Ever wonder where you could afford to live if your choices extended around the world? You could travel all around, in real life or via the internet, gathering data until you were exhausted. Or you could log on to The Earth Awaits You, enter your monthly budget, set some parameters and see what comes up, as reported by Fast Company.
The monthly budget range scale runs from $0 to $20,000. If you don’t change any other parameters but set the monthly budget range to $0 to $1,000 for one-bedroom city center housing for two people with a modest lifestyle, 73 cities come up, the cheapest in Madurai, India, where, of the total estimated monthly cost of $456 of which $165 would cover housing, $180 for food, and $111 for ‘other.’ At the high-end of the low-end test search, Kiev, Ukraine comes $985 a month. With the same budget but switching to one bedroom housing outside the city center, 110 options pop up, with the priciest Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, at $1,000.
If you go the other end of the scale and set the monthly budget to as high as $20,000 and select an opulent lifestyle, Hamilton, Bermuda, shows up as the most costly option at $9,544 a month, most of which ($5,892) would be needed for housing.
Your search can drill down on more than just budget and lifestyle. You can start by excluding whole continents and set maximum acceptable crime and pollution levels . In the Advanced search filter settings, you can set minimum acceptable freedom and quality of life scores, primary language, maximum racial discrimination, minimum health care, temperature range, and average internet download speed.
Once you have a list of cities that fit your parameters you can learn much more about the country, freedom indicators, weather, and specific budget items clicking on details for specific cities. For example, in Zaragoza, Spain, where the average cost of living in one bedroom housing in the city center is $2,024, you can view the average costs for a cappuccino ($1.39), a dozen eggs ($1.79), 2.2 pounds of beef round ($14.26), a monthly transport pass ($40), a liter of gasoline ($1.27), Levi 501 jeans ($84), a monthly fitness club fee ($37), and more.
The cost of living data on which The Earth Awaits You is drawn from Numbeo, a crowdsourced cost of living database updated in real time.
It is easy to lose yourself with The Earth Awaits You as you adjust budgets and preferences to see what you could afford. Whether you have an internet-based job you can do from anywhere in the world, you want to try living in a different city, or if you are considering a retirement property or second home, this data-rich global location search engine can give you a great start narrowing down your choices.