Where to live
and why I’m taking
years to decide
In 2022, I sold my almost perfect* home in Estonia and finally had no excuse to postpone long-term travel any longer. So I bought a 1 way ticket to Bali and the rest is history - I’m on year 4 of long-term travel now.
At first, it was just travel, without an end date. I flew to an interesting country and stayed as long as I liked or until the visa expired. Then picked the next destination. It wasn’t a vacation, as I was working on my app Superday on most days. It was living in a new country every 1-3 months.
However, when I got tired of working, I would go on adventures - best times of my life and amazing memories! Something that’s almost impossible to have back in the country I was born in (Estonia), because it’s a small flat country and every corner is already familiar to me.
Even being in a routine in a foreign country had its interesting parts, because walking around to go get food or go to a cafe or co-working to work almost always felt new and a bit exciting.
So my first year traveling, 2023, taught me a lot. And the second year, 2024, was absolutely amazing - the best year of my life so far!
But in 2025, something changed. After being abroad for 8 months in 2024, I decided to spend the summer back in Estonia. I found an almost perfect* apartment again, but when I was not working, I felt unbearably bored.
*By almost perfect, I mean that the apartments were perfect, but the location (country) was wrong.
Everywhere I went, I had already been. Every corner felt the same. There was no newness, no excitement. But my brain was used to both. That had been my way of escaping work and recharging.
Being in Estonia suddenly felt like going backwards in life. 2 years abroad was long enough to have changed my identity. I was not who I was when I started traveling and I could not go back to being my old self. So I realized I needed to find a new home country.
So for the past year, I’ve been actively thinking were I want to live,
not just where to travel next. This has made traveling different
- heavy at times - as I keep asking myself in great detail
what do I want my day to day life to look like and what is most important to me.
At first I thought I might just want to live in a big city near mountains and/or ocean like Da Nang - to have the comforts of city and the soothing and adventures of nature. But the more I thought about actually living in 1 place long-term, the more I realized it’s important that many people speak English - for me to be able to fit in. Visiting Hong Kong made this very clear. I would also like to have more people around me who are like-minded and live a similar lifestyle, so it should probably be a modern city in a developed country. And recently I’ve been reevaluating my weather preferences, thinking maybe Asia is too hot to live in all year round.
I’m currently in Taipei, Taiwan, with a 90 day tourist visa. I have 6 weeks left to decide if I want to try to stay here another 90 days on another tourist visa or try to live somewhere else. I’ve found a very nice apartment in the centre that’s modern and comfortable enough to feel like home. This is very important to me and the basis of a productive good life - to be able to feel safe and comfortable to rest and work well. I’ve also found a nearby riverside park for running and a climbing gym I like. So after 1 month, I have my routine setup and the last weeks have been productive which makes me happy and calm.
But I’m considering trying to live in Seoul, South-Korea next. I’ve only been to South-Korea once before for a shy 1.5 weeks in Busan. As I’m looking for a modern city with nature nearby to settle down, Seoul could be a good candidate.
I’m also thinking about a 1 week trip to Singapore. I never went out from the airport in Singapore, so I’m curious to see the modern and clean city. However, I think the lack of nature and high cost of living will probably rule it out as a home base for now, but I keep an open mind.
And I’m also imagining living in a modern semi-detached house with a garage for a home gym to settle down for 9-12 months. The goal would be to put myself in an environment that reinforces me to focus on my body and business and intentionally be bored instead of moving around every 3-6 months. Not sure where yet - maybe somewhere in Europe. Or maybe even go back to Estonia for 9 months, if I can’t find a better option.
Traveling long-term has forced me to think where to live and this has made me more aware of what I really value in life and which places support that life the most. Where I live has the biggest impact on my life - the weather, the nature, the air, the water, the food, the people, the safety, the comfort, the lifestyle and the list goes on... It can support my health and growth or make me sick feeling empty and stuck. So it’s important to think long and hard and try out different countries.
I have so much more to write about this topic, so I’ll probably continue in another post. My thoughts change and evolve, so I might change my mind about some of what I just wrote. And there's also a difference what's optimal for me for the next 1-2 years and what's optimal after that.
How much time have you spent thinking about where to live? Do you think it's enough?
