[Andy_B]

OK, so, the situation is, I've been living in the same smallish city my whole life, and I'm ready to move somewhere different now.

There's a whole bunch of reasons I'm considering doing this, but basically, I'm the perfect candidate for it. I freelance online, rent is overpriced in my city, I have a bad reputation locally, there's no talent where I live, etc etc.

Basically bouncing to a new location is almost mandatory for me at this point in my life. That might sound overly dramatic, but ask any of my friends and they'll know what I mean. I did some stupid shit a few years ago and now it's next to impossible for me to get a GF in this town. I don't want to get into details here because it could out my real life identity, but trust me it's embarrassing stuff.

Problem is, I live in fucking Newfoundland and it's too expensive to leave here for a trip just to apartment hunt for a while. Any major city is at LEAST a $500 flight away, and I'd have to find somewhere to stay while apartment hunting. So I need to somehow rig it so that I can get the flight up to my new location (thinking Montreal), and be in a place within a month or so.

Anybody here ever been in a situation like this before?

What do you recommend? Trying to find an apartment beforehand? Hostelling or couchsurfing until you find a place? Any other options I may not have considered?

[babelfish669]

You might be able to get a free flight with a job interview.

I always visit a city multiple times before signing a long term lease. Short term, doesn't matter. In the mid to upper price ranges, so far for me, short term leases are generally ok without needing to see the place in person so I'll do it ahead of time.

[Andy_B]

(07-18-2012 12:27 AM)babelfish669 Wrote:  

You might be able to get a free flight with a job interview.

I freelance and want to keep it that way. And I'm not finding an English speaking ad-writing job in MTL anyway, it's just a city with cheap rent and decent talent.

[malc]

If you freelance online, I'd just go somewhere like the philippines, south east asia, eastern europe or maybe south america. The women are a lot better, and you'll be laughing to the bank on how much money your saving. A room in a hostel ranges from $10-30 a night, which is a $300-900 per month rent. You can stay in there until you find an apartment. I'd go somewhere tropical to get a break from the Canadian weather.

You can also stop paying income tax to canada when you move away. You can stop paying income taxes in general by setting up your income through an HK corporation or similar and just hop around with tourist visas around the world. Don't worry about the cost of healthcare in those countries, it's cheap enough that you'll be saving a lot of money when you avoid income tax.

When do move away, do plan to be away for at least 2 income tax years, or Canada won't consider you to have really moved away if you come back before then and you'll be liable for income tax. If you have financial assets (stocks, bonds, houses, etc), Canada will pretend you've liquidated all of them and give you a tax bill for the capital gains, so arrange that properly before you move out. If you just have personal property (laptop, etc) they don't tax you on that when you move out.

Have fun man, I'm kind of jealous.

If you don't want to move far from home, and your not moving to somewhere where you have friends & family, what you usually do is go online and try to arrange a whole bunch of viewings and then live in a cheap hostel with all your junk as you go on an apartment finding blitz. You'll be kind of desperate and won't find something ideal, so go for the first decent month-to-month room in a house/roommates situation that will give you breathing room to find something better. Then move into something better.

[Andy_B]

(07-18-2012 12:32 AM)malc Wrote:  

If you freelance online, I'd just go somewhere like the philippines, south east asia, eastern europe or maybe south america. The women are a lot better, and you'll be laughing to the bank on how much money your saving. A room in a hostel ranges from $10-30 a night, which is a $300-900 per month rent. You can stay in there until you find an apartment. I'd go somewhere tropical to get a break from the Canadian weather.

You can also stop paying income tax to canada when you move away. You can stop paying income taxes in general by setting up your income through an HK corporation or similar and just hop around with tourist visas around the world. Don't worry about the cost of healthcare in those countries, it's cheap enough that you'll be saving a lot of money when you avoid income tax.

When do move away, do plan to be away for at least 2 income tax years, or Canada won't consider you to have really moved away if you come back before then and you'll be liable for income tax. If you have financial assets (stocks, bonds, houses, etc), Canada will pretend you've liquidated all of them and give you a tax bill for the capital gains, so arrange that properly before you move out. If you just have personal property (laptop, etc) they don't tax you on that when you move out.

Have fun man, I'm kind of jealous.

If you don't want to move far from home, and your not moving to somewhere where you have friends & family, what you usually do is go online and try to arrange a whole bunch of viewings and then live in a cheap hostel with all your junk as you go on an apartment finding blitz. You'll be kind of desperate and won't find something ideal, so go for the first decent month-to-month room in a house/roommates situation that will give you breathing room to find something better. Then move into something better.

Yeah, the global travel thing might be on the plate in the next 3 years, but not in the next year....

[Saladin]

Airbnb for the first week while you find a place to travel at. Or stay at a hostel. You'd only spend 140 dollars for 7 days on accommodation.

[Tigre]

Maybe get a room mate situation, just for a month to begin with.

It should work out cheaper than paying a hostel by the day.

Check Craigslist, airbnb, local Couchsurfing group, hostel notice boards, classified ads.

[Roosh]

For Croatia I'm finding a couple sites to be useful:

http://www.housetrip.com
http://www.roomorama.com

In addition to my regular google search (city + apartment + short term) and also Air bnb. There's a lot of resources now.

[Rurik]

(07-19-2012 07:58 AM)Roosh Wrote:  

For Croatia I'm finding a couple sites to be useful:

http://www.housetrip.com
http://www.roomorama.com

In addition to my regular google search (city + apartment + short term) and also Air bnb. There's a lot of resources now.

I just did a search with roomorama it looks promising.

[babelfish669]

(07-18-2012 12:31 AM)Andy_B Wrote:  

(07-18-2012 12:27 AM)babelfish669 Wrote:  

You might be able to get a free flight with a job interview.

I freelance and want to keep it that way. And I'm not finding an English speaking ad-writing job in MTL anyway, it's just a city with cheap rent and decent talent.

Job interview does not equal taking the job.