When I'm deciding whether I could live somewhere for a month, I ask myself one question.
Could I do a normal Tuesday here?
Not a great Tuesday. A normal one. Work, groceries, gym.
WITH KEVIN IN PETONE, NEW ZEALAND, 2023.
A good trip and a livable month are different things
Some places I've loved visiting are places I couldn't work from. How a place photographs tells me almost nothing about how a workday goes there.
Lagos, Nigeria, is my clearest example.
Kevin and I spent a month from January to February 2024 there. The food was some of my favorite in West Africa.
My total spending that February was $1,463. It was one of my most affordable months in all my years of tracking.
The WiFi was excellent, and it ran on a battery backup, so it kept working when the power went out.
Which it did. Often. City electricity usually only ran four to six hours a day.
The building we lived in had a generator, but it was a small one that had to be started by hand, with a switch in our kitchen to change over.
Sometimes it was out of fuel. Sometimes the person who ran it slept through the outage.
So I had stretches with fast internet, a dying laptop, and a headlamp on. (More absurd than dramatic.)
LAGOS, FEBRUARY 2024. FAST WIFI, NO POWER.
I'd go back to Nigeria as a tourist. For working, I rated Lagos a 2 out of 10.
A city I love can still fail the test
Edinburgh during the Fringe, 2022. I love that city.
A festival month is expensive, though. I paid $2,800 for a month of accommodation with Wifi Tribe.
It ended up being one of the most expensive months I've tracked.
It was also packed with things to do, and because I was paying so much to be there, I felt like I needed to take full advantage of it.
I'd happily do a weekend during the Fringe. A whole month, no.
Edinburgh is still a city I'd recommend. It was the festival month that failed the Tuesday.
Where it passes
Bansko passes every summer, which is most of why this year was my fifth one there. And why I'm going back again in 2027. (Do you want to join me?)
The coffee shop owner even knows my order, year after year.
Bangkok passes too, and it isn't even walkable. I ate out for almost every meal and still spent less than I normally do.
It's part of the reason we go back every year. (Less than a week until we fly there for 2026!)
Wellington passed in early 2023, even though my US work calls meant a 3:30 AM start at least once a week. We stayed in Petone, just outside the city, and it was pretty great.
What goes into my Tuesday
Work. Where I'd sit, whether the power and internet hold up, and what time my calls land. I book places with room for Kevin and me to both work.
Groceries. A good grocery store close to where we're staying.
Gym. It depends on the place. With good hiking nearby, we don't need one. In a city, a good gym where we're staying is ideal. It's much more motivating than bodyweight stuff at home, in my opinion.
Your three words are probably different from mine.
Mine also take about two weeks to fully answer. Day one is unpacking and testing the WiFi. Day two is groceries and finding the laundry.
Somewhere around the end of the second week I stop needing Google Maps, and that's when a place starts having normal Tuesdays at all.
That's why I love going back to places sometimes instead of always exploring new ones.
A month somewhere is mostly weekdays.
RUN THE TEST
Weighing a place for a month or more? Hit reply and tell me where.
If I've spent time there, I'll tell you how my Tuesdays went. If I haven't, I'll tell you what I'd check first!
— Caroline
P.S. If you're choosing a first country to work from, I made a video on the seven things I'd weigh. Bansko and Bangkok both made my starter list.
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ON THE GROUND
📍 48.3478° N, 69.4059° W — our pick for whale watching this week.
🐳 Current vibe: Last week in Québec
🌍 Countries visited: 130 / 193
🗺️ The rest of my pins: the Vetted Places Map, 1,222 places in 107 countries
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