In fact, not only is working your job from another city feasible, but it’s quickly becoming one of the most popular ways for people to travel and experience new places while still working the job they love. But with so many options out there, where is a budding digital nomad to start?
Well, to help you find the best cities for remote working across Canada and the US, Betway has pulled together a list ranking the best cities for traveling workers living across North America.
We ranked 50 of the most popular cities on the continent on how good they are for a workcation, including factors such as free wi-fi spots, internet speeds, good weather, and available bars and cafes that are work-friendly.
So, with this ranking in hand, online slots site Betway can now reveal the best cities in America and Canada for people needing a change of work scenery.
The top 5 North American cities for digital nomads
While plenty of the cities we chose to rank scored reasonably well in all areas, a few cities definitely stood out from the crowd for those hoping to work remotely while relaxing between calls.
First Place
In at number one, and by far the most popular city for Canadian digital Nomads, is Toronto. While not offering the widest selection of cafes and bars to work in (though there are still 471 to choose from), Toronto boasts the best internet speed of any city we ranked, running at an excellent 111.87mbps. It’s also only 23 miles from your nearest national park, making it easy for you to get out and enjoy nature.
Second Place
Following Toronto in second place, we have The Big Apple. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, New York has over 1,000 cafes and bars to work from (1,186 to be precise), and it’s widely considered the most fun city on our list, with plenty to do and see in your off hours. Although, with an average temperature of 63°F, it’s certainly not the warmest city we ranked.
Third Place
In third came another popular US city, Los Angeles. The home of Hollywood is certainly the place to be if you want warm weather and sunshine. With an average high temperature of 81°F, you can get a well-deserved tan as you see the sights and sounds of The City of Angels. However, this does come at the cost of reasonably high rent, which sits at an average of $7,230 per month.
Fourth on our list was Canadian favorite, Montreal. Famous for bagels and poutine, you can enjoy both of these Canadian treats alongside a cheap average monthly rent of $2,880, which gives you plenty of spare change to hit up all those tourist hotspots.
Finally, our fifth-most popular city for digital nomads was Edmonton. Regarded as Canada’s festival city, Edmonton has Canada’s largest mall and even lower rent than Montreal at $2,220, so you have no excuse not to take advantage of all the great mall deals during your lunch break.
The bottom 5 North American cities for digital nomads
Naturally, while some cities are well-tailored to the digital nomad lifestyle, others simply don’t have the infrastructure to facilitate reliable remote working.
Kitchener, Ontario, came in at the very bottom of our ranking. It has just 31 cafes and bars for working, which ties it with Riverside for the lowest number of cafes for any of the cities we ranked. Kitchener is also 168 miles away from any national park, making it hard for you to get out and see the sights of Canada in the week.
Next, ranking just above Kitchener, but not by much, is Austin. Despite being a very popular city for people to visit, Austin has a very high average rent of $6,810 per month, and unlike LA, lacks the cafes, bars, and city entertainment to offset such a hefty price tag.
For our third lowest-ranked location we have Minneapolis, a city that, while having a fair number of cafes and bars, is 236 miles away from any national park and greenery. Add a low overall temperature of 55°F on top of this and you might want to give this city a miss if you’re not a fan of a chilly week away.
Finally, wrapping up our bottom five, we have Kansas City and Virginia Beach. While not having any standout low qualities, both these cities came low on our list for their below-average offerings in all our selected factors.
The best US and Canadian cities for each factor
Last but not least, we couldn’t wrap up this article without first mentioning which cities came out top on each of our six chosen ranking factors.
As we’ve already mentioned, Toronto came in first for internet speeds at 111.87mbps, but it also boasts the highest number of free Wi-Fi spots, housing a whopping 11,562 connection points throughout the city. However, Toronto is beaten in its number of cafes by New York’s 1,186.
As for the best weather on our list, that award goes to Phoenix, which has an average high temperature of 87°F. For the lowest rent, Quebec is your best bet. And finally, if you want to be close to nature, pick Ottawa – a city just six miles from its nearest national park.
There you have it. Those are our top cities for digital nomads to try out the next time they need to escape the office.
Sources:
Free WiFi spots – https://www.wifimap.io
Monthly rental – https://analytics.alltherooms.com/investor/historical/791954
Canada WiFi speed – https://www.speedtest.net/global-index/canada
USA Wifi Speed – https://www.highspeedinternet.com/resources/fastest-metros-internet
Average High Temperature – https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/
Number of Bars and Cafés – TripAdvisor
Distance to national park – https://stacker.com/
Methodology:
The dataset ranks 50 different cities across USA and Canada, based on how good they are for a workcation. To do this, 6 different factors were used. Once the data for the factors was collected, the factors were then normalised, to provide each factor with a score between 0 and 1. The normalised values were then summed, to give each city a total score out of 5. The citiess were then ranked from highest to lowest, based on their total scores. The factors used are as follows:
- Free WiFi Hotspots – The number of free WiFi hotspots in each city.
- WiFi Median Speed – The median speed of WiFi in each city.
- Average Highest Temperature– The average highest temperature in Fahrenheit in each city.
- Number of Bars and Cafes – The number of bars and cafes in each city.
- Average Monthly rental – 30 times the average daily rate for a night in each city.
- Distance to Nearest National Park – The distance in miles to the nearest national park from each city.
The factors were indexed, so that high values get a high score, and low values get a low score.
