The Best and Worst of the 3 Countries I Have Lived In: USA, India, and Vietnam

I have properly lived in 3 countries. I grew up in India, I spent about 10 years in the USA, and I now live in Vietnam. Not a 2 week holiday in each, but real daily life, paying rent, dealing with the systems, having good days and bad ones. People keep asking me which one is best, and the honest answer is that none of them wins outright. Each one is the best in the world at something, and quietly frustrating at something else. Understanding that is what geo-arbitrage is really about, so here is the honest best and worst of each, from someone who actually lived it.

USA: the place that builds you and drains you

The best

• Infrastructure that simply works. The roads, the power, the water, the internet, the whole system runs so smoothly that you stop noticing it, until you live somewhere that does not have it. Nothing in my daily life there was ever blocked by the basics failing.
• Earning potential, especially in software. This is the real reason people put up with everything else. A software engineer starting out earns roughly $100,000 to $130,000 in base pay, and at a big tech company the first year package with stock and bonus lands closer to $150,000 to $190,000. A senior engineer at a company like the one I worked at can clear $250,000 to $400,000 a year once the stock is counted, and it climbs from there. For contrast, a strong senior engineer in India might earn ₹40 to ₹60 lakh, which is excellent locally but lands near $50,000 to $70,000 in dollars, and Vietnam pays far less again. No other country I have lived in pays software anywhere near the USA in absolute terms, and that is where I earned the base that funds the rest of my life.
• The most diverse nature on earth. Deserts, mountains, coastlines, redwood forests, and canyons, all inside one country. You can build an entire life of weekends around it.

The worst

• The cost of everything. The money leaves almost as fast as it arrives. A 1 bedroom apartment in a city like New York runs $3,000 to $4,500 a month, and even a room in a shared place is $1,500 to $2,000. A regular coffee is $5 to $7, a normal dinner out for 2 with a drink each is $80 to $150, and a single doctor visit without the right insurance can be a few hundred dollars before anything serious even happens. Add a car, its insurance, its registration, and a gym, and you understand why I could save aggressively for years and still never feel wealthy.
• The sheer size of the place. Getting from one city to another is a whole project. The distances are enormous, so you fly for trips that feel like they should be a drive, and there is no cheap quick hop between cities the way there is across Southeast Asia.
• Immigration uncertainty. On a work visa your right to stay can hinge on a lottery or a policy change you do not control, and that quiet uncertainty never fully leaves you. It shapes every long term decision, from whether to buy a home to whether it is even sane to settle there permanently.

India: home, food, family, and friction

The best

• It is genuinely cheap for a local life. A good 2 bedroom flat in a city like Pune runs about ₹25,000 to ₹40,000 a month, which is $300 to $480, a full local meal is ₹100 to ₹300, and your dollars or your savings buy a huge amount here. For anyone earning abroad and spending in India, the maths is absurd in your favor.
• Support is everywhere and almost free. A cook, a house helper, a driver, someone to fix anything, each costs a few thousand rupees a month. Labor is cheap and plentiful, and daily life is astonishingly frictionless once you know the system, with delivery apps that bring you anything within minutes.
• Family. This is the one no other country could give me. Being near my parents and relatives is worth more than any convenience a richer country offers, and it is the single hardest thing to be without.
• The food is the best in the world. I say that having eaten my way across 3 countries. Nothing else comes close on variety, flavor, or price.

The worst

• There is no personal space. It is crowded, loud, and always switched on. If you value quiet and solitude, you will have to fight for it, and some days you simply will not win.
• The infrastructure is genuinely poor. After years in the USA you feel every pothole, every power cut, and every hour lost in traffic. A 10 kilometer drive across a city can take an hour. The good nature exists, the Himalayas, the coasts, the hill stations, but it is far from the cities and reaching it takes real effort.
• International tastes come at a dollar price. If you want good western or international food or products, the choice is thin, and the moment you find it the price climbs to roughly what you would pay in dollars anyway. So the cheapest country stops being cheap the second you want a taste of somewhere else.

Vietnam: the place I actually chose

The best

• The nature is stunning, and the region is next door. Endless beaches, green mountains, and in Da Nang the sea sits a few minutes from my door. Better still, the whole neighborhood is incredible, and Thailand, Malaysia, and the rest are a cheap short flight away, so my backyard is really all of Southeast Asia.
• The cost of living is genuinely cheap. A comfortable studio or 1 bedroom runs about $300 to $500 a month, a bowl of pho or a banh mi is $2 to $4, and I live a full and happy life here on far less than a single month of New York rent.
• The food and coffee are a daily joy. The Vietnamese and wider Asian food here is superb, some of the best I have eaten anywhere, and unlike India the international options are everywhere and affordable. The coffee especially is incredible. I drink an almost embarrassing amount of it now, and a $1 to $2 cup of Vietnamese coffee is one of the small pleasures that made me want to stay.
• The infrastructure surprised me. The roads, the highways, and the internet are all genuinely good, far better than India, which is not what I expected before I moved.

The worst

• The visa runs. The visa itself is easy, and a 90 day e-visa costs only about $25 and takes minutes online. The catch is that I still have to physically leave the country and come back every 3 months, usually a $300 trip to Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok, purely to reset my stay. It is the tax on this life, and I broke down that whole routine in my airline guide for this region.
• The apartments are inconsistent. This is the one place the infrastructure falls short. You can land a great flat or a bad one, and you often do not find out which until you have lived in it for a week, with the thin walls or the broken plumbing or the mold that only shows up in the wet season.
• The rain. The wet season brings a lot of it, and many cities, Da Nang included, flood when it really comes down. You learn to plan your months and your ground floor storage around it.

So which country actually wins?

None of them, and that is the entire point. The USA is the best place to earn and build a career. India is the best place for family, food, and cheap effortless support. Vietnam is the best place I have found to actually live well for very little money. Geo-arbitrage is not about hunting for one perfect country, because there is no such thing. It is about choosing the country whose strengths fit the life you are trying to live right now.

I earned in the USA, I carry India with me wherever I go, and I chose Vietnam for this chapter, visa runs and all. Here is the quick version of how they compare.

The reason I could turn any of this into a choice at all is that I reached financial independence young enough to pick where I live on my own terms. If you want the full story of how I got here and why Vietnam won this round, it is in retiring in Southeast Asia as an Indian.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is cheapest to live in, the USA, India, or Vietnam?

India is the cheapest for a local life by a wide margin, with a good 2 bedroom flat in a city like Pune around ₹25,000 to ₹40,000 a month. Vietnam is close behind on the essentials and feels more livable day to day, with a comfortable place around $300 to $500 a month. The USA is far more expensive than either, where a 1 bedroom in a major city can run $3,000 to $4,500 a month on its own.

How much do software engineers earn in the USA compared to India?

The gap is enormous in absolute terms. A software engineer in the USA starts near $100,000 to $130,000 in base pay, and a senior engineer at a big tech company can clear $250,000 to $400,000 a year once stock is counted. A strong senior engineer in India might earn ₹40 to ₹60 lakh, which is excellent locally but lands closer to $50,000 to $70,000 in dollars. The US number is a multiple of the others, which is exactly why so many people move there to earn.

Is Vietnam a good place to live?

For me, yes. It is genuinely cheap, the Vietnamese and wider Asian food is superb, the coffee is incredible, the nature is stunning, and the roads and internet are surprisingly good. The real downsides are the visa run every 3 months, apartments that are inconsistent in quality, and heavy rain in the wet season that floods many cities including Da Nang.

What are the biggest downsides of each country?

In the USA it is the cost of everything and the uncertainty of living on a visa. In India it is the lack of personal space and the poor infrastructure. In Vietnam it is the visa run every 3 months and the inconsistent apartments. None of the 3 is perfect, which is the whole reason to choose where you live deliberately.

This is a personal account of my own experience living in the USA, India, and Vietnam, and it is not relocation, tax, or immigration advice. Costs, salaries, and visa rules change and vary a lot by city and situation, so check the current details for your own case.