The process of moving is hard enough. When you're trying to decide where to transplant your entire life, it gets even more chaotic.
How can you find out the best city for you? You'll need to consider safety, finances, and job prospects. It can be pretty daunting at first, especially if you're new to an area.
Luckily, these six websites round up the best cities and towns around the world to help you find your spot.
1. Niche
Niche is a great way to find ratings and reviews for towns, school districts, colleges, and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the site only works for locations in the United States. If you are wondering, "where should I move to in the US?" Niche is an excellent tool for you.
This site offers a variety of ways to find the perfect place to live. To search for a certain town or neighborhood, head to the two search bars at the top of the screen. In the search bar that starts with Find, enter what you're looking for. You can then type in the town or state in the search bar that starts with In.
Once you start your search, Niche will display the best places to live in a specific location. Each town and neighborhood receive a grade, the worst being F and the best being A+.
To go alongside the grade, Niche compiles tons of data to rate these towns—it provides you with an overall grade, as well as separate grades for schools, housing, safety, diversity, nightlife, and more.
2. Livability
In addition to giving you an in-depth profile of cities around the United States, Livability also gives you basic statistics. Scroll down the page, and you'll see a breakdown of the city's population, as well as charts relating to race, gender, language, economics, and commute types.
To find out even more about a city, you can click one of the categories under Topics in the left sidebar. Here, you'll find articles about things to do and photos of the city. You can also view information about the real estate market, work environment, schools, and health systems.
If you have no idea how to find a place to live, you can use Livability's database of helpful articles about different cities and states to get you started.
3. AreaVibes
AreaVibes ranks cities from one to 100, with 100 as the best score a place can get. It uses an algorithm that takes the cost of living, crime rate, work opportunities, weather, real estate, and education into account to create an overall score, making it an excellent alternative for finding your spot.
The site houses over 35,000 rankings for cities and neighborhoods in the United States. To get started, type in a specific address, state, city, or neighborhood in the search bar on the home page. AreaVibes will pull up your town, along with nearby towns that have a high score.
Once you click on the town you're considering, you'll see an overall score and grades on a variety of subcategories. Scroll down the page to find houses for sale, as well as detailed information about expenses, income, crime, and education quality.
4. Teleport
If you're wondering, "How can I find my spot to live if I'm searching for places outside of the United States?" Don't worry—Teleport is the site to help you find a new place to live.
To begin your search, click the Start Exploring button on the home page. Teleport will then ask you a series of questions about your preferences and current lifestyle. After entering your job status, budget, current income, and other information, Teleport will compile a list of the best cities for you to live in.
All the cities should fit into your budget and have the exact qualities you're looking for. Click on each city for even more detailed information to find the right town to live in.
Teleport displays a summary of the city, quality of life scores, a cost of living chart, job salary calculator, as well as some flaws. In other words, it's a great tool to find your spot to live or travel!
5. BestPlaces
On BestPlaces, you can find data about a city by performing a quick search. Just type in the name of a city or town, and you'll see data about the area's weather, cost of living, population, transportation, schools, and housing.
At the bottom of the page, residents express their opinion and provide ratings. But perhaps the most helpful part about BestPlaces is its Cost of Living Calculator.
With this tool, you can compare the cost of living in your current city to the city you're considering moving to. While the premium version of the site allows you to view renting cost comparisons, you can also compare rent rates on Rentometer.
6. HomeSnacks
HomeSnacks uses information from OpenStreetMap, the Census, and the FBI to create lists of some of the best cities to live in the United States
To find the state, you want to move to, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on a state under the USA Cities by State heading. Selecting a state will lead you to a list of its biggest cities.
On the right side of the screen, you'll see a menu with articles relating to the state. The site has lists of the state's best places, most expensive places, and cheapest places to live.
Most importantly, it also has a list of the most dangerous cities (and the safest)—that way, you won't have to worry about self-defense and personal safety when you're alone.
When viewing one of the lists, you just might find a town you like. You can click on the town to view more data. The site displays the town's rating (called SnackAbility) in various categories.
HomeSnacks ranks towns based on housing, safety, education, amenities, commute, jobs, and affordability. You'll also see some statistics on the town's population, helping you find the best places to live in the US.
Find Your Ideal Spot to Live
Are you ready to uproot and start over in a new area? The above websites will definitely help you discover the perfect place for you to go. Whether you're looking to move to a bustling city or a small, rural town, the above websites have the data you need to make an informed decision.
Once you find your spot to live, you need to start looking for an apartment. These apartment finder websites can make your search much easier.