I went for the sound bite, but the truth is: I left grad school last December, and I've been in Turkey ever since. I'll likely move to India in a few months.
Turkey outside of Istanbul is rather cheap, but not incredibly so. My nice 4-bedroom flat is 400 euros/month in a good student neighborhood (split with my 3 roomies of course). A very good student meal is around 4 euros, so we eat out a lot. The fruits/vegetables are ridiculously cheap in bazaars. People are really friendly and helpful, though it's hard to find people who are... different, for lack of better term. The uni libraries suck in Izmir, which is bad for me.
Staying with Erasmus students turned out to be best for me. Living with Turkish men has proven... difficult, and the culture doesn't really allow mixed-sex appartment sharing before marriage.
I never did it, but you can get 15 Euro/hour teaching English here, which is really good money for Izmir.
Everything else I've heard second-hand, so you might have more luck with Google. India is supposed to be dirt cheap (7 euros/night reasonable hotels). I'll go there alone and network my way into an appartment. My roomie went to Iran for two weeks, and it seems so interesting, culturally. If there wasn't the threat of a looming war, I'd stay some time there before moving more to the east.
Finally: moving/finding an appartment is very costly, both in time and money. Changing country is even moreso. If you're staying less than 4 months in a city, you're not really living there, you're just travelling. (nothing wrong with that of course, but my goal is to get work done and learn as much as I can)
Feel free to email. I wish I knew more people doing what I'm doing.
Turkey outside of Istanbul is rather cheap, but not incredibly so. My nice 4-bedroom flat is 400 euros/month in a good student neighborhood (split with my 3 roomies of course). A very good student meal is around 4 euros, so we eat out a lot. The fruits/vegetables are ridiculously cheap in bazaars. People are really friendly and helpful, though it's hard to find people who are... different, for lack of better term. The uni libraries suck in Izmir, which is bad for me.
Staying with Erasmus students turned out to be best for me. Living with Turkish men has proven... difficult, and the culture doesn't really allow mixed-sex appartment sharing before marriage.
I never did it, but you can get 15 Euro/hour teaching English here, which is really good money for Izmir.
Everything else I've heard second-hand, so you might have more luck with Google. India is supposed to be dirt cheap (7 euros/night reasonable hotels). I'll go there alone and network my way into an appartment. My roomie went to Iran for two weeks, and it seems so interesting, culturally. If there wasn't the threat of a looming war, I'd stay some time there before moving more to the east.
Finally: moving/finding an appartment is very costly, both in time and money. Changing country is even moreso. If you're staying less than 4 months in a city, you're not really living there, you're just travelling. (nothing wrong with that of course, but my goal is to get work done and learn as much as I can)
Feel free to email. I wish I knew more people doing what I'm doing.