How To Decide Where To Live: 5 Important Factors to Consider!

Not sure where you want to live? If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you? By the end of this video you’re going to know the top 5 factors you need to consider when making this decision! 

If you’re interested in learning more about Lifestyle Design, Location Independence and having the ability to live, work and travel pretty anywhere in the world, subscribe to my channel and hit the notification button below because that’s what I make videos about each week.

Testimonial: 

So if you’re new to my channel, my names is James Westin and I’ve moved around quite a bit in my life trying to answer this question for myself. Where is the best place for me to live? After living in over 15 cities and visiting a lot more, you could say I have a unique perspective on this. 

So let’s jump right into it…

It’s pretty cool that in the world today, we can pretty much live anywhere we want. 

Now I know that’s not realistic for everybody and I know that a lot of people have obligations and things in their life that just don’t allow them to just pick up and move anywhere they want tomorrow. So It may not be this week, but Im telling you that if you decide where you want to live, really design the lifestyle you want to live on a daily basis, imagine it, get really clear what it will feel like, and get passionate about it – you can really make it happen. 

So to me, the real the question is: What environment is going to help you grow the most in your life right now?

I think of choosing where you live like choosing your spot in the right garden. 

If you were a cactus, you’d want to be in a desert, if you’re a palm tree, on the beach. 

The idea is that the right place to live is the environment that allows you to thrive the most because what’s around you helps you do that. 

So for me, factor number 1 is Optimal Weather

Im not just looking for a place that has “nice weather”.  I realized that weather can be something that enhances my productivity, my mood, my daily plans, my work, my happiness.

Or it can be something that takes away, hinders, gets in the way of my productivity, plans, and progress. 

For instance, I lived in New York and although New York has some beautiful seasons, one of them is winter and it usually get pretty snowy. The problem for me is that when it snows, it’s dangerous to drive. When it snows, you need to spend time dressing up in layers, shoveling the sidewalk, cleaning off the car, putting down salt. Sometimes businesses stores are closed, things get off schedule, and sometimes there’s so much snow that no one can go out and you’re stuck at home. 

So to me, living in an environment that has a high chance of snow for 3-4 months a year is not my first choice for a home base. It’s going to slow me down and get in my way. I like to visit those places, I like to go back to NY and see my family and I like to go skiing in the snow.. But I don’t want to live and work in those places for any extended period of time. 

On the flip side – take somewhere like Miami, I lived in Miami for a while and Miami is awesome – it kind of has seasons – but really its just this tropical climate that fluctuates between 70-85 degrees with a lot of sun and quite a bit of humidity and rain. During the summer I love Miami Beach, but where I lived in Brickell it was pretty hot and humid and I was sweating just walking around outside and to meetings. I love Brickell but the summer weather is not optimal for me. 

So I found a happy medium in terms of weather here in Medellin, Colombia. I’ve had a home base here for about a year now. Medellin is considered the City of Eternal Spring and I love it because the weather is almost always is in sync with what I want to be doing while Im here. Meeting a friend for lunch? It’s a comfortable walk in a t-shirt. Besides a few hours of rain here and there, most of the days here are sunny, between 65-75 degrees and with lower humidity than Miami. 

So when it comes to whether you have to think about what is the type of weather that you want to wake up in most of the time? Okay, so is it a sunny environment? Is it a rainy environment? What is it that you enjoy and then that’s going to help you narrow down where on the map you’re going to beat where you’re going to be looking. Okay.

The Second Factor. This is another somewhat obvious one, but it’s Safety. And I’m sure that’s something that pops in your head when I said to you that I live in Medellin, Colombia. 

As you probably thought that might not be safe Medellin definitely has a history of quite a bit of violence and there was the drug cartels and all these things that used to rule this city. and things have changed quite a bit in the last 15 years to where I can say to you after living here for a little bit over a year. This place is a lot safer than a lot of places in the world even in the United States. 

So those specific area that I live in is happens to be one of the safest areas in all of Columbia, especially in Medellin. So that’s why I choose to live here. But I would say is see which places you know, there are safe places in dangerous places in every city. You need to be able to decide what city do you want to live in and then can you afford to pay to live in a safe place for every day you’re going to feel safe.  

So that leads me to point number 3, which is the cost of living. So this is me that I think a lot of people make more complicated than it really is the cost of living in a city is simply how much is a one-bedroom. Okay, that’s it. You remove yourself this example, I would use how much is a one-bedroom apartment. in the city right How (01:56) much is the rent for that how much are the electric electricity in the water and all that? What is going to is it going to cost you just for their normal fix living expenses then? How much does it cost to eat food there guy how much are groceries going to be each week? How much is it going to cost for you to have certain deliveries have certain things come into your house how much are massages there? (02:18) How much are the different things how much does stuff cost in the city and that’s going to allow you? Today so you get a better idea. Of what it would cost if you were to actually move there if you were to live there. What is the first month second my third month going to look like

Today’s activities such fun would include Lake nightlife restaurants places to go adventures outdoor stuff dating. Latin food restaurants in concert shows (00:23) things to do when people come visit tourist attractions shopping Is there good shopping for clothes and all that?

Today’s activities such fun would include Lake nightlife restaurants places to go adventures outdoor stuff dating. Latin food restaurants in concert shows (00:23) things to do when people come visit tourist attractions shopping Is there good shopping for clothes and all that?

Imagine that you could literally live anywhere in the WORLD. 

I mean it, where would you wake up tomorrow if you could be anywhere?

On the beach somewhere? In the mountains? In a big city? 

Or if you’re like me, maybe sometimes you want to live on the beach, sometimes in the mountains, sometimes in a big city. 

Of course it depends on your career, your job or business, and current obligations. 

But in this video let’s talk about you  home base, the place where you will spend the most of your time each year. 

Try to be open to the possibility that we live in a world today where 

Once you’ve chosen the best place for your home base, then you can start traveling more and maybe adding more home bases. 

How do you pick a place where you’re going to have the most opportunity to grow and experience life?

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