How do you manage yourself in a new city or country?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1772675

by BANSAL • 16 years ago

2 5 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

If you visit a new city or country, how do you manage to get familiar about that new city or country. List the ways you prefer to get familiar with that place prior to leave, including google ;)

ashedryden• 16 years ago

Are you talking travel or moving?

Moving: I find I do a lot of research online first. I look at the areas of the city that tend to be younger and vegan friendly. I try to find tech meetups/groups as a way to meet new people, get friends, and make business contacts. I explore a lot. Try new restaurants and businesses regularly, go out of my way to meet new people.

BANSAL3• 16 years ago

Actually I am talking in both of the case. In case of travel we generally take help of google or any of our friends, relative familiar with that place. But the process is really time consuming. I am seeking for a one place solution which can provide nice and relevant information regarding that place. As you replied in case of moving, when we have some narrow timeliness for our work then above solution is like a fail. but practically most of us like to go with this way only.

BANSAL3• 16 years ago

take a look at the tweet, I simply pointing to this problem

http://twitter.com/#!/touchaddict/statuses/26825319426

ritonlajoie• 16 years ago

When I went to canada for 6 months, I started lurking on couchsurfing.com even if I didn't need. Just to meet people. I met one good friend here, and I met her many times over here, and once in my country !

edit: for Canada I also lurked a LOT on a special french website that is , in fact, like a giant forum with all related stuff to get there and live here. It helped me a lot (sorry I don't remember the website).

For India where I spent a year, I went with guys from my school so, I was not alone but we met people there that we contacted from the net. France (and maybe other people) have 'Alliance Française' in many country. It's a small organization run by France Gov which is here to help french guys abroad and give french lessons for foreigners. Many 'expatriate' blogs and website refer to this alliance française. So mainly I would say, there are like 2/3 major websites for foreigners (in specific countries) and most people meet from these blogs.

BANSAL3• 16 years ago

A nice site indeed, I personally not happy with the UI, can be much more sophisticated as users views regarding a particular couch. But over all a nice non profit service.

How do you manage yourself in a new city or country?

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