Geomax I compared Quality Of Life to Cost Of Living to find the best value for money in SEA

[Marco Pumpo]

lads, brace yourselves for another nerdy geomaxxing statistics analysis

i compared the QOL to COL to find out which cities in SEA offer the best value for money if you are not depending on earning your money locally (i only checked places that are warm in winter). QOL is from the economist IEU liveability ranking, all other rankings are shit because they factor in what the locals earn which isn't relevant for a nomad's quality of life. and obviously this doesn't factor in "women" so we have to leave that topic aside here. COL index is by numbeo.

first of all let's take a look at the world's top 10 quality of life as a benchmark:



also here some western cities' COL index as benchmark:
london 82, berlin 65, vienna 66, malaga 44, poznan 41

now let's take a look at the QOL rank vs COL index for cities in SEA:

city, QOL rank, COL index:
hong kong: 61, 70
taipei: 66, 47
kaohsiung: 72, 42
kuala lumpur: 94, 33
bangkok 98, 40
hanoi: 129, 29
manila: 136, 36
jakarta: 139, 29

conclusions:
- if you want the highest QOL for fair COL (and don't care about women), stay out of SEA and move to vienna.
- hong kong is geominning: much lower QOL at higher COL than western cities like vienna.
- taiwan is a much better deal than hong kong, offering almost the same QOL. but still the COL in taipei is around cities like malaga, spain. so not really cheap. kaohsiung is a bit cheaper but still on the cost level of poland.
- looking at SEA cities that are significantly cheaper than central europe, KL is by far the best deal. better QOL and lower COL than bangkok (bangkok COL already arrived at polish levels!). manila is also more expensive than KL and has much lower QOL. hanoi and jakarta have low QOL like manila, but at least they are the cheapest capitals.

thoughts? @AlexBrown84 @predeterminism @14passport @JustGo @BiggChungus

 

[predeterminism]

 

[predeterminism]

problem with QOL index is it counts a bunch of pointless shit that we dont care about and doesn't include things we do care about. QOL for us would be decent amenities, easy dating, beaches and warm weather, less pollution etc...

 

[Marco Pumpo]

@predeterminism thanks, great visualization!

i agree with the flaws of QOL. some of it is taken into account though. i.e. pollution is in there and i kicked out the cold places already.

beaches are missing obviously and usually aren't great anyway around the capitals. kaohsiung has an advantage here as a non-capital and would probably have to be compared to other second tier beach cities like da nang or davao but i didn't find the QOL scores for those (full economist ranking costs 900$ to unlock).

and yea easy dating is a different topic. by comparing QOL vs COL i just wanted to create an overview of which places have a fair cost (by mainstream standards).

 

[Napoleon de Geso]

Problem is that females low quality everywhere, maybe with exception of extremely rare ones

 

[14passport]

i think it's a good start but nothing can replace going there a few weeks and trying to live there

KL is the most amazing place on paper, but muslim culture makes it lose lots of rankings vs cities like Bangkok that have 10 times more expats

Kaohsiung might be too boring and low english for most

having said that, everyone has different needs, i dont care about the beach more than a few days per year, which i can get through a vacation but for example predeterminism wants to be close it
i know ppl that are the most happy in ph, others hate it, many dont even want to step a foot into Asia because they dont like the girls or culture

i may value budget a lot more than others, because my remote job doesnt pay as much but if you are making good money, other places can offer you higher quality of life than SEA

do you care about fucking girls every night or do you want a longterm relationship? in that case number of matches doesnt matter that much vs the quality of the matches

personally my plan has always been to do heavy research, know what i want, narrow it down to 5-10 cities and test them all

 

[AlexBrown84]

i wonder where a place like da nang would fall at

and i’d say kuala lumpur is a paper tiger. doesn’t factor in variables such as having a large indian population for the region

but the green space there is good

 

[Marco Pumpo]

i wonder where a place like da nang would fall at

i wonder too, couldn't find it. probably not even included in their ranking.

and i’d say kuala lumpur is a paper tiger. doesn’t factor in variables such as having a large indian population for the region

but the green space there is good

"Kuala Lumpur Demographics Malay/Bumiputera: 45.9% Chinese: 43.2% Indians: 10.3% Other: 1.6%"

wow, as many chinese as malay, didn't know that.

some digital nomads who went to da nang said it was a paper tiger, too: noisy traffic, shouting vendors, unfriendly locals, full of russians, mouldy accomodation everywhere. but i can't judge myself, haven't been yet.

 

[JustGo]

i wonder too, couldn't find it. probably not even included in their ranking.


"Kuala Lumpur Demographics Malay/Bumiputera: 45.9% Chinese: 43.2% Indians: 10.3% Other: 1.6%"

wow, as many chinese as malay, didn't know that.

some digital nomads who went to da nang said it was a paper tiger, too: noisy traffic, shouting vendors, unfriendly locals, full of russians, mouldy accomodation everywhere. but i can't judge myself, haven't been yet.

Philippines housekeeping is also inferior. Malaysian rooms are usually clean, but the cheaper rooms (under $20/night) are windowless bugboxes. Particularly in Kuala Lumpur, with its solid blocks of buildings. Best option for KL is to find a room you like and rent it monthly. You'll save the tourist tax and then some; bargain hard if you like, as hotel competition is fierce.

Chinese are present in much of Malaysia. Even small jungle cities like Temerloh have a Chinese area. They are insular and not friendly to outsiders or Malays; often their restaurants will have a menu in Chinese only. Toward the end of my time there I got tired of Malay cooking and grew to love the Chinese food. As usual, the best Chinese food is served at the social restaurants with tables for six or eight, entrees for 2-4 people. Tough to enjoy as a solo diner.

i wonder where a place like da nang would fall at

and i’d say kuala lumpur is a paper tiger. doesn’t factor in variables such as having a large indian population for the region

but the green space there is good

Malaysian Indians are Tamils, often dark as African negroes. They won't bother you unless you're a pretty young thing alone on the street, JFL. I'd rather eat Indian food in KL than in India, less chance of poo contamination. Different restaurants have different Indian regional specialties. They are very welcoming toward white customers.

Although Bangkok has a higher average COL than Kuala Lumpur, you can find better prices in Bangkok if you stay the hell away from Sukhumvit and take the time to seek out a corner of the city which suits your fancy. Both cities are overrun with foreigners, in any case.

 

[kamster]

i wonder too, couldn't find it. probably not even included in their ranking.


"Kuala Lumpur Demographics Malay/Bumiputera: 45.9% Chinese: 43.2% Indians: 10.3% Other: 1.6%"

wow, as many chinese as malay, didn't know that.

some digital nomads who went to da nang said it was a paper tiger, too: noisy traffic, shouting vendors, unfriendly locals, full of russians, mouldy accomodation everywhere. but i can't judge myself, haven't been yet.

was in da nang, its very accurate description

 

[POLY/Black only]

i wonder too, couldn't find it. probably not even included in their ranking.


"Kuala Lumpur Demographics Malay/Bumiputera: 45.9% Chinese: 43.2% Indians: 10.3% Other: 1.6%"

wow, as many chinese as malay, didn't know that.

some digital nomads who went to da nang said it was a paper tiger, too: noisy traffic, shouting vendors, unfriendly locals, full of russians, mouldy accomodation everywhere. but i can't judge myself, haven't been yet.

Can you do one for Eastern European/Slavic countries that aren't on the euro currency.