Best Cities for Digital Nomads

Each city is scored out of five on eight things: affordability, internet, safety, nomad community, English spoken, food and lifestyle, walkability and transit, and air quality. The overall order also weighs visa options and how many remote workers live there now, because a city with a big community is easier to settle into. Costs are monthly for one person living comfortably. Scores are our editorial judgement from the data and from time on the ground; they are not a substitute for reading a city’s full guide.

Asia’s best all-round base. Home fibre of 500 Mbps to 1 Gbps costs about $20 a month, the BTS and MRT trains make car-free life easy, and there is a coworking space or laptop cafe on almost every soi. Thailand’s five-year DTV made long stays simple in 2024. The downsides are heat, traffic and poor air from January to March. Full Bangkok nomad guide.

The city that made nomad life popular, and still the easiest place to start. Costs are lower than Bangkok, the old town is walkable, and the coworking and cafe scene is enormous for a city of its size. Avoid March and April, when farm burning in northern Thailand gives it some of the worst air in the world. Chiang Mai travel guide.

The busiest nomad social scene in Asia: surf in the morning, coworking by day, sunset parties in the evening. Coliving is everywhere and making friends is effortless. The trade-offs are scooter traffic, patchy home internet (most spaces add Starlink or backup lines) and rising prices. Indonesia’s E33G visa needs $60,000 a year, so many stay on the 60-day visit visa. Canggu travel guide.

Europe’s nomad capital, with sunshine, safety, English everywhere, and a time zone that overlaps with both European and US East Coast working days. Rents have more than doubled in a decade, so it is no longer cheap, but Portugal’s D8 visa is one of the most usable in the EU. Lisbon travel guide.

A huge, cultured city with some of the world’s best food, a big remote-worker community in Roma and Condesa, and US Central time. Mexico has no nomad visa, but visitor entry and temporary residence cover most people. Altitude, smog and earthquakes take some getting used to. Mexico City travel guide.

Spring weather all year at 1,500 metres, low costs, US Eastern time, and a big nomad scene in El Poblado and Laureles. Colombia’s nomad visa has one of the lowest income bars anywhere. Learn some Spanish and follow local safety advice, especially at night. Medellín travel guide.

The best-value modern city in Asia: excellent internet, condos with pools and gyms for a few hundred dollars, English widely spoken, and world-class street food. The DE Rantau pass is easy for tech workers. It is a city of malls and highways rather than strolling. Kuala Lumpur travel guide.

A long beach, mountains on the edge of town, very low costs and a calm pace. Vietnam’s 90-day e-visa is easy to get, but there is no nomad visa, so long stays mean visa runs. Avoid October and November, the typhoon and flood season. Da Nang travel guide.

Wine, mountains, a striking old town and, for many passports, a year visa-free. Costs are low and the food is excellent. Since March 2026 Georgia requires work permits for foreign workers, and whether this covers pure remote work for foreign clients is still unclear: check before you rely on it. Tbilisi travel guide.

A grand, walkable city of cafes, steak and late nights, on a time zone two hours ahead of New York. Prices in dollars have risen sharply since 2024, so it is no longer a bargain, but quality of life is high and the visa-free stay can be extended to 180 days. Buenos Aires travel guide.

• Barcelona, Spain. Beach, architecture and a huge international crowd. Watch for pickpockets.
• Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Fast, loud and delicious, with very low costs and good coworking in Districts 1, 2 and 3.
• Tokyo, Japan. The safest, most efficient megacity, now with a six-month nomad visa for high earners. Expensive, and long leases are hard for foreigners.
• Seoul, South Korea. Gigabit internet, 24-hour cafes and a newly permanent three-year workation visa.
• Madeira, Portugal. A green, mild Atlantic island with an organised nomad community around Ponta do Sol and Funchal.
• Budapest, Hungary. A grand, affordable capital with thermal baths, fast fibre and the White Card visa.
• Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Caribbean beaches and US Eastern time, with an easy expat setup.
• Cape Town, South Africa. Mountains, ocean and wine country on a European time zone. Safety routines are essential.
• Taipei, Taiwan. Calm, friendly and efficient, with superb food and a nomad visitor visa of up to two years.
• Istanbul, Turkey. Endless neighbourhoods and a new nomad visa; high inflation makes prices hard to predict.

Beyond the top 20, the region guides rank the twelve best bases in each continent, from Southeast Asia to Africa and Oceania.

• First-time nomads: Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Lisbon, Canggu. Big communities, easy setup, simple visas.
• Tight budgets (under $1,500 a month): Chiang Mai, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, Tbilisi, Kuala Lumpur.
• US working hours: Mexico City, Medellín, Playa del Carmen, Buenos Aires.
• European working hours: Lisbon, Madeira, Barcelona, Budapest, Cape Town, Istanbul, Tbilisi.
• Beach and surf: Canggu, Da Nang, Playa del Carmen, Madeira, Cape Town.
• Big-city energy: Bangkok, Mexico City, Tokyo, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Istanbul.
• Safety first: Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Madeira, Chiang Mai.
• Fastest internet: Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Lisbon, Budapest.
• Long legal stays: Bangkok and Chiang Mai (DTV), Tbilisi (visa-free year), Lisbon (D8), Seoul (F-1-D).

Time zones decide more nomad moves than weather. If your team or clients are in the US, Asia means working nights: 9am in New York is 8pm or 9pm in Bangkok. Most US-based nomads settle in Latin America, where the overlap is complete, or in Lisbon and Madeira, where afternoons overlap with the US East Coast. Europe-based workers can work normal hours anywhere from Cape Town and Lisbon east to Tbilisi and Istanbul, and Southeast Asia gives them a long quiet morning before Europe wakes up. Australians and New Zealanders have the easiest time in Asia.

• Nomads.com: crowd-sourced scores for hundreds of cities, filterable by cost, weather and internet.
• Numbeo cost of living: compare rents and everyday prices between any two cities.
• Speedtest Global Index: monthly fixed and mobile internet speeds by country.
• IQAir world air quality: check a city’s air before you book, especially in Asia’s smoke and haze season.
• Wikivoyage: free, detailed city guides with neighbourhood breakdowns.