Methodology

Lifestyle fit (archetypes)

Whether a place suits the way you want to live, worked out one lifestyle at a time.

The same city, two people

A remote coder and a retired couple look at the same town. He wants fast internet, a café to work from, and a flight home now and then. They want sun, quiet, and a hospital close by. The town can't be equally right for both. Lifestyle fit is the number that says who a place actually suits.

How we work it out

We describe 23 ways of living, which we call archetypes: the arts lover, the car-free urbanist (someone who wants city life without owning a car), the clean-air seeker, and twenty more. For each one, we score how well every city serves it, from 0 to 100%.

Different lives care about different things, so we take the city scores you can already see and weigh them for what each life needs:

  • The car-free urbanist leans on walkability and transit.
  • The clean-air seeker leans on air quality.
  • The career builder leans on jobs and flights.

The same city can score high for one life and low for another. That is the whole point.

The three fits

On a country page we sort every lifestyle into three groups, and name the cities that serve each one best:

  • Great fit. The lifestyle genuinely thrives here.
  • Decent fit. Workable, with trade-offs.
  • Poor fit. The country doesn't serve it well.

A country might suit a dozen lifestyles, or only two. We show which, and we never pretend a place is for everyone.

Where the numbers come from

There is no new data here. Lifestyle fit reuses the same city scores behind every other section: cost, climate, safety, culture, mobility, and air quality. We just weigh them differently for each way of living. To see how those city scores are built, read how scoring works.

What it can't tell you

  • Fit is by city, not country. A lifestyle that works in a country may only work in one or two of its cities, so check the named city.
  • It's a common pattern, not your exact taste. The quiz tunes it to your own priorities.
  • It measures what a lifestyle needs, not whether you'll love the food, the language, or the people.
  • Fit is only as complete as our city coverage for that country.

See it live

Every country page ends with a "Who thrives" section: the lifestyles that fit, grouped, each pointing to the cities that serve them best.

Or start from a lifestyle and see its best cities anywhere: best cities for car-free urbanists, for arts lovers, for clean-air seekers. New here? Take the 5-minute quiz to score every city against your own priorities.