographic (maybe an icon for each right that's colored or grayed out depending on the availability of said right).

Threshkin

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #90 on: September 13, 2016, 01:11:08 PM »
...snip...
- it's a little weird that the crime rate and pollution follow a "lower is better" approach. I typically view scores as higher is better.
...snip

I usually prefer low pollution and low crime but to each his own.......:D

Cookie78

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #91 on: September 13, 2016, 01:24:33 PM »
VERY cool site!! Nice work

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #92 on: September 13, 2016, 01:36:17 PM »
Thanks for the feedback!  Point-by-point:

- there is at least one city with pollution of 101/100 (Accra in Ghana).

This seems to be a source data error-- values are supposed to be constrained 0-100, but I can add some logic to do it on my end.

- it's a little weird that the crime rate and pollution follow a "lower is better" approach. I typically view scores as higher is better.

I don't know, I think low crime and pollution seem more intuitively "good" than higher values.

- the url remains the same, so there's no easy way to send links with pre-filled searches.

Yeah, nothing like this yet.  You *can* get a URL to share/direct someone to a specific city with your budget/household/housing settings. I'm not sure if I'll add anything like this, I'll need to give it a little thought.

- put big arrows over the banner image when viewing a destination to view images. Even better, let me use my arrow keys to navigate the slideshow instead of individually select the pictures below.

I'll see what I can do.

- maybe have a embedded map to quickly see where the cities are located. You're targeting Americans after all!

Definitely coming.

- there's no need for the internet access data to take up two whole rows in the quick fact section. Condense it somehow. Likewise, all the LGBT-related stuff could probably be reduced to a smaller infographic (maybe an icon for each right that's colored or grayed out depending on the availability of said right).

Good idea on the rights section, that would be more attractive.  Thanks!

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #93 on: September 13, 2016, 02:38:29 PM »
Wow.  Your site is very cool.  I might show it to DH to get him to realize that it's possible to live abroad.  Just planting seeds right now, but someday it might bear fruit.

Mike

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #94 on: September 13, 2016, 06:31:45 PM »
I think the lifestyle selection / associated multiplier should be explained in the FAQ.  Going in, I assumed "modest" would be the baseline with no penalty (larger multiplier) to the budget only to see it was assigned 1.25 and "lean" was actually 1.0. 

Also, if the data exists (no idea if it does), including a bike/walk score of the cities would be a great addition.  For example, the US has this: http://blog.walkscore.com/tag/bike-score/#.V9iZP1srKmw

Gotta give major kudos here - that's a hell of a site.  Apparently I'm already FI for quite a few cities (I figured this was true for a bunch of less developed parts of the world but had no idea it was the case for a number of places in effing Europe and Canada).

nnls

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #95 on: September 13, 2016, 06:59:50 PM »
Ok wow.  I'm still going through the new site but it is totally awesome.  Major kudos for all the work you put into it.  Since I'm just now seeing this thread on MMM ... I wanted to add a couple of suggestions myself.

Would it be possible to add information about the likelihood of a natural disaster such as a hurricane or monsoon or earthquake or tsunami or flooding, etc.?  Maybe based on historical frequency (last 100 years) ... or at least whether an area is known to be "at risk" for such events?  EDIT:  And maybe, in addition to temperatures, info about general weather patterns such as light/heavy snow or if there is a really long rainy season or if it tends to be really dry/humid ... and what to expect along those lines?

Also I realize that I could uncheck the continents to look at them one-by-one, but I would love the ability to multi-sort by Continent > Country > City (just like you can do in Excel).  :)

Oh and it would be amazing if I could customize my budget items in the Filters section of the advanced search rather than manual input on each individual country ... so that way my changes will apply across-the-board and it's easy to compare apples-to-apples and I won't have to re-enter the same thing separately on each.

Would it be possible to add a filter for weather, say to put in minimum or maximum temperatures you would be willing to live in? As that could be useful

nnls

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #96 on: September 13, 2016, 07:01:22 PM »
Forgot to add, the website is really well done :) I am still having a look around but I could see if being useful in the future

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #97 on: September 13, 2016, 07:40:50 PM »
I like the website a lot!

I do wish there were a way to filter by population.

And possibly related to that, is this site limited to cities of a minimum size?

Thanks!

arebelspy

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #98 on: September 13, 2016, 07:58:45 PM »
You should keep a changelog page on the site so people can see new features.
I am a former teacher who accumulated a bunch of real estate, retired at 29, spent some time traveling the world full time and am now settled with three kids.
If you want to know more about me, this Business Insider profile tells the story pretty well.
I (rarely) blog at AdventuringAlong.com. Check out the Now page to see what I'm up to currently.

iamlindoro

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Re: Mustachians Interested in Retiring Abroad (or Slow Travel)
« Reply #99 on: September 13, 2016, 08:38:15 PM »
Thanks all for the feedback and comments!

You should keep a changelog page on the site so people can see new features.

In theory that's what the News page is for, but an actual changelog might be good better.

I do wish there were a way to filter by population.

And possibly related to that, is this site limited to cities of a minimum size?

I am trying to figure out just how granular I am willing to let search get before it starts to feel like it's compromising ease of use. I've gotten so many suggestions, all of them valid and reasonable, but I haven't quite worked out in my head how I would make all of them work without things getting cluttered and difficult to use.  We will have to see how it goes :)

Would it be possible to add a filter for weather, say to put in minimum or maximum temperatures you would be willing to live in? As that could be useful

There will surely be a search/filter for weather of some sort, but I'm not quite sure what form it will take yet. Max/min temps feels a bit like a rule editor, which I'm desperate for this not to become :)

Wow.  Your site is very cool.  I might show it to DH to get him to realize that it's possible to live abroad.  Just planting seeds right now, but someday it might bear fruit.

I love it! I hope that it does!

I think the lifestyle selection / associated multiplier should be explained in the FAQ.  Going in, I assumed "modest" would be the baseline with no penalty (larger multiplier) to the budget only to see it was assigned 1.25 and "lean" was actually 1.0. 

The reason the default/middle option of Modest is 125% of the budget total is that the budget is, necessarily, representative rather than exhaustive. That is to say, we don't have data for every last thing anyone might need, so my experience while building the site and comparing a huge number of cities to reported budgets all over the world is that this "fudge factor" makes it line up across a huge number of locations for a basic budget. It basically gives you some overhead for all the stuff I don't have prices for.

Thanks for all the feedback, and please share with friends to help me keep it going!
« Last Edit: September 13, 2016, 08:40:50 PM by iamlindoro »