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Some of us can live wherever we want. All of us can dream.
Perhaps you want to try a new location to change your life. Maybe you just want to shake things up a bit. Many jobs give us the freedom to live anywhere in the world, especially jobs that require only an Internet connection.
If want to know where your ideal city may be, you could research cities around the world or use Teleport, a website to help you discover your best place to live.
Teleport is a search tool to find your best place to live and was created by developers who formerly worked at Skype. The site helps you search for places to live based on preferences that are most important to you.
Teleport may help you decide where to go, dream about where to move some day, or make you appreciate where you’re living now.
Using Teleport
To get started finding your best place to live, head to the Teleport website and create an account. On the left side you will see different preferences you can choose to help find the best city for you to live in.
The search for cities is based on you telling Teleport what’s important to you. The site lets you filter for over 20 preferences such as:
- Cost of living
- Job market
- Climate
- Language
- Pollution
- Safety
- Traffic
- Internet speed
No city will likely be a perfect match for you, but Teleport can show you which cities are the best fit based on the preferences that are most important to you.
Teleport covers over 150 places in this search tool. If a place isn’t listed you can vote to add it to Teleport.
Start with Personal Data to tell Teleport where you’re living now, what your job is, your monthly income and what your budget requirements are. You can choose from different currencies such as US dollar, British pound, euros, Singapore dollar, Chinese yuan, etc. You can decide whether you want to live in an area that is more or less expensive, or about the same cost as your current location.
Within each preference are choices for you to select. For example, under Traffic you can let Teleport know how much you hate traffic and how you prefer to travel: by car, public transit and/or or bike/walk.
The housing preferences are somewhat limited. You only have a choice of renting a one or three bedroom home. But the results will give you a general idea of relative housing costs in cities.
If a preference isn’t important to you, don’t select any of the choices within that preference and it won’t be a factor.
Results
Teleport uses the information you provide to create a bar graph showing you a list of your ideal cities. The bars have colors showing you how closely matched each preference is for that city.
If your results don’t seem show places you would like to live, you may want to refine your results by changing your preferences and by using the toolbar at the top of the page. For example, you can deselect any continents where you know you don’t want to live.
If you have chosen Living Costs as one of your preferences, you will see a column to the right of the bar graph showing how much more or less each city will cost you to live in, compared to where you live now. You can see the relative cost of living in each city in your chosen currency.
If cost of living is your most important factor, use the Best Budget tab at the top of the page to see cities ranked in order of how expensive they are.
Search
If you’re interested in living in a city that did not make the list based on your preferences, you can search for it on Teleport. Enter the name of the city and Teleport will show you information about living there and how often the city appears in search results.
Compare Cities
Use the Compare Cities tool to see two cities side-by-side and compare places to live. You can see which of the two cities will be a better fit for you.
Teleport will show you how both cities compare to your preferences and cost of living. You can also compare factors such as weather and the average salary for your profession. Under the Score Data section you can see how each city compares to where you live now.
Apps
Teleport is also available as a free app for:
Your Thoughts
Have you ever wondered where your ideal city is? Which preferences are most important to you? What do you think your ideal city is?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
* City photo (edited) courtesy of Stefan via Flickr and Creative Commons
Ha! Looks like Eastern Europe is the quality economical destination for me. I’ve often said over the past 15 years that you can live anywhere in the US and be connected just as though you were in any major business or governmental capital because of the internet, Fedex, quality phone service, etc. Go for it.
Hi Lee, Yes, we can dream about where we might want to live some day. With so many jobs allowing telecommuting, people can have more geographic flexibility than ever before. Why not pick up and move to a different location? Or maybe the grass isn’t always greener…
Interesting that you got Eastern Europe. I’m thinking people will get destinations all over the world based on our preferences. As long as there’s Internet, so you can read The Wonder of Tech, that’s all you need, right?
That was fun! I matched with Singapore and Dublin! Well I would not have imagined those two. I wrote to the authors of the app requesting more USA cities for future releases. When I look at the AARP “Best Places to Live” in the US I usually wind up in California. But of course I will end up where my children reside, so I can haunt them for life.
Hi Robin, We can be neighbors in Singapore! Teleport recommended Singapore highly for me too. I’ve never been there but I have many friends who have lived there. A British friend of me who has lived in many places as an ex-pat said Singapore was her favorite place to live.
Good point, our choice of where to live may depend more on where our family and friends are than which city fits our preferences best.
Carol, I have been thinking a out this of late and travelling to different places. Once the kids are on their own you wonder where would I want to be? Love it! Thanks for sharing, where did your place come out to be?
Hi Lisa, You’re right, empty nesters may want to pick up and go some place they’ve never considered before. But after looking at the results, people may decide that they appreciate where they live a little more.
I got Singapore, Toronto and Dallas. When I changed my preferences, Singapore was always at the top. I’ve heard it’s a great place to live, though I’ve never been there.
Where I’m living now is my favorite place I’ve ever lived so I’m not looking to move. But it’s still fun to dream!
Glad to know about this . This might be really interesting in finding our own way of living and our country. Thanks for making me know about this app Carolyn. I will try out this soon and share you my views regarding this
Hi Shashwat, Yes, even if you have no plans to move, it’s interesting to see which places around the world may be a good fit for you. They may be worth a visit to explore for fun!
Hi Carolyn, a nice post, I have been thinking to go of late and travelling to different place but the kind of job I do, it gives me least to take off. Btw its a good post and loved it, thanks for sharing.
Hi Mike, I’m glad you enjoyed this article. Yes, sometimes our job allows us to live wherever we want. With that kind of freedom, the world really is available to us. But how to choose? The choices can be overwhelming but Teleport can help guide us where our best place to live may be.
Hi Carolyn
What a wonderful technology. To be able to search for your dream place and search that is close to showing you is just awesome.
Thanks for sharing. Take care
Hi Ikechi, You’re right, what an exciting exercise to find out where your best place to live is. Even if you don’t move there, it’s fun to dream!
WOW!
Nice content. For me this content is very interesting because I want to travel to many unknown places in the world. Thanks for sharing about the places here.
Hi Remsun, I’m so glad you enjoyed this article. I hope you do get to travel to many places and that Teleport can guide you to the places that are ideal for you.