The 10 best cities to work remotely while you still can

Without being anchored to a workspace, digital nomads can work wherever they want. But not all cities are created equal when it comes to nomad friendliness.

So Zumper, an online real estate platform, has evaluated the short-term rental prices, ease of transportation, access to free WiFi and more, across 100 cities in the U.S. to determine the best (and worst) destinations for digital nomads.

After over three years of on-and-off remote working, the likes of Google and Amazon are mandating workers back to the office for three days a week. But in both cases, the move hasn’t gone down well with employees.

Staff at Google essentially feel like they’re being treated like schoolchildren, meanwhile, Amazon workers have been protesting against the hard-line hybrid work policy.

But their options are limited as fully remote working roles are rare; According to Scoop Technologies’ Flex Index, which tracks the remote work policies of around 4,000 U.S. companies, a mere 7% of firms are fully remote and a further 21% currently let their employees choose where to work. In comparison, 42% of businesses require workers on-site full time and 30% have a set hybrid work pattern. Meanwhile, the average workplace is requiring workers to go into the office for 2.5 days a week.

Still, for those lucky few who call themselves “digital nomads”, there are plenty of great places to call home – or rather, work.

With a lower-than-average cost of living and an abundance of coffee shops and independent bookstores, Zumper’s research found that Columbus, Ohio, is the best city for digital nomads—while Anaheim in California ranked as the worst.

Despite being popular destinations for aspirational workers to chase their dreams, New York and Los Angeles didn’t even make the top 20 cities for digital nomads, coming in at 31st and 24th place, respectively, mostly due to their high cost of living.

The top 10 U.S. cities for digital nomads

1. Columbus, Ohio
2. Portland, Ore.
3. Kansas City, Mo.
4. Houston
5. St. Louis
6. Chicago
7. Cincinnati 
8. San Antonio
9. Detroit
10. Denver

Taking the top spot, Columbus’s median nightly rental price came in at $130 with a cost of living index well below the national average—making “it a prime-time spot for financially savvy travelers,” wrote Tamara Sanderson, former digital nomad and the coauthor of Remote Works, who authored the research wrote.

“Columbus is stock full of places to spend your free time, like museums, historic neighborhoods, and parks, now that you’ve kicked the daily commute.”

Portland, Ore., came in second place. While the artsy city has a higher-than-average cost of living than other cities on the list, it scored high on Zumper’s list for food, entertainment, and transportation.

“You’ll never be at a loss to switch up your working environment,” Sanderson commented.

Kansas City took third place and is one of many Midwestern cities that the researchers said nomads should consider, including Cincinnati and St. Louis.

Although New York didn’t rank in the top 10 best U.S. cities for digital nomads, the Big Apple took the lead for the most WiFi hotspots with 12,038 within the city. 

Meanwhile, Oklahoma, which ranked 18 in the researcher’s nomadic hotspots, was rated the most affordable city on the list with the lowest cost-of-living index. 

California is apparently a no-go for nomads with the two worst cities on Zumper’s list from the Golden State: Anaheim and Santa Ana scored an F in most of the metrics measured including the density of entertainment options and annual average air quality index.

Plano, Texas, ranked as the third worst U.S. city for digital nomads. It similarly received an F in most categories, except for rental prices and WiFi hotspots—making it a better place for permanent residents than nomads, according to Sanderson, who lives there herself.

As remote working and work-from-anywhere policies become increasingly popular, so too has living abroad. These are the priciest cities for expats in 2023.