Use these tools and techniques to select your next travel destination.
As nomadic travelers (and online workers), we understand that choosing your next destination can be exciting and overwhelming. Sometimes you already know where to go next, but often you are paralyzed by the sheer choice in front of you. Relateable!
Yes, there are approximately 4,116 cities in the world (with over 100,000 population). That’s a lot of choice!
Where to Go Next?
With the opportunity to go anywhere – and for us, the freedom to work from anywhere – in the world, the possibilities are endless. However, it’s essential to approach this decision with careful consideration.
In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the tips and strategies we use to choose our next destination so that you can make the most out of your travel experience.
Important Factors to Consider:
There are probably more, but these tend to be the most important.
Personally, I’d add in how good the food is 🙂 But you’ll also likely have other items of importance to you.
I’m betting you could rattle off a long list of potential places.
When we first set out on our roamad journey, we listed many cities and countries we’d want to consider. Some were brand new, some were revisits.
This was my initial list:
Vienna
Melbourne
Montenegro (Kotor)
Copenhagen
Amsterdam
Budapest
Algarve
Albania
Valencia
Seville
Antalya Turkey
Chiang Mai
Madrid
Madeira
Oaxaca
Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia
Croatia
Italy
Yep, it’s a mish-mash of cities and countries.
Interestingly, as I look at our plans this year, we worked in several of these from that initial brainstorm.
Madrid. Oaxaca. Algarve (Portugal’s sunny south). Amsterdam. We even visited briefly (scouting) Valencia and Seville. We’ll see Melbourne later this year.
Others we are planning to get to, either next year or at some point thereafter.
Start the Destinations Research
I suggest a couple of extremely useful websites to help you start brainstorming, researching and narrowing down your choices.
The first is:
Nomadlist
https://www.nomadlist.com
Nomadlist has taken more than 300 locations, rated them on a wide variety of qualities, and ranked them in an index.
It gets pretty detailed when you click into a city profile:
Weather. Safety. Fun. Quality of Life. Internet. Air Quality. Walkability. Public Transport. Happiness. English Speaking. And this just scratches the surface.
You’ll also find frequent real-time chats between people who are there now or who will be visiting soon.
This can be a great way to connect with others.
I question some of the places that end up at the top of the list, having been to many, but sometimes it’s just personal opinion on what is important to you.
Numbeo
Next, I suggest you head on over to Numbeo.
https://www.numbeo.com
Consider cross-referencing what you find on each site to both confirm and dig deeper.
In my video, I will show you how I use both websites to understand what to expect on the ground.
It may not eliminate all surprises, but it helps you go in with your eyes wide open.
Numbeo is relatively accurate, though not perfect. When I’m somewhere in real time, the pricing to me is different. My assessment of the quality of life might also differ.
However, it’s never dramatic. And it certainly will give you a range of expectations.
Numbeo focuses on criteria that might be more important to a permanent residence than just passing through. However, there’s still an incredible amount of insight to be gained from their indices:
What’s really cool? You can make comparisons to your home city.
I frequently will do that with Austin, TX, our home city. This immediately gives me a great idea of what costs might be like in comparison.
Their Calculator for the Cost of Living will give you an even more personalized number. You can even calculate based on how you live. For example, maybe you go out to eat 75% of the time. Maybe 10%. This makes a big difference.
There are many places to learn about what life might be like on the ground. Most tend to be subjective.
What I like about both Nomadlist and Numbeo are the numbers and comparisons. Sure, plenty is subjective, it’s all self-reported and not perfect, but you’ll be well-informed when you decide.
Summary: Where to Go Next?
Where to go next? You don’t have to be a digital nomad to take advantage of the tips and strategies we employ as digital nomads. There are many considerations, such as cost of accommodations, getting around, and safety. Our suggestions can help anyone choose a destination and make the most out of their travel experience.
