Hi there,
I live here in Argentina (for now).
It has a lot of good things: the capital city is beautiful, the weather is quite good, no earthquakes or tsunamis.... and yes, the time-zone factor.
But we do have a quite unstable economy. Right now is a good moment to come here and live with foreign currency (it was quite expensive a few years ago). And we have elections in the months ahead (and it's not looking good...)

Feel free to ask me anything.
Cheers!

Im living in Malaysia but not trading but have a job.

Kuala Lumpur is a great city with great internet speeds. You can find apartments for USD400 per month and the food is dirt cheap and good. Health insurance costs US2-300 per year for 1 person i pay US1000 for a family and all the doctors are educated in the US, Canada or the UK. Great place to live. People mention Thailand but thats gone expensive with the strong Bhat and with all the digital nomads that have moved there. Plus every Thai sees you as someone they will rip you off from Farang prices to cab drivers and landlords. Pretty much anyone sees you as fair game. Plus its busy as hell and when its burning season say goodbye to your lungs and clean air.

Ged

I think you will find that places like Florida (and Texas) are cheap compared to Western Europe (and NY, the Northeast and California) and are still highly developed western countries and have extremely favorable tax environments.
The two big problems with the US are
a) Visa
b) Medical Insurance/Coverage

Personally I felt trading the European session from Tokyo gave me the most daylight, meaningful things to do during the day, and quality of life. U.S. east coast is OK but you get cooped up at your desk through most part of the daylight and the quality of life is pretty bad in most parts of the U.S.

Hong Kong and Singapore have the same time zone advantage as Tokyo, great tax rates, food and quality of life, but housing is expensive there. They would be in my 2nd favorite tier.

For a good deal, if most of your income is in EUR or USD, then Riga and Lisbon all have decent infrastructure and quality of life. Krakow can be even cheaper but the air pollution is like Beijing. Zurich, Moscow and St Petersburg are similar if not slightly better in things to do except more expensive. These are all probably in my 3rd tier.

I'd also consider Amsterdam and Shanghai.

Interesting.

Are you a local resident or a foreigner living there?

What would an approximate budget be for a month of living expenses?

Thanks.

Zurich

I think you will find that places like Florida (and Texas) are cheap compared to Western Europe (and NY, the Northeast and California) and are still highly developed western countries and have extremely favorable tax environments.
The two big problems with the US are
a) Visa
b) Medical Insurance/Coverage

Thanks for the heads up. Any specific places to look for in those states?

I will probably stay on a 3 month tourist visum regardless of where I go. Should I want to stay longer - I suppose I can just travel out of the country and back in.

I am in a long term relationship now, so that's blocking my plans a bit.

Maybe it's because I never been there, but Tokyo strikes me as a place I'd love to visit, but less certain if I'd like to stay there long term? Also - isn't it quite expensive?

With time zone - doesn't US session mean trading during the night?

Lately, I'm also hearing good things about Budapest.

I have no experience with the other cities you mentioned but Zurich is gorgeous but expensive!

Ahhh yes it probably is! For what it's worth I ended up in Houston (from London) because of a long term (long distance) relationship!

I consider the Tokyo Midtown complex to be the best place to live in the city. Monthly rent for a 1 BR in that complex is about 5.3k EUR.

By comparison, I consider One57, Columbus Circle and Hudson Yards to be the best spots in NYC depending on where you spend most of your time, but these three are about 6.8-9.8k EUR for about the same floor area.

Assuming linearity, I'd say the cost of living in Tokyo is about 63% of NYC.

You can have 2x better food in Tokyo daily for 1/4 the budget in NYC.

What would be your language of choice in Budapest? Among all of the European countries I've been to, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and (a little better) Estonia were the most difficult to integrate into as an English speaker, in improving order.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the percentage of population who can speak a 2nd language. Portugal and Lithuania have a low penetration of English speakers but the locals there are incredibly welcoming to outsiders.

Agreed.