Calgary ranks in top 10 best cities for digital nomads

Calgary is a great place to be for those working remotely with the goal of travelling the country or the world, according to a new report.

Before the pandemic hit in 2020, digital nomads were typically those who worked in freelance positions and didn’t have a set office space. When the world was forced to retreat, many people started working from home.

Now, more than three years later, the desire to work remotely — from home, or anywhere, really — for individuals in a variety of careers, continues to persist.

CommercialSearch, an American real estate company, collected data on cities across the globe with more than 400,000 people and ranked them on affordability, internet speed, co-working costs, “fun factor,” and safety, all with the goal of determining the best picks for digital nomads.

In the overall list, Calgary ranked seventh out of 57 locations — the only North American city to make it into the top 10.

It was topped by Krakow, Tokyo, Hanoi, Bucharest, Shanghai, and Bangkok, according to the research.

However, Calgary did find itself atop its competitors in one category — Internet.

The report says the city “boasts the fastest Internet speed on our list out of all the cities in our study at 322 MB/s — outranking cities like San Antonio, Singapore, Shanghai, and Madrid.”

Calgary also fared decently well in terms of safety, scoring a 9.5 out of 15 — the highest score among the North American cities included in the study.

Higher costs for co-working spaces in the city kept it from reaching a higher ranking, as did the cost of a meal.

Bangkok, Thailand is the world’s best destination for a digital nomad, the research concluded — with affordable housing, co-working and Internet.

The report says that city has been “attracting crowds of travelling digital workers even before the adoption of remote work.”