[amix]

Porto, Portugal: It has a river, sea and beaches, lots of history, nice weather, great food, nice people and it's inexpensive. It also has Ryan Air, which means that you can visit other parts of Europe cheaply (<100 euros for a roundtrip in most cases). I am at least living here now and I enjoy it.

If you like a little bigger city then Lisbon, Portugal is also an option.

[aferreira]

If you're looking to go be a bit away from the city (~1hr by metro), there's two cities called Povoa de Varzim (where I am) / Vila do Conde that have just about everything and are even cheaper.

[croisillon]

If you don't care of pouring rain from October to May...

[pedrocr]

Another important point is that the telecom infrastructure is pretty good. These days getting a 100down/10up Mb/s fiber link will cost you 20-40€ a month, you can get a TV+Internet+Mobile bundle for ~80€ and the urban areas have good coverage of both fiber and 3G/LTE.

[sourc3]

Is it easy to get an apartment? Also, can you get around without speaking Portuguese?

[pedrocr]

Apartments are easy to come by. You can get a nice one for ~400-600€ a month, probably even a small house with a garden in some spots.

Most of the younger generation (30 or less) will speak decent English, older people will be mixed. Porto has been getting touristic lately though so most public places should be used to it. We don't dub movies so we tend to have a bit more exposure to the language than most (plus you can go to the movies).

[graeme]

What's the rent for a 1BR apartment in a nice part of town?

[amix]

One of my employees rents a 1BR in near the main square (Aliados) for ~360euro/month (~480USD), but you can find something much cheaper a bit more far away.