Our startup is thinking of doing this in a few months to get away from the Canadian winter for a few weeks. It also helps that our designer lives in Mexico, so that would be our first location choice. Any affordable location recommendations for a travelling startup?
Germany (read: Berlin) is surprisingly affordable, but hold off until the springtime, unless you're looking to better understand how your laptops perform in sub-zero temperatures. Berliners also pretty universally speak English, and there's a decent-sized startup community there as well.
You could come to Tokyo, where I live. Don't. It's ruinously expensive. But you could go to a lesser-visited part of Japan for a not-unreasonable amount of money, and while people's English skills are lacking here, the public infrastructure is fantastic.
Taiwan is like Japan, but with better food and cheaper living costs, but without as much infrastructure. Still one of my favorite countries in Asia, though. If you decide on Asia, avoid the summer at all costs, because the entire region turns into a gigantic sauna.
Brazil was (really) very expensive, possibly higher than Boston. So, don't recommend it as a cheap away location unless you have a good lodging option. If you can find good internet, Managua in Nicaragua is a fun city with lots of beaches, volcanoes, and old cities to explore on the weekends.
If you want something logistically easy, the Yucatan in Mexico has tons of options and is relatively cheap. Tulum is not too crowded, lodges have good internet in the commons areas.
It really isn't. Rio is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and infrastructure such as Internet connection is very pricey (I believe Brazil's is the most expensive or second-most $/Mbit on the planet). It was cheap to foreigners years ago, but with the bigger economy and appreciation of the currency prices have sky-rocketed and the money is worth less.
