2.59/5
616 reviews
Photo by Jonathan Ricci via Unsplash

Edinburgh

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great

nomad

walkable

expensive

nomads

scene

love

lovely

stay

stayed

partner

beautiful

mentioned

super

wifi

nice

cool

bit

Edinburgh is widely praised for being an incredibly walkable and charming city with a rich historic atmosphere. Many reviewers note its beauty, accessibility, and the abundance of parks and green spaces that make it enjoyable for long outdoor walks. Public transportation is solid, with a decent bus system, and internet speeds are generally fast, making it workable for remote professionals in cafes and homes. Neighborhoods like Cannon Mills and Stock Bridge are preferred for longer stays since they are quieter but still within walking distance to central attractions, offering a good balance between livability and accessibility.

However, the city comes with some downsides for digital nomads. A recurring theme is the relatively small or nonexistent nomad and tech scene, with coworking options being somewhat limited. This makes it less ideal for those looking to network or meet other remote workers. Cost is another factor mentioned multiple times; especially housing tends to be expensive. Lastly, the weather can be cooler and rainier than many might prefer, although some reviewers note that rainy spells are often short and manageable.

Overall, Edinburgh is a fantastic destination if you're focused on enjoying a beautiful and walkable city, but perhaps not the best spot for nomads seeking an active remote work community.

AI-generated summary of reviews

Love Edinburgh. A very historic place that's just generally lovely to enjoy! It's actually not as Scottish as Glasgow. There is a huge English population, as well as many other cultures. A lovely city to spends hours walking around.

2 years ago

LOVED my stay in Edinburgh! This was my very first stop as a nomad and I stayed here for a month with my partner. The city is so beautiful and has so much character. Everything just felt very easy, as previous people have mentioned, it's super walkable, great wifi, good bus system, amazing trails for running/biking, and lots to do. I'd recommend staying a round Cannon Mills or the Stock Bridge area. We stayed there and it was a nice, quite and more residential part of town, but was only a 20-30 min walk to a lot of the cool sites and attractions around the city, if you're doing a longer stay, somewhere a little further away from the business of the Royal Mile would probably be idea.

The only cons would be exactly what others mentioned – a bit more expensive, and not a ton of other nomads, and maybe the cooler, rainier weather (though in our experience, the rain storms were short-lived and much less frequent than we were lead to believe).

Overall, my partner and I were both absolutely in love with this city and are still talking about it now, months later. Definitely will be returning here!

3 years ago

Edinburgh is one of my favorite cities and I've spent quite a bit of time here. It's charming, friendly, beautiful, and walkable, and has a range of cafes and coffeeshops with fast wifi. The downsides: it's pretty expensive (housing especially), and there doesn't seem to be much of a nomad scene. The general tech scene seems to be smallish but growing (CodeBase seems cool), but not many nomads seem to come here.

5 years ago

Edinburgh is one of my favourite places in the world. I've lived here for a few months twice now, but unfortunately the nomad scene isn't great.

If you're looking for a nice spot that's super walkable, has lots of parks/green space, and isn't too expensive, Edinburgh is great! If you're looking for great coworking spaces or to meet lots of other nomads, Edinburgh currently isn't the place to do that.

6 years ago

✅ Very walkable

✅ Fast internet

✅ Beautiful city

✅ Lots of parks and green space

✅ Good public transport

✅ Very safe

✅ Good air quality on average

✅ Nomads.com members liked going here a lot

✅ Many Nomads.com members have been

✅ Spacious and not crowded

✅ Very easy to do business

✅ High quality of education

✅ Great hospitals

✅ Roads are very safe

✅ Great freedom of speech

✅ Democratic

✅ Everyone speaks English

✅ Very safe for women

✅ Very family friendly

✅ Very friendly to LGBTQ+

✅ Not many people smoke tobacco

❌ Expensive

❌ Not much of a nomad scene

❌ Cooler, rainier weather

❌ Extremely expensive

❌ Not much to do

❌ Cold now

❌ Gets cold in the winter

❌ Very damp now

❌ Not many Nomads.com members right now

❌ Very difficult to make friends

❌ High alcohol consumption

❌ Marijuana is illegal

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

Feels (median)

2°C / 36°F cold

3°C / 37°F cold

8°C / 46°F cold

7°C / 45°F cold

11°C / 52°F cool

17°C / 63°F cool

19°C / 66°F mild

18°C / 64°F cool

11°C / 52°F cool

9°C / 48°F cold

3°C / 37°F cold

Real (median)

4°C / 39°F
very cold

6°C / 43°F
very cold

9°C / 48°F
cold

8°C / 46°F
cold

11°C / 52°F
cool

17°C / 62°F
cool

19°C / 65°F
mild

17°C / 63°F
cool

12°C / 54°F
cool

10°C / 50°F
cold

5°C / 41°F
very cold

Humidity

damp
78%

damp
75%

damp
74%

nice
65%

damp
77%

damp
76%

nice
83%

damp
79%

damp
81%

damp
79%

damp
76%

damp
77%

Most common

☔️ Rain

☀️ Clear

☔️ Rain

☀️ Clear

☔️ Rain

☀️ Clear

☔️ Rain

Rain

rainy
80mm

rainy
76mm

rainy
57mm

dry
18mm

rainy
61mm

dry
29mm

rainy
75mm

rainy
71mm

rainy
86mm

dry
42mm

rainy
81mm

Cloud

pockets
48%

pockets
47%

pockets
49%

pockets
34%

cloudy
57%

cloudy
59%

cloudy
57%

cloudy
53%

cloudy
52%

cloudy
56%

pockets
48%

cloudy
53%

Air quality

clean
22 US AQI

clean
25 US AQI

clean
23 US AQI

clean
21 US AQI

clean
18 US AQI

clean
16 US AQI

clean
14 US AQI

clean
15 US AQI

clean
18 US AQI

clean
22 US AQI

clean
24 US AQI

Remote workers

578 people

769 people

831 people

927 people

1,267 people

989 people

1,200 people

1,412 people

1,150 people

1,100 people

814 people

827 people

Green is good. Red is bad. Values shown are the medians of all daily highs in a month based on past few years, not necessarily current numbers. Remote worker count is estimated based on the total amount of trips logged by Nomads.com members.

If you'd like to filter destinations based on their climate, try Nomads.com's Climate Finder

Based on Edinburgh's cost of living, here's selected remote jobs that would cover your costs:

	React + Node Developer Web Applicat... @ Oowlish Technology
	DevOps Engineer Staking @ Crypto.com
	Manager Maintenance @ Commonwealth Fusion Systems
	Software Engineer Infrastructure @ Gauntlet
	Software Engineer Data @ Gauntlet
	Software Engineer III Frontend @ Shippo
	HQ Senior Frontend Engineer @ Job&Talent
	Software Engineer Microservices @ Kong
	Senior Fullstack Engineer @ MoonPay
	Senior React Full stack Developer @ Lemon.io
	Technical Product Manager Developer... @ TrueML

Help pick the best photos for Edinburgh and improve this page's look by tappingclicking on them and the site saves your feedback Vote photos

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✈️28min

$6,217 / mo

44 Mbps

Members who will be here soon

Members who have been here

Values shown are estimated visits by traveling remote workers based on the total amount of trips logged by Nomads.com members. Visits to a place are only counted once per year per user, even if they visit more in that year. Visits are also normalized by overall trips added per month on the site, so if site usage goes up or down it does not affect trends. Not all digital nomads are on Nomads.com, and not all Nomads.com members log their trips. So the data is only indicative.

The chart below shows visitors by nationality normalized for population size. This means we take all trips logged on Nomads.com, check which country of origin the user is from, then divide that total visit count by the country of origin's population. If we didn't, it'd just show the big countries like US, Brazil and India always on top. Instead, this shows which nationalities worldwide proportionally visit more or less, which is more useful.

⭐️ Total score	2.59/5 (Rank #343) 616 reviews
❤️ Liked by members	👍11 liked it 👎1 disliked it
👍 Quality of life score	Good
👶 Family score	Good
🎒 Community score	Okay
💵 Cost	😳 Extremely expensive: $6,677 / mo
📡 Internet	🙂 Good: 23Mbps (avg)
😝 Fun	Okay
⛅️ Temperature (now)	🥶 Too cold: 14°C57°F (feels 13°C55°F)
💦 Humidity (now)	💦 Damp: 77%
💨 Air quality (annual)	🌱 Great: 17 US AQI
👌 Safety	Great
🤮 Food safety*	Great
👮‍♀️ Lack of crime*	Great
🤝 Lack of racism*	Great
🎓 Education level*	High
⚡️ Power grid	Great
🌊 Vulnerability to climate change	Good
💰 Income level*	Very high: $3,354 / mo
🙊 English speaking*	Great
🚶 Walkability	Great
🚦 Traffic safety*	Okay
✈️ Airline scores*	Good
🧳 Lost luggage*	Bad
🏥 Hospitals	Great
😄 Happiness*	Bad
🍸 Nightlife	Good
📶 Free WiFi in city	Bad
🖥 Places to work from	Great
❄️ A/C or heating	Good
😁 Friendly to foreigners	Good
🗯 Freedom of speech*	Good
👩 Female friendly	Great
🌈 LGBTQ+ friendly	Great
🎅 Startup Score	Okay

🌍 Continent	Europe
🚩 Country	United Kingdom
🗓️ Average trip length	6 days
📡 Internet speed (avg)	23 Mbps
⛅️ Weather (now)	🌦 14°C 57°F + 💦 Damp (77%) = feels 13°C 55°F
💨 Air quality (annual avg)	👍 17 US AQI
🔌 Power	230V 50Hz
🚕 Best taxi app*	Uber
🚑 Travel medical insurance	Safetywing
🏧 Suggested ATM take out:	GBP 100 = USD 133
💸 Tipping	No
💳 Cashless	💳 Yes, cards OK almost everywhere
💻 Best coworking space	TechCube
🚰 Tap water	👌 Yes, safe to drink
♻️ Return rate	👍11% of visitors return
📸 Visitors per year	1,660,000 visitors
📸 Tourists now	31,814 tourists
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Population	480,000 people
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 GDP per capita*	$40,249 / year
👫 Gender ratio (population)	👨 47% 👱‍♀️ 53%
👫 Gender ratio (young adults)	👨 52% 👱‍♀️ 48%
👫 Gender ratio (nomads)	👨 74% 👱‍♀️ 26%
🏞 Foreign land ownership allowed	Yes
⛪️ Religious government	Non-religious
💻 Online electronics shop	Amazon
🏠 Apartment listings	GumTree
✈️ Best short-haul air carrier	Ryanair
✈️ Best int'l air carrier	British Airways

💵 Cost of living for nomad	$6,677 / month
💵 Cost of living for expat	$4,558 / month
💵 Cost of living for family	$6,567 / month
💵 Cost of living for local	$1,876 / month
🏨 Hotel (median price)	$4,719 / month
🏡 Airbnb (median price)	$9,760 / month
🏠 1br studio rent in center	$1,519 / month
🏠 Median home price	$452,438
🏨 Hotel (median price)	$221 / night
🏠 Airbnb (median price)	$320 / night
🏢 Coworking hot desk	$249 / month
🍛 Dinner	$17
🥤 Coca-Cola (0.3L)	$1
🍺 Beer in cafe (0.5L)	$7
☕️ Coffee in cafe	$4
👩‍🏫 International school	$16,512 / year
📱 Mobile data (~10GB)	$15 / month
🚕 Taxi price (avg trip ~3km/2mi)	$7 / trip
💰 Estimated tax on $50,000	$6,986
💰 Estimated tax on $100,000	$24,341
💰 Estimated tax on $250,000	$91,526